Dung Microremains as Archaeological Evidence of Early Navajo Sheepherding: A Low Impact Methodological Exploration of Incipient Indigenous Pastoralism in the U.S. Southwest

The introduction of sheep to the U.S. Southwest in a.d. 1598 and their embrace by non-colonized Diné (Navajo) communities over the next 150 years represents a unique cultural shift in Indigenous North America whose effects can still be seen today. Because the early history of this process remains poorly understood, the Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project (ENPLP) was developed to explore incipient pastoralism’s role in early Diné society. This paper reports a minimally invasive methodology for identifying Gobernador Phase (ca. a.d. 1625–1760) Navajo sheepherding sites in northwestern New Mexico through the identification of calcitic dung spherulites in archaeological soil samples associated with likely corral/pen enclosures. Dung spherulite-focused approaches have been successfully employed at dozens of sites worldwide, and the results of the ENPLP Phase 3 analyses suggest that this approach does work in the early Navajo context, although there are a series of potential limiting factors.