Radiocarbon dates support demographic reconstructions for sizeable populations post-1000 AD a time when other regions of the Northwest/Southwest (NW/SW) experienced significant demographic changes. Located in the Serrana culture area of the Sierra Madre Occidental, data from this region speaks to several prevalent debates regarding the precolonial era of Northwest Mexico. This article summarizes research conducted in the Sahuaripa and Bacanora valleys of Sonora, Mexico. For the Fronteras Valley, we infer that immigrant groups originally introduced Casas Grandes traditions and that uneven participation in a suite of shared religious beliefs and practices was common to all the hinterlands. These observations contribute to our understanding of the spread and subsequent demise of the Casas Grandes tradition in hinterland regions. Data from the Fronteras Valley, Sonora, presents an alternative scenario, with a clear pattern of cultural continuity from the eleventh century to the colonial period in which sedentary farmers occupied the same landscapes and occasionally the same villages. Hunter-gatherer groups subsequently occupied most of northwest Chihuahua. The Casas Grandes tradition attained its greatest extent during the Medio period (AD 1200–1450/1500) followed by a dramatic demographic and political collapse. This article revises the spatial and temporal boundaries of the Casas Grandes tradition associated with northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, based on new data collected in neighboring northeastern Sonora. Volcanic glass sources loosely align with distance-decay trends, but show greater reliance on Puʻuwaʻawaʻa material by 1650 CE. Scoria abraders appear to have been regularly transported from the Kona district to leeward Kohala. Centralized adze production and distribution networks best explain adze distribution. Another 38.8% of the adze debitage matches with a tholeiitic source or sources long assumed to be Kīlauea Volcano in Kaʻū, but WDXRF and TIMS isotopic data do not support a Kīlauea source. Material from the more distant Mauna Kea Adze Quarry accounts for 41.6% of the adze debitage. Notably absent are lithic materials from the nearby Pololū Adze Quarry in windward Kohala. No more than 13.9% of the probable and definite adze-related debitage originated in leeward Kohala. Wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses were completed on samples from ambiguously sourced groups. Nondestructive energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence provided initial geochemical characterizations. We examined 2947 basalt and volcanic glass artifacts from 38 sites in leeward Kohala. Topics range from settlement and funerary archaeology to subsistence, technology and craft, dress and bodily adornment, iconography, symbolism, figurine studies, and gender issues. The studies cover a broad chronological and geographical spectrum, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age in Macedonia, Thessaly, the Peloponnese, Crete, and Anatolia. Twenty-six contributions by colleagues and former students pay tribute to the honoree's scholarship and legacy. The collective volume "ΜΥΡΡΙΝΗ" ("myrtle" μυρρίνη or μυρσίνη in ancient Greek, μυρτιά in modern Greek) honours Aikaterini Papaefthymiou-Papanthimou, Professor Emerita of Prehistoric Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, whose long and distinguished career encompassed groundbreaking excavations, wide-ranging research, and inspiring teaching and mentoring.
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