ABSTRACT
Since the late 1970s and into the 1980s, there has been a marked increase in the amount of research conducted on hunter-gatherer archaeology in the American Southwest. This has in part been related to a renewed interest in general hunter-gatherer studies and to the large number of CRM projects. This chapter reviews the concept of the Archaic and some of the research on Archaic hunter-gatherers in northwestern New Mexico. The traditional view of the Archaic as a post-Paleoindian to preagricultural period must be broadened to include various generalized hunter-gatherers. Based on paleoenvironmental information, Patrick Hogan has argued that the upland areas along the eastern periphery of the San Juan Basin would have been the most conducive for early agriculture. Much of the research concerned with Archaic lithic analysis has consisted of descriptive comparisons between Archaic and Anasazi lithic assemblages.
