Temporal Systematics of the Early Agricultural Period in Southern Arizona and Northwest Mexico

The Cochise Culture sequence was the first chronology defined specifically for the Southwest Archaic in southern Arizona. The Early Agricultural Period was reintroduced to the sequence in the 1990s as a temporal unit to acknowledge the beginning of maize agriculture in the region. The EAP currently spans the latter several centuries of the Middle Archaic and the Late Archaic, from about 2100 BC to AD 50, and comprises four phases: the Silverbell Interval, San Pedro Phase, Early Cienega phase, and Late Cienega phase. This article presents the current culture-historical chronology for the Tucson Basin, a radiocarbon-based chronology modeled in OxCal, and two site-specific studies.