“Sinagua” is the name first coined in 1939 to refer to the pre-European people who inhabited the Flagstaff region of north-central Arizona. But what, exactly, does this mean? Does Sinagua refer to a geographic area, a specific kind of pottery, an actual grouping of people, or is it something else? These are difficult questions this presentation attempts to explore.

The Sinagua archaeological area of Arizona has been considered a cultural “frontier,” characterized as a blend of other cultures, yet unique enough to warrant its own cultural designation. However, over the years, this uniqueness dissolved as old interpretations were no longer satisfactorily explaining what archaeologists were finding.

By the 1960s, new areas of study and new explanatory models were developed. However, these paradigm shifts failed to satisfactorily answer the questions posed by previous interpretations, and beg the major questions: Who were the Sinagua, how do they fit into the “Big Picture” of southwestern prehistory, and what happened to the culture?

In order to bring closure to these questions, archaeologists need to explain how past questions have been . . . not exactly the wrong questions, but they need to be refitted and examined under a different lens, focused by degrees of scale.

This presentation attempts to illustrate these different approaches, as well as to demonstrate that the concept of “Sinagua” is both fact AND fiction.

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Presenter Peter J. Pilles, Jr., received his BA degree from Arizona State University in 1967. He worked at the Museum of Northern Arizona from 1967 until 1975, when he became the Forest Archaeologist for the USDA Coconino National Forest. Most of his archaeological survey and excavation work has been on the Navajo Reservation and in Arizona's Salt River valley, Flagstaff area, and Verde Valley.

Peter has presented over 100 papers, authored 70 publications, and given numerous lectures and presentations that reflect his specialty areas of precontact central and northern Arizona, rock art, and ceramics, as well as cultural resource management and public archaeology. His major achievements in the latter include the Elden Pueblo Project, which has received awards from the Governor of Arizona and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In addition, he has received awards for his work in public archaeology and archaeological interpretation from two Arizona governors, the Hopi Tribe, the US Secretary of Agriculture, the US Forest Service, Tuzigoot National Monument, the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, the Arizona Archaeological Society, the American Rock Art Research Association, the Arizona Archaeology Advisory Commission, and the Arizona Preservation Foundation.

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Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” Zoom webinars on the Third Thursday evening of each month feature presentations on archaeological, historical, and cultural topics. Information about upcoming Third Thursday and other activities can be found at https://www.oldpueblo.org/events/.