Population Circulation and the Transformation of Ancient Zuni Communities [1 ed.] 9780816599554, 9780816529865

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Population Circulation and the Transformation of Ancient Zuni Communities

Population Circulation and the Transformation of Ancient Zuni Communities Gregson Schachner

© 2012 The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved www.uapress.arizona.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schachner, Gregson, 1974  Population circulation and the transformation of ancient Zuni communities / Gregson Schachner.    p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8165-2986-5 (cloth : alk. paper)  1.  Zuni Indians— Migrations.  2.  Zuni Indians—Population.  3.  Zuni Indians— Agriculture.  4. Social archaeology—Southwest, New.  5.  Land settlement patterns—Southwest, New—History.  6.  Community organization—Southwest, New—History.  7. Southwest, New—Antiquities.   I.  Title.  E99.Z9S33 2012   978.9004'97994—dc23 2011034859

Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper containing a minimum of 30% post-consumer waste and processed chlorine free. 17  16  15  14  13  12   6  5  4  3  2  1

Contents



List of Illustrations

vii



Acknowledgments

xi

1 Introduction

1

2 Population Circulation and Community Organization in Small-Scale Agricultural Societies

9

3 Ancient Zuni Settlement and Community Organization

33

4 Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

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5 Geography of Population Circulation

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6 Settlement Patterns and Residential Differentiation

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7 Social Interaction Networks

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8 Population Circulation, Community Formation, and the Transformation of Thirteenth-Century Zuni Society

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Notes

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References

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Index

239

illustrations

Figures 1.1 The Cibola area in the American Southwest 2.1 Population circulation in the Atamo Valley, 1920–24 3.1 The Cibola area and Zuni region 3.2 The El Morro Valley showing survey areas and major sites 3.3 Regional site distribution during the Chaco period 3.4 The Hinkson great house 3.5 Regional site distribution during the post-Chaco period 3.6 The Kluckhohn ruin in Togeye Canyon  3.7 Regional site distribution during the early Pueblo IV period 3.8 The Los Gigantes core area 3.9 The Scribe S settlement group 3.10 Tinaja 4.1 Midden depths in the El Morro Valley, Jaralosa Draw area, and Mesa Verde area  4.2 Midden depths in the El Morro Valley, Jaralosa Draw area, and Mesa Verde area 4.3 Postholes from jacal walls at Los Gigantes  4.4 Stem-and-leaf plots of El Morro Valley tree-ring dates from Pueblo III sites 4.5 All tree-ring dates from the El Morro Valley 4.6 Date ranges for Pueblo III period ceramic groups 5.1 Historic period Zuni land use  5.2 Potential farming zone around the El Morro Valley 5.3 Ma’kyayanne (Zuni Salt Lake) 5.4 Zuni region geology 5.5 Pottery production zones in the Cibola area 5.6 Geography of thirteenth-century mobility 6.1 Nine k-means clusters in the settlement data 6.2 Sixteen k-means clusters in the settlement data

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7 16 34 36 41 44 45 46 48 59 61 62 68 69 72 74 80 85 92 94 97 103 109 120 127 128

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Illustrations

6.3 El Morro Valley pueblos by temporal cluster 6.4 Box plot of room block sizes 6.5 Selected large room blocks in the El Morro Valley 6.6 CS142 (Spier 142) settlement group  6.7 Distribution of sites in the Jaralosa Draw area 6.8 Distribution of sites in the Heshot uła area during three different time periods 7.1 Ceramic compositional groups by settlement group 7.2 Ceramic compositional groups by room block

133 138 141 142 153 154 162 163

Tables 3.1 Van West and Grissino-Mayer Climate Intervals 3.2 Sites and Settlement Groups Used in Primary Analyses 4.1 Occupation Estimates for LZ1204 and LZ1209 4.2 Architectural Technologies at Excavated Sites in the El Morro Valley 4.3 Summary of Temporal Ceramic Groups 4.4 Sites With Ceramic Assemblages Assigned to Multiple Groups 5.1 INAA Compositional Group Descriptions 5.2 INAA Compositional Group Assignments at Pueblo III Period Sites 5.3 INAA Compositional Group Assignments at Pueblo IV Period Sites 5.4 Pottery Type Frequencies by Compositional Group 5.5 Carbon-Painted White Ware at El Morro Valley Sites 5.6 Geographic Sources of Obsidian in the El Morro Valley 6.1 K-Means Clusters of El Morro Valley Pueblos 6.2 Temporal Assignments for El Morro Valley Pueblos 6.3 El Morro Valley Room Block Sizes 6.4 Characteristics of Large El Morro Valley Sites 6.5 Temporal Distribution of Sites by Site Size 6.6 Large Nucleated Pueblos That Were Potentially Built Prior to AD 1275 6.7 Pueblo III Room Block Sizes in the Heshot uła and Jaralosa Draw Areas 7.1 Local and Nonlocal Pottery at Pueblo III Sites in the El Morro Valley 7.2 Brainerd-Robinson Coefficients for Between-Group Comparisons 7.3 Brainerd-Robinson Coefficients for Between-Site Comparisons

39 58 67 70 84 87 105 106 108 110 117 118 129 134 138 140 143 150 155 161 165 166



Illustrations

7.4 Monte Carlo Probabilities of Being Drawn From the Same Population 7.5 Monte Carlo Probabilities for Between-Site Comparisons 7.6 Simpson’s 1–C Index and Richness Values by Site and Group

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168 170 172

Acknowledgments

While writing this book, I received an enormous amount of help and encouragement. This work began a few years ago as a dissertation project at Arizona State University (ASU). My committee, including Keith Kintigh, Michelle Hegmon, Margaret Nelson, and Barbara Stark, provided numerous helpful insights that have greatly improved the final product. Keith was all that a graduate student could hope for as a committee chair, long-time mentor, and friend. This research is built upon the work of a number of scholars and has involved collaborating with people from many institutions. Michael Glascock and Jeff Speakman of the Archaeometry Lab at the University of Missouri Research Reactor were incredibly helpful over the course of this research and assisted me during a 1-week visit to Columbia in 2005. Rebecca Schmidt and Tessa Schut ably and quickly processed hundreds of samples at the lab. Patty Jo Watson provided quick and insightful answers to questions about the Cibola Archaeological Research Project (CARP). Chuck Redman secured funds to transfer the CARP collection to ASU in 2004, which made the analysis of the collection and access to project records remarkably simple. Michael Barton and Dolma Roder of ASU facilitated access to the CARP collections, as well as to collections made by ASU archaeologists in Manuelito Canyon and along Jaralosa Draw. Dean Saitta made the University of Denver collections from Togeye Canyon available and answered a number of questions about the archaeology of the area. Keith Kintigh provided access to collections and records from the Ojo Bonito Archaeological Project and the Heshotauthla Archaeological Research Project, which were excellent points of comparison for my study of the El Morro Valley. The late Alfred Dittert and Judy Brunson-Hadley selected samples for analysis from Dittert’s survey of Cebolleta Mesa. Jimmy Smith of the Texas Archaeological Society sent a number of pottery samples from the Techado area. Andrew Duff, Deborah Huntley, and Barbara Mills graciously provided access to data from

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acknowledgments

their earlier instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) studies in the Zuni area. This study could not have happened without the support of people involved in the ASU archaeological field school in 2003 and 2004, which I codirected with Keith Kintigh. I greatly appreciate the assistance and encouragement of a number of landowners in the El Morro Valley, including many members of the Davis and Vogt families, Peter McKenna, and Joe Nicoll. We had an excellent staff, including Sophia Kelly, Stephanie Kulow, Matt Peeples, Jason Sperinck, Scott Thompson, Josh Watts, and Gene Peters. Roger Irwin and the Amaterra Foundation provided us with a wonderful field camp for both seasons. We were also lucky to have a great group of students each year. Suzanne Eckert and Deborah Huntley lent us a hand at various times during those seasons as well. Financial support for this project was provided by multiple organizations. INAA of pottery was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (BCS-0451354) and a NSF grant to the Archaeometry Lab at MURR (BCS-0102325). The Graduate and Professional Student Association at ASU and the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society provided funds for travel to collect samples and work with MURR researchers. A Fred Plog Fellowship from the Society for American Archaeology enabled the hiring of an undergraduate research assistant, Caitlin Wichlacz, who helped collect and organize settlement data from the El Morro Valley. More recently I have received support from a number of people and units at the University of California, Los Angeles. I especially appreciate the support of my colleagues and department chairs in the Department of Anthropology and Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Final production of this volume was generously assisted by the Dean of Social Sciences. Staff at The University of Arizona Press have been particularly helpful during the final push to complete this book. The comments of the Editorial Board and two anonymous reviewers have hopefully sharpened the ideas presented here. Allyson Carter deserves a commendation for supporting and commenting on the book during the final stages of writing and production. Finally, I greatly appreciate the encouragement of enumerable colleagues and friends at ASU, UCLA, and elsewhere during the course of my archaeological career. As in any field of study, many people influence what we learn and how we think. For sake of brevity, I will refrain from naming individuals. I would inevitably leave important people out and hopefully you know who you are. I would also like to thank my family for their encouragement throughout this period of work. I would especially like to thank Tiffany, who has been the voice of reason and provided support through a number of ups and downs along the way.

Population Circulation and the Transformation of Ancient Zuni Communities

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Mobility and community organization have emerged as two central themes in the archaeological study of small-scale farming societies around the world. Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of various forms of mobility, whether daily or seasonal moves to dispersed fields, longer term rhythms of movement of the residences of individuals and households, or migrations into distant areas occupied by kin, friends, allies, and even enemies. All of these movements shape the daily experiences, social structures, and histories of agricultural peoples. The study of mobility in small-scale farming societies has directly refuted the simplistic dichotomy between mobile, hunting and gathering societies and sedentary, agricultural societies that pervaded much of twentieth-century anthropology and still dominates most laypersons’ notions of the effects of agriculture and differences between modern and ancient societies. Archaeologists interested in small-scale farming societies have also expended significant energy defining the role of communities—often thought of as intermediate-scale social units binding together numerous spatially proximate households—in structuring local-level social organization, hierarchy, identity, and subsistence. These studies of community organization, built on the advances of settlement archaeology, have provided a means to understand social organization and interaction at a scale larger than the archaeological site and smaller than regions defined by similarities in material culture or linked by geographically extensive political ties. Studies of early farming communities, which often seek to define social organization and patterns of interaction within dispersed settlement systems, have also challenged the notion that compact, populous villages were the norm in past agricultural systems. These findings further undermine simplistic depictions of sharp contrasts between the

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settlement systems of campsite-dwelling hunter-gatherers and villagedwelling farmers. More recently, archaeologists employing perspectives informed by practice theory have reformulated studies of community organization by focusing on how communities were socially constructed and changed over time. These efforts have critiqued the common tendency for archaeologists to consider communities as natural, primordial social groups, rather than social forms with historically contingent origins, structure, and trajectories. Although many archaeologists note the value of these critiques, they have been difficult to incorporate during research and have had an arguably minor impact on how most archaeologists study and conceptualize communities in both practical and theoretical terms. A number of the problems that archaeologists encounter when modeling community organization and identifying communities in the archaeological record in part derive from an underdeveloped notion of how mobility shapes social relationships within and between social groups. Surprisingly, community organization and mobility have rarely been studied together despite the well-documented importance of movement in shaping social interaction in many societies. The minimal and uncritical consideration of mobility in community studies impedes a full exploration of interactional processes that define community-scale and intraregional social networks. In turn, I would also note that archaeological research on mobility, which often privileges ecology and subsistence, has insufficiently explored social drivers in shaping networks of movement linking people and social groups across space and through time. In this book, I juxtapose insights from studies of community organization, mobility, and social change in order to challenge existing models of each and provide a new framework for analyzing these processes in past societies. To achieve this goal, I explore an intraregional population shift in the Zuni region of west-central New Mexico during the AD 1200s that led to major demographic changes, the founding of numerous settlements in formerly unoccupied areas, and the initiation of radical transformations in community organization. These analyses are conducted within a multiscalar, comparative framework that emphasizes interconnections between groups across both time and space and the historical contingency of social change (sensu Pauketat 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009). In sum, my combined exploration of mobility and community organization suggests that traditional archaeological definitions of community are often counterproductive for understanding ancient Zuni social systems and many other similarly mobile farming societies. In addition, I suggest that many of the notable transformations in community organization and distribution during the late precolonial period in the Zuni region arose directly out of peoples’ attempts to create new social mechanisms for coping with



Introduction

3

frequent and geographically extensive movement. By comparing multiple dimensions of mobility and community formation in areas that were newly settled in the thirteenth century to others that had been the locus of longterm settlement for centuries, I also document the role of population circulation in the creation of contexts conducive to social change. Although closely focused on the thirteenth-century Zuni region—and necessarily so given the historically focused explanatory framework I employ—this study also provides a number of general insights into archaeological studies of communities, mobility, and social change that are broadly applicable to research examining other early farming societies and instances of social transformation.

Linking Population Circulation, Community Formation, and Social Transformation The archaeological study of movement in agricultural societies has tended to focus on two ends of a continuum of mobility processes. Most studies concentrate on either local movements within communally held territories or long-distance migrations between regions. In doing so, these studies draw upon divergent ethnographic examples, theoretical viewpoints, and causal mechanisms. Shorter distance moves are often attributed to local patchiness in the spatial and temporal distributions of resources, such as agricultural land, while longer distance movements are linked to the depopulation of regions, large-scale climatic changes, and the emergence of pan-regional social movements. Archaeologists have less frequently studied mobility that transfers people, goods, and information within networks of proximate settlements or territories that we often group together as regions. This type of movement, which geographers term “population circulation” (Chapman and Prothero 1985a; Proth­ero and Chapman 1984), is vitally important in shaping the creation and maintenance of both regional and local social systems. Population circulation has received considerable attention from geographers and anthropologists concerned with the effects of mobility on the structure of small-scale societies, particularly in Melanesia and Oceania. These studies have demonstrated that much of the variability and “fuzziness” of social groups in small-scale societies derives from the incessant circulation of people through both short- and long-term movements within and between regions (Chapman and Prothero 1985b; de Lepervanche 1967–68; Fox 2006; Haenen and Pouwer 1989; Hamnett 1977, 1985; Strathern and Stüzenhofecker 1994; Wagner 1974; Watson 1970, 1985; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). Long-term analyses of small-scale agricultural societies suggest that much of the temporal and spatial vari-

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ability in people’s movements arises primarily from differences in social position, such as gender or role, and participation in social events and networks (Hamnett 1977, 1985; Watson 1970, 1985). Nonetheless, archaeological studies of mobility practices in similar societies have tended to focus nearly exclusively on the impacts of subsistence strategies on mobility instead of more difficult to identify and often more variable social influences. Given recent emphasis on the role of social processes in generating the archaeological record, the importance of variability in these processes in generating social change, and more nuanced understandings of the relationship between society and environment, a parallel shift in archaeological treatments of movement is overdue. The robust temporal and spatial perspectives of archaeology place the discipline in a strong position to contribute to debates within the social sciences about how movement structures, and has always structured, social organization, identity, and transformation (Cobb 2005; Graeber 2002). As noted earlier, detailed ethnographic and archaeological studies of population circulation also raise important questions about how archaeologists model and study intermediate-scale social groupings that are often referred to as communities. The structure of ancient communities has been a key topic of research since the 1990s (Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Kolb and Snead 1997), especially in contexts of dispersed settlement, such as much of northern and western Europe prior to the Roman period (Brück 2000; Chapman 1981; Gerritsen 2003, 2004; Renfrew 1973; Sherratt 1990; Whittle 1997), the Eastern Woodlands (Bernardini 2004; Dancey and Pacheco 1997; Rogers and Smith 1995), and the American Southwest (Adler 2002; Hegmon 2002; Kolb and Snead 1997; Varien 1999a; Varien and Potter 2008a; Wills and Leonard 1994). Many of these studies are grounded in mid-twentieth-century structuralfunctional anthropology that depicted communities as well-bounded, self-sufficient social units common to many premodern contexts (e.g., Redfield 1955). Some archaeologists, drawing upon more modern interpretations of communities (e.g., Anderson 1991; Cohen 1985), have raised questions about the theoretical and empirical bases of archaeological community studies in light of more recent attempts to understand the role of human agency and the malleability of social groups (Hegmon 2002; Isbell 2000; Pauketat 2000; Varien and Potter 2008b; Yaeger and Canuto 2000). Studies of population circulation highlight these concerns. Intraregional population movements lead to frequent shifts in the membership and definition of intermediate-scale social groups, promoting the synchronic diversity, and more important for archaeology, diachronic social fluidity characteristic of most small-scale societies. Thus, the analysis of intraregional movements and their linkage to changes in intermediate-scale social identities and organization is a key component of the study of how communities are created and transformed over time.



Introduction

5

Archaeologists have also argued that mobility and its linkage to the coalescence of diverse social groups are of crucial importance in the creation of contexts conducive to social transformation. As archaeologists increasingly adopt agency- or practice-based approaches in their research, they have had to define a set of methods appropriate to the use of practice theory to explain specific instances of change (Beck et al. 2007; Hegmon 2003, 2008; Pauketat 2001, 2007). Many have looked to theorists who have emphasized the importance of situating examinations of social practice within specific historical contexts (e.g., Calhoun 1993; Sewell 1996). By studying the origins of social change and its relationship to particular historic contexts, a number of archaeologists have noted that social structures are subject to transformation during periods of social ambiguity when diverse groups, or people with different interests, come into contact (Aldenderfer 1993; Alt 2006; Chamberlin 2006; Cobb and King 2005; Fowles 2005; Hill et al. 2004; Kowalewski 2006; Nelson 2000; Pauketat 2003, 2007; also see Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:132–37; Sahlins 1981:70–72; Wiessner and Tumu 1998:354–55). Some of the most influential studies that have identified population movement as a generator of “hinge points” in history have focused on Mississippian societies in eastern North America (Alt 2006; Cobb 2005; Cobb and Butler 2006; Cobb and King 2005; Kowalewski 2006; Pauketat 2003, 2007). Mississippian archaeologists have noted that movement, particularly into unoccupied areas, requires the redefinition of space and place, two of the fundamental principles of society. Coupled with the likelihood of gathering people with diverse origins and interests, resettlement after movement provides an ideal context for people to reinterpret and reconfigure social forms, sometimes leading to radical changes in society and history, such as the emergence of Cahokia (Alt 2006; Pauketat 2003, 2007). In their studies, Mississippian archaeologists have utilized detailed, multiscalar approaches that emphasize history and practice as they unfold within households, local social systems, and across regions in order to understand the linkage between population movement and social change (Alt 2006; Cobb and King 2005; Pauketat 2001, 2003, 2007; Pauketat and Alt 2005). Their research demonstrates that population movement does not simply result in the transfer of people from one place to another; rather, it is a social context in which people can transform social organization and networks. Their studies also illustrate that research that examines the relationship between movement and social change requires comparisons of how variation in mobility practices influenced society in different social contexts as the effects and extent of mobility are complex and difficult to measure outside of specific instances. The research presented in this book draws upon the comparative, historically contingent approach pioneered by Mississippian archaeologists to examine the linkages between population circulation and the origins of

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sweeping changes in community organization in the thirteenth-century Zuni region. These changes occurred within a pan-regional social context characterized by the depopulation of large parts of the northern Southwest (Lekson and Cameron 1995), long-distance migrations leading to the mixing of people from widely varied geographic areas (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002; Eckert 2008; Haury 1958; Lyons 2003; Neuzil 2008; Zedeño 2002), and local shifts toward aggregation and eventually nucleation of settlement (Adams 1991, 2002; Adler, Van Pool, and Leonard 1996; Fish et al. 1994; Kintigh, Glowacki, and Huntley 2004). In the remainder of the book, I argue that the archaeological study of these transformations, both within the Zuni region and beyond, requires a reevaluation of the role of population circulation and the reordering of community organization within a framework that tacks backand-forth among local, regional, and pan-regional scales.

The Case Study This study focuses on the founding of settlements in the El Morro Valley of west-central New Mexico during the AD 1200s. The valley is located in the eastern portion of the Zuni River drainage, or Zuni region, which was the demographic and geographic core of the Cibola area defined by early Southwest archaeologists based on strong spatial similarities and temporal continuities in material culture traditions (fig. 1.1). This area is now the home of the modern Zuni and was occupied by many of their ancestors, as well as those of other American Indian peoples. The eastern portion of the Cibola area, including the El Morro Valley, is particularly important in the traditions of both the Zuni and Acoma. For archaeologists, the valley is an excellent place to study the relationship between community formation and population circulation because multiple potential communities can be examined, the archaeological record is detailed and well understood, and ancient settlers transformed local social systems soon after their movement into the area. The archaeology of the El Morro Valley can also be compared to a number of other parts of the Zuni region with very different settlement histories to identify how its unique circumstances of settlement influenced wider changes in ancient Zuni society. While the archaeological study of movement is difficult due to the necessity of first distinguishing new settlers from existing populations, the El Morro Valley was virtually devoid of permanent habitation prior to a massive population influx in the mid-AD 1200s, making the ascription of demographic increases to migration straightforward (LeBlanc 1978; Watson, LeBlanc, and Redman 1980). This migration was part of a larger



Introduction

7

e ttl

Li do

ra

lo

Co R.

figure 1.1.  The Cibola area in the American Southwest.

process of expansion into the upland areas of the Zuni region during the AD 1200s (Duff and Schachner 2007; Peeples and Schachner 2008). Thus, unlike in many other archaeological studies of mobility, I more closely focus on the role of population circulation in the creation of new settlements and social systems, rather than simply demonstrating that movement occurred. The settlement of the valley was also almost exclusively the result of movement of people from within the Zuni region and a few nearby parts of the larger Cibola area. This scale of movement is often overlooked in archaeological studies because migrant and local populations usually can-

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not be distinguished via material culture or biology. Unlike other parts of the thirteenth-century Southwest where evidence of long-distance migration is strong, including the presence of nonlocal pottery, architecture, and other forms of material culture (Clark 2001; Lyons 2003; Neuzil 2008; Zedeño 2002), there is little to no evidence for migration into the Zuni region from outside areas during this time period (Kintigh 1996, 2007; Kintigh et al. 2004; LeBlanc 1978; Mills 2007). The residents of the El Morro Valley were among the first in the Southwest to adopt new forms of settlement and social organization associated with the occupation of large, nucleated pueblos containing hundreds of rooms each. The movement to large, nucleated pueblos is considered a hallmark of the Pueblo III (AD 1150–1275) to Pueblo IV (AD 1275– 1540) transition in most of the northern Southwest (Adams and Duff 2004). This shift toward nucleation required fundamental changes in settlement and social practices, as individual settlements had largely been small and dispersed for hundreds of years prior to this time. In the Zuni region, this transformation of settlement practices first appeared in particular contexts, such as the El Morro Valley, that witnessed major changes in population circulation and the foundation of new communities by people coalescing from diverse parts of the area. The remainder of this book presents multiscalar analyses of a variety of aspects of El Morro Valley material culture and spatial patterns to investigate movement, settlement, and interaction. In addition to archaeological data, I also examine the Zuni ethnographic record to infer the geography of certain types of movements, such as those for ritual and hunting, that would have influenced ancient population circulation yet are difficult to identify archaeologically. This holistic examination, drawing upon diverse types of evidence, results in a multifaceted description of ancient population circulation in the Zuni region and links changes in those practices to the dramatic transformation in ancient Zuni society that occurred in the late AD 1200s, just as much of the Southwest was experiencing significant reordering of demography, ceremony, and community. Although the exact circumstances of this case are unique, and the exceptional strengths of the Southwest archaeological record perhaps allow a closer examination of these processes in the ancient past than anywhere else on the globe, this study challenges archaeologists to improve the study of communities and mobility in early farming societies around the world.

CHAPTER TWO

Population Circulation and Community Organization in Small-Scale Agricultural Societies Geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists coined the term “population circulation” to describe the constant flow of labor migration that arose around colonial cities and extractive facilities in developing countries during the mid-twentieth century (Mitchell 1961; see Chapman and Prothero 1985b). These systems were characterized by cycles of residential movement between newly founded cities and traditional villages. Although these movements could be considered migrations because people changed residences, they were often temporary as people moved back and forth between cities and villages and continued to participate in both colonial and traditional economies and social networks.1 Researchers working in Melanesia expanded the definition of circulation to include many types of temporary and short-term movements, such as travels to participate in ceremonies or trade, regardless of whether they were explicitly linked to a colonial economy (Bedford 1971; Chapman 1970). The redefinition of circulation challenged previous suggestions that frequent population movement in small-scale societies was a product of colonial impacts and urbanization and that sedentism was the natural state of preindustrial agricultural societies (also see Cobb 2005). According to the newer perspective, “Circulation, far from being transitional or ephemeral, is a time-honored and enduring mode of behavior,

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deeply rooted in a great variety of cultures and found at all stages of socioeconomic change” (Chapman and Prothero 1985b:6). Thus, mobility ceased to be a characteristic of either nomadic hunter-gatherers or technologically assisted modernity. Ethnographic studies in Melanesia, Asia, and Africa demonstrated that colonial labor migration was often built upon, and incorporated within, traditional networks of population circulation that had long linked social groups through trade, kinship, and social hierarchies (Chapman 1970; Chapman and Prothero 1985a; Haenen and Pouwer 1989; Hamnett 1977; Prothero 1975; Prothero and Chapman 1984; Strathern and Stüzenhofecker 1994; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). Murray Chapman and Mansell Prothero (1985b:7–11) put forward a few basic propositions concerning circulation that illustrate its significance and impacts on society and that serve as useful jumping-off points for archaeological research as well. First, social units of various scales, ranging from individuals, to households, to entire communities, participate in networks of population movement. The duration and distance of moves differ depending on the type of groups involved and their respective social standing and roles (Watson 1985). Thus, circulation varies depending on the particular individuals studied, as well as the destination of their moves (also see Eder 1984). Archaeological research focused on variability in individual behaviors is obviously difficult, but it has long been a topic of interest (e.g., Hill and Gunn 1977) that has only increased in importance with the rise of agency-oriented perspectives (Dobres and Robb 2000; Hegmon 2003; Shennan 1993). Second, circulation is often driven by three factors: ecological variability and hazards; “customary life,” including marriage, warfare, and exchange; and “the decisions of the elderly, the prestigious, and the socially and economically important” (i.e., social hierarchy) (Chapman and Prothero 1985b:8). Long-term studies of the reasons behind many movements suggest that social factors are among the most important in influencing decisions about the destination and duration of movement (Hamnett 1977, 1985). As noted in the introduction, archaeological research often emphasizes the influence of ecological variation and at best implicitly considers other factors, yielding a partial view of ancient mobility practices. Third, in every society there is a spatial “separation of obligations, activities, and goods” (Chapman and Prothero 1985b:9). Most archaeological studies, as would be expected given their necessary focus on material culture, have tended to focus on how the latter two factors have influenced settlement and mobility rather than social obligations. Chapman and Prothero (1985b:9) propose that movements to address spatial vari-



Population Circulation and Community Organization

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ability in these three factors occur at two somewhat different scales, one focused on an individual’s or group’s current residence that is linked to access to land, resources, and local kinship obligations; and another wider network consisting of potential marriage partners, longer distance kin networks, exchange ties, and participation in regional political and ritual groups and events. The former scale, which is roughly equivalent to archaeological definitions of community, has been of primary interest to Southwest archaeologists studying the impacts of residential mobility linked to agricultural practices (Nelson 1999; Varien 1999a). As noted by Chapman and Prothero, however, movement at this scale occurs in a larger context defined by multifaceted social obligations, such as kinship, ceremony, and land tenure, that in many cases extend well beyond primary areas of residence. This scale of interaction has rarely been investigated archaeologically due to the difficulty of tracing these types of activity in the archaeological record, yet, as I illustrate later in the book, it is crucial in defining many of the spatial and material patterns that influence community organization. Fourth, frequent population circulation promotes fluidity in residence, social group membership, and leadership. Frequent movement results in a situation where “social structure is not localized in one community or household nor in several communities whose territories are continuous” (Chapman and Prothero 1985b:10; also see Kopytoff 1987). Instead, social structures are spatially complex and geographically diffuse. Intraregional population movement maintains social ties among groups but also leads to frequent changes in settlement patterns and group membership over time. It is not surprising then that middle-range societies are considered socially fluid and structurally ambiguous (Feinman and Neitzel 1984; Fowles 2002), given their common reliance upon agricultural and foraging strategies that entail frequent movement. Finally, in societies in which circulation is prominent, themes of mobility also permeate traditions and language (Chapman and Prothero 1985b:10–11). Mobility becomes a key metaphor in considerations of social origins, identity, history, and ceremonial practice (see chapters in Fox 2006 for a number of discussions of this process in Melanesia). Themes of mobility are vital parts of the oral tradition of many of the descendants of ancient Southwest populations (Bernardini 2005; Kuwanwisiwma 2002; Naranjo 1995, 2008), illustrating the continuing social importance of mobility even in societies that have had a large portion of their traditional patterns of movement curtailed over time by external forces (Lekson 1990). In chapter 5, I examine historic and modern Zuni mobility practices and traditions to estimate the role of a variety of less archaeologically visible movements in the region in the ancient past.

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Population Circulation Systems in the Ethnographic Record I present a few examples of systems of population circulation in smallscale societies to illustrate the influence of a variety of scales of movement and demonstrate that mobility is the primary practice by which people in small-scale societies sustain the social and material links necessary for the creation and maintenance of social groups. These studies also show that mobility is especially important in small-scale agricultural societies with dispersed residential settlement patterns, such as those found in most of the Southwest prior to the late AD 1200s and among many other early farming societies around the world. Although far from a robust sample, these examples contain a number of features that inspire a critical rethinking of how archaeologists model mobility, either explicitly or implicitly, in our explanations of the past. While considering these examples, it should be noted that the spatial and temporal scales of field research heavily influence the results of most ethnographic studies of population movement. Detailed ethnographic research on population circulation is unfortunately uncommon, as circulation is a difficult topic to study due to the fact that many important movements occur infrequently and may not take place during a typical ethnographic field season (Chapman 1978:560; Watson 1985:table 2.1; Wiessner and Tumu 1998:119–42). In ethnographic situations, the study of circulation requires long-term research (i.e., generational scales) that focuses on movements of varying distance and duration and a willingness to challenge anthropological biases toward descriptions that emphasize stability and continuity rather than change (Hamnett 1977:2–4; also see Plog 1973). While archaeology is well suited for studies of long-term processes, it faces additional challenges, as many important movements leave little or no material trace. As discussed later in this chapter, in the present study I draw upon the long-term perspective of the archaeological record while also remaining cognizant of the potential social effects of movements that are difficult to identify from material remains. To accomplish this goal, I tack back and forth between the archaeological material and inferences that can be made through analogies with similar scale societies.

Highland New Guinea Circulation and migration are major factors structuring the social landscapes of many cultural groups in highland New Guinea (Watson 1985:36; Wiessner and Tumu 1998:119–42; see Fox 2006; Haenen and



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Pouwer 1989; Strathern and Stüzenhofecker 1994 for similar studies of the effects of mobility in a wider range of Melanesian societies). A number of researchers suggest that social fluidity in the composition and membership rules of highland groups is a result of the frequent movement of individuals and groups within and between communities and regions (de Lepervanche 1967–68; Wagner 1974; Watson 1970). Constant redefinitions of kinship, social group membership, and oral tradition create a social context that facilitates and enables the redistribution of population on the landscape. This movement is only partly driven by differences in environment or economic opportunity. James Watson (1985:18–20) eloquently describes the situation for the Tairora, an eastern highlands group, as follows: Using today’s terms, there is nothing at either end of a move but the village. A move can affect the security of a person for better or worse but it cannot usually change the quality of opportunities, the activities that fill and define one’s existence. Between origin and destination point the rules of life are much the same, but there may be more or less room, more or less security—magically, socially, spatially—for the activity of a given individual at one place than another. Movement is everywhere: the question is only the purpose and the strategy.

Despite what to a Western perspective might appear to be a situation characterized by few distinct options, Tairora individuals and groups constantly readjust their settlement and mobility decisions to subtle shifts in the social field brought about by factionalism, changing alliances, and open conflict. Social groups, whether defined by co-residence, kinship, politics, ritual, or economic ties, undergo continual redefinition to accommodate these moves (de Lepervanche 1967–68; Watson 1970). Short-term, snapshot views of highland society frequently miss these dynamic aspects, misconstruing the social fluidity that characterizes many small-scale agricultural societies as dysfunction or noise rather than a fundamental component of the interplay between structure and practice (Watson 1985:15–17; also see Brison 1994; Wagner 1974). Watson’s (1970, 1985) studies of the Tairora provide one of the strongest depictions of the role of mobility and its influence on the nature of social groups. Local Tairora groups consist of a few hundred individuals occupying territories 20–24 kilometers in diameter (Watson 1985:21). The majority of movements that result in changes in residence or to acquire resources occur within this area. These groups are roughly analogous in demographic and spatial scale to most archaeological definitions of communities. A number of different types of longer distance move-

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ments, usually undertaken by socially prominent Tairora people (mostly men), play a key role in defining the most distant extents of the larger field, which has social, cultural, and physical dimensions (sensu Bourdieu 1990:67–68), within which Tairora groups exist. These prominent members of Tairora society are involved in multiple types of contacts with other local groups, including political alliances, trading activities, and region-wide ritual events. The temporary moves involved in participation in these activities create the social networks that organize other types of movement, including the transfer of spouses and migrations that cross local group boundaries (Watson 1985:31–32). Thus, the systems of temporary movement connecting different local groups are particularly important in structuring larger scale and longer term movements that have the potential to transform local group histories and organization. Rather than viewing local Tairora groups as independent, homogeneous territorial units with deep historical roots, which is the superficial emic and etic ideal, Watson (1970, 1985) ably points out that these groups are internally complex, with each individual or subgroup having different settlement histories, potentials for movement, and multiple, crosscutting social ties that shift through time and across space. An individual’s interaction network is egocentric and may not necessarily overlap strongly with other members of his or her residential group (also see Eder 1984). Social boundaries between local groups are weak, and group composition and membership rules are flexible and change rapidly over time. Although social structure may appear fixed and timeless at a specific point in time—and Tairora people describe it as such—constant movement creates a context that is much more complex in practice. Drawing upon this work, as well as research in other parts of New Guinea, Watson (1970, 1985) suggests that open social networks and frequent movement are likely to be present cross-culturally among smallscale agricultural groups wherever social units defined by co-residence are small, numerous, located near one another, and possess homogeneous forms of production and reproduction (Watson 1985:34). This type of settlement pattern is common among many small-scale farming societies, including those of much of ancient North America and pre– Iron Age northern and western Europe. Watson (1985:22) also suggests that movement remains important in societies, such as those in highland New Guinea, where conflict and the potential for violence make travel dangerous. Conflict can in fact encourage movement, as mobility is one of the primary means of defusing violence in small-scale societies and refugees from violent events seek shelter among distant kin or allies (Wiess­ner and Tumu 1998:119–42). Thus, even in ancient situations where evidence for violence is strong, archaeologists should rely on independent indicators to infer co-occurring declines in mobility.



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The Atamo Valley of Bougainville Research by Michael Hamnett (1977, 1985) in the Atamo Valley of the south Pacific island of Bougainville provides another illustration of the complexity of circulation and its effects on settlement patterns and land tenure among small-scale agriculturalists. His study provides an unparalleled account of the frequency of movement between residences and the constant change in composition experienced even by small social groups, such as households and hamlets, let alone larger communities. This work highlights the central role of population circulation, even at small scales, in shaping larger social structures. Through a series of interviews, archival research, and mapping of residential locations, Hamnett documents shifts in residence for many Atamo Valley individuals and households indicating that most changed residences every 6–9 years between 1920 and 1974 (Hamnett 1977:195). During this time many households simultaneously maintained multiple residences in different hamlets, which enabled them to preserve social ties and territorial claims in several areas (Hamnett 1977:140–42). Residential groups claimed houses and gardens through social and kinship ties traced through both male and female lines despite an ideal of matrilineal descent and property transference (Hamnett 1977:94). Even these rather loose lineal rules were frequently violated. During the early 1920s, one out of every four hamlet residents lacked any descent-based claim at all to the land they occupied (Hamnett 1977:124). Idealized, structural descriptions of land tenure and property inheritance in the Atamo Valley would mask this key dimension of variability that was expressed only through actual practice and heavily influenced by the frequency of movement between hamlets and communities. Figure 2.1 provides a graphic illustration of the changes in settlement patterns in a portion of the Atamo Valley for a few years just prior to sustained European contact. This type of data is tremendously useful for theorizing settlement process in small-scale societies, yet it is unfortunately rarely reported. Fifteen of the seventeen hamlets occupied during this 5-year interval underwent changes in size and group composition as a result of movements within the local area, as well as people moving in and out of the valley (Hamnett 1985:49). The frequency and complexity of these residential moves was not atypical for the precontact time period (Hamnett 1985:42). Contrary to what many researchers might expect among shifting cultivators, agricultural motives were not often cited by Atamo Valley residents as reasons for moving (Hamnett 1985:53–55). The most frequently stated motives included the presence of relatives, providing assistance in preparations for feasts, poor pig-raising conditions, and deaths or illnesses in prior hamlets (Hamnett 1985:table 3.1).

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2 km

figure 2.1.  Five years of population circulation in the Atamo Valley, 1920– 1924 (after Hamnett 1985:Figure 3.4).

Although these motives are proximate concerns, they do illustrate that people living in the Atamo Valley ascribed causality primarily to social factors, rather than agricultural considerations. Hamnett (1985:54) notes that many individuals and households were pulled to settlements by influential relatives or big men, often to help in feast preparations or to further secure title over land. These moves occurred both within the local area and between different valleys occupied



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by distinct social groups. The largest and longest-lived hamlets, which Hamnett terms “focal settlements,” were the most common residences of leaders and usually associated with spirit shrines (1985:46). The two largest hamlets in figure 2.1 are examples of these focal settlements. These settlements were the primary destination for people and households from outside the local area, which is indicative of the importance of residents of these hamlets in structuring long-distance social networks and mobility. Overall, Hamnett’s research in the Atamo Valley illustrates that detailed, long-term documentation produces a very different picture of the movements of small-scale agriculturalists than many traditional ethnographic depictions, which either entirely discount the importance of mobility for agriculturalists or overemphasize stability (Hamnett 1977:1–5). Although the Atamo Valley settlement pattern would appear stable when viewed at a single point in time, or even over a few ethnographic field seasons, the flow of population produced a constantly shifting pattern of settlement that was accommodated by ever-changing social networks and groupings and extended well beyond the local area. The frequency of movement, short-term occupations, and simultaneous use of multiple residences by people in the Atamo Valley should be disconcerting to archaeologists. Even in the best of situations archaeologists studying similar patterns of movement would likely be unable to identify sequentially occupied residences and any population estimates made using the number of residences occupied over time would be substantially inflated. Archaeologists can, however, explore some of the social implications of movement of this frequency and take these implications into account when discussing ancient demography and the formation and change of local social systems.

The Rarámuri The Rarámuri of northwestern Mexico have been well studied by researchers seeking ethnographic insights into mobility, site structure, and settlement processes among small-scale agriculturalists living in arid environments (Graham 1993, 1994; Hard and Merrill 1992). Despite living in areas that contrast sharply with the south Pacific cases discussed previously, Rarámuri farmers pursue similar strategies of movement and settlement that influence the development and maintenance of social networks and groups. Rarámuri farmers maintain multiple houses and field locations and frequently move between these facilities during an annual subsistence round. Although much of this mobility is aimed at addressing seasonality and microclimatological variations in the rugged canyons of southern Chihuahua (Graham 1994:10–20; Hard and Merrill 1992), it

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also has a few key social implications that deserve increased attention. The Rarámuri case illustrates that even in areas where ecological factors are a key factor in mobility decisions, movement is also a key dynamic in structuring social group composition and formation. Rarámuri households often own houses and fields in what they and researchers consider multiple social communities (Graham 1994:11; Hard and Merrill 1992:607). Although a primary residence is maintained in one community at a time, it is not unusual for Rarámuri households to shift their primary residences between communities every few years, illustrating the weakness of social boundaries at this scale (Graham 1994:18–19). From their primary residence, Rarámuri households also make numerous short visits to other communities to maintain their fields and to participate in work parties on other farmers’ lands (Graham 1994:19). The Rarámuri also undertake longer distance trips to reside in the local ejido center for a few days or weeks to participate in ritual festivals (Graham 1994:22; Hard and Merrill 1992:605, 609). All of these moves, ranging from temporary travels to participate in work parties and rituals to semipermanent moves between residences in different communities, result in constant shifts in the synchronic structure of Rarámuri residential communities and enable the Rarámuri to maintain diverse social networks that extend far beyond their current residential group (Hard and Merrill 1992:604–5). As in the New Guinea and Bougainville examples, Rarámuri mobility creates social networks that extend well beyond the bounds of their current residential communities, leads to flows of people and resources across what archaeologists might identify as important social boundaries based on settlement patterns, and generates axes of variability within social groups across time and space.

Summary The ethnographic examples presented here illustrate the importance of studying mobility as a dynamic practice that has diverse geographic and temporal components. These studies suggest that population circulation occurs at multiple spatial and social scales in small-scale agricultural societies, linking seemingly separate social groups and creating frequent change in the composition and definition of even the smallest social groups. When population movement is viewed in this way, it raises a number of challenges for archaeologists studying the linkage between mobility and society in the past. Most archaeological studies have tended to view mobility primarily as a useful strategy for addressing ecological variation and risk. These studies have been successful in improving archaeologists’ understanding of the relationship between settlement patterns and subsistence, but they



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have placed less emphasis on mobility as a social practice. Ethnographic studies of population circulation suggest that we should further explore the social aspects of mobility, in particular the role that mobility plays in defining social groups and identity at multiple levels. Some studies have made initial moves toward exploring the social context of local mobility (e.g., Gerritsen 2003; Herr and Clark 2002; Nelson 1999; Varien 1999a; Whittle 1997), but archaeologists may be able to push these insights further by examining how differences in people’s potential for mobility, and mobility itself, led to the redefinition of social networks and groups. In the following section I examine how this shift in focus affects archaeological perspectives on social groups, particularly communities, in the past.

Population Circulation and Archaeological Communities Archaeological Approaches to Defining Communities Community has become a prominent subject for archaeological study since the early 1990s. Although most of this work has occurred in the Americas (Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Dancey and Pacheco 1997; Kolb and Snead 1997; Rogers and Smith 1995; Varien and Potter 2008a; Wills and Leonard 1994), the concept has also been explored by European archaeologists, particularly those studying Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age agricultural societies (Brück 2000; Chapman 1981; Gerritsen 2003, 2004; Renfrew 1973; Sherratt 1990). Individual definitions vary in detail, but most archaeologists consider a community to be a social group living in a bounded geographic area within which people share resources and access rights. Individual communities are considered the primary field for social interaction and day-to-day life (e.g., Adler 1996, 2002; Dancey and Pacheco 1997; Gerritsen 2004; Kolb and Snead 1997; Renfrew 1973; Varien 1999a:19–23). Archaeologically, small-scale agricultural communities are usually defined by the presence of clusters of residential buildings, ceremonial constructions, and limited activity sites, such as fields and resource-gathering locales (Gerritsen 2003; Kolb and Snead 1997; Rogers and Smith 1995; Varien 1999a). Although at times entire communities may reside within a single, well-defined village, many archaeological communities contain numerous dispersed residences housing smaller social groups (Adler 1996; Dancey and Pacheco 1997; Gerritsen 2003; Gilpin 2003; Rogers and Smith 1995; Varien 1999a; Whittle 1997). The focus on communities has in part developed out of the growing importance of archaeological survey and an attempt by archaeologists to

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provide greater historical and spatial context for the study of local social interaction (Gerritsen 2004:144–45; Yaeger and Canuto 2000:4–5). In the Southwest, archaeologists often use the community concept as a means to understand settlement clustering and the local social ties that linked people residing in dispersed farmsteads (Adler 1990; Fish, Fish, and Madsen 1992; Gilpin 2003; Kintigh 2003; Lekson 1991; Varien 1999a; Wills and Leonard 1994). The focus on communities has clearly improved the study of settlement patterns and society in the past, but this research is also fraught with conceptual difficulties. In a series of recent works, archaeologists approaching community from a practice perspective have cautioned against what they see as a tendency for researchers to focus on communities as empirical objects to be discovered, rather than as ever-changing products of social practice (Gerritsen 2003, 2004; Hegmon 2002; Isbell 2000; Pauketat 2000; Schachner 2008; Varien and Potter 2008b; Yaeger and Canuto 2000). Although this tendency in part derives from the necessity of creating a definition of community relevant to the material record of archaeology, it also leads to a number of problems for theorizing social process. First, practice-oriented perspectives question the notion that communities are human universals. When archaeologists depict communities as social units characteristic of all societies (i.e., “naturalized communities” after Isbell 2000), the origins and nature of local social systems linking smaller scale groups are often unexplored (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:5). In other words, how communities are constructed (sensu Anderson 1991; Cohen 1985) is ignored. Second, William Isbell (2000:248) pointedly questions why some archaeologists have relied on earlier structuralfunctional models (e.g., Murdock 1949; Redfield 1955) in developing their ideas about community. These early models include unrealistic expectations about the extent to which social units are homogeneous and self-contained and underestimate the importance of human agency and social variability, making them incompatible with most modern social theory. Finally, archaeologists often conflate different aspects of community, investing all community-scale social groups they examine with multiple social functions, including decision making, control of resources, and social identity (Hegmon 2002:277–78). Michelle Hegmon (2002), Isbell (2000), and Jason Yaeger and Marcello Canuto (2000) propose that archaeologists unpack the various dimensions of community by more closely examining some of the underlying social processes that contribute to the origins of community-scale social groups, identity, and social networks. One avenue for improving archaeological studies of local social systems is through a detailed consideration of how intraregional population movement affects the development of community-scale social groups and boundaries. Examinations of



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circulation are often absent in archaeological community studies, which instead rely upon analyses of relatively static depictions of settlement patterns and generalized models of settlement process, or more rarely investigations of local interaction marked by the transfer of material objects. Studies of circulation directly challenge the notion that community organization can easily be inferred from settlement patterns alone; instead, they encourage approaches that focus more closely on variability in social networks and patterns of interaction and the historically contingent nature of social formations.

Population Circulation and Its Effects on Communities Frequent population circulation actively undermines many of the defining characteristics of archaeological definitions of community, including well-defined membership, territorial control, shared identity, internally focused social ties, and permanence. At a fundamental level, ethnographic studies of population circulation also question whether social phenomena equivalent to what archaeologists term communities necessarily existed. The social fluidity that characterizes many small, seemingly natural and relatively easily defined units, such as households, residence groups, and kin groups, in small-scale societies is at least partly a product of population circulation (Brison 1994; Chapman and Prothero 1985a; de Lepervanche 1967–68; Hamnett 1977; Kopytoff 1987; Schlegel 1992; Shipton 1984a, b; Wagner 1974; Watson 1970; Whiteley 1985, 1986). By changing the composition of smaller groups, mobility also contributes to the social ambiguity of larger social groups, such as communities (Kopytoff 1987; de Lepervanche 1967–68; Watson 1970, 1985), bands (Binford 2006), and tribes (Fowles 2002). Frequent population movement creates such constant change in local social arrangements that community must be seen as an emergent, everchanging social process. Although not directly addressing the effects of population movement, Yaeger and Canuto (2000:6) take a similar stance, noting that archaeologists actually “study instances of community that have a definite and irreducible historical quality” (original italics). Intraregional population movement of various types would have continually reformulated these instances of community, particularly over the time scales accessible to archaeologists (see Fowles 2002 for a similar discussion of the concept of tribes). In the past, communities in many small-scale societies were probably not well bounded in space and people likely participated in multiple, crosscutting local social networks (Binford 2006; Graham 1994; Hamnett 1977; Hegmon 2002:272–73; Watson 1970, 1985). Population circulation would have been a key part of this process by creating social ties

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that extended beyond the borders of local residential communities (Chapman and Prothero 1985a; Hamnett 1977; Kopytoff 1987; Watson 1970, 1985). In addition, intraregional population movement would have been experienced variably by different individuals and social groups, leading to a situation where even people residing in the same settlement or spatially proximate settlements had diverse, crosscutting social ties and histories of movement (Brison 1994; Chapman and Prothero 1985a; Hamnett 1977, 1985; Watson 1970, 1985; also see Bernardini 2005). A consideration of population circulation challenges the notion that communities focused social interaction inward, as many key ties of kinship, politics, and ritual likely extended across multiple community-scale social groups (Watson 1985). To understand the development and change of communities, archaeological models of this process must take into account how population circulation affected local social systems in meaningful ways (see Hegmon 2002:272–75) and promoted variability in component groups and community organization (Adler 2002; Hegmon 2002; Pauketat 2000, 2003). In the following section, I present some specific examples of how the effects of circulation may have influenced the formation of local social systems in the Southwest. In doing so, I suggest a few avenues for the reevaluation of ancient community stability, boundaries, interaction, and change. Although this discussion focuses on the Southwest, many of these insights are equally applicable to the modeling of community organization in other contexts.

Rethinking Archaeological Communities in the American Southwest Although initially used as a casual synonym for “village” or “site cluster” (Hegmon 2002:265), since the early 1990s Southwest archaeologists have begun to use the concept of community more formally. In part, the growing focus on communities in Southwest archaeology is directly linked to the increased study of the Chaco period (AD 900–1150) and an attempt to understand how the small, dispersed residential pueblos that were so common in the northern Southwest were related to architectural complexes with Chaco-style great houses, great kivas, roads, and landscape modifications (Fowler and Stein 1992; Fowler, Stein, and Anyon 1987; Gilpin 2003; Kantner and Kintigh 2006; Kantner and Mahoney 2000; Kintigh 2003; Lekson 1991; Marshall et al. 1979; Powers, Gillespie, and Lekson 1983). The typical Chaco period community is thought to have included a great house and/or great kiva surrounded by a cluster of residential pueblos, and archaeologists have used a variety of spatial analyses to identify these communities on the landscape (Gilpin 2003).



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Some researchers have proposed that this settlement organization may have roots in a deeper, more general pattern of ancestral Pueblo settlement that extended from at least the Basketmaker III through early Pueblo IV periods (roughly AD 500–1400) and was marked by small residential sites linked to larger centers with communal ritual architecture (Fowler and Stein 1992; Fowler et al. 1987). This general pattern (ritual/public architecture with surrounding residential sites) has been adopted by researchers working outside the Chaco area to explain settlement clustering and to identify communities in a variety of areas and time periods (e.g., Adler 1990, 1996; Herr 2001; Kintigh 1996; Kintigh, Howell, and Duff 1996; Varien 1999a). Similar models of dispersed residential communities linked to instances of ritual or public architecture are employed in the Hopewell area (Bernardini 2004; Dancey and Pacheco 1997), as well as Western Europe (Gerritsen 2003; Renfrew 1973; Sherratt 1990). In the Southwest, the identification of communities through architectural patterning and settlement clustering has sometimes been supplemented by using cross-cultural ethnographic information about the average maximum distances that farmers travel to fields (2–7 km; Varien 1999a) and for social and political contacts (15–18 km; Wilcox 1993, 1996) to delimit the geographic extent of communities associated with particular instances of public architecture (see Kintigh 2003 for a critique of this type of argument). These distances are used to derive areas within which face-to-face interaction (Varien 1999a) or political connections (Wilcox 1993, 1996) could have been consistently maintained. Face-to-face interaction is one of the primary requirements of the most common social definitions of community used by Southwest archaeologists. Michael Adler (1990, 1996, 2002) and Mark Varien (1999a, 2000; Varien et al. 1996; Varien and Potter 2008b) have been the most prominent proponents of a social definition of community and suggest that communities were the key arenas for local decision making and resource sharing. Adler (2002:28) also explicitly proposes that the community was an important unit of social identity, which is often an implicit assumption in many community models. Analyses of community have been understandably beneficial to Southwest archaeology, as they have provided an important means for discussing local social processes and change over time, as well as a framework for synthesizing the enormous body of survey data generated since the 1960s. As archaeologists become increasingly concerned with identifying communities in the archaeological record, expectations of community structure and organization have become overstandardized, however, detracting from attempts to understand communities as arenas of social practice rather than theoretical constructs (Adler 2002:26). To break this

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cycle, Adler (2002) and Hegmon (2002) propose greater attention to differences among communities and to variability in the smaller components, such as households and intermediate-level social units, which comprise them. The analysis of population circulation presents one avenue for examining this variability, especially if it explicitly recognizes that movement is historically contingent and both leads to and is structured by social differences. Household-level residential mobility played an important role in defining and changing the membership of many different types of social groups in the Southwest. Previous studies have attempted to understand how residential mobility was linked to the stability of communities. Varien’s work (1999a) in the central Mesa Verde region demonstrates that household residential mobility was important even as some parts of local communities, often those associated with ritual architecture, remained fairly stable on the landscape. Margaret Nelson (1999) argues that households in the eastern Mimbres area were able to maintain local continuity in occupation in the face of regional social and environmental transformations through changes in aggregation and settlement location. Varien’s (1999a) and Nelson’s (1999) studies, along with ethnographic studies of circulation, suggest that monitoring variability in the residential stability of component groups is necessary for understanding the structure and function of larger, community-scale social units. Different people and social groups have different potentials for movement. For example, in many small-scale societies, people of higher status are more residentially stable and have larger settlements (Hamnett 1985:46; Kopytoff 1987:52–61; Watson 1970:115–16). Recent migrants, on the other hand, are often unstable and frequently move after a short time (Watson 1985:23). As noted by Kopytoff (1987:58–61), however, even these social statuses and relationships were subject to manipulation and transformation in practice, further complicating the situation for researchers. The examination of variation in residential mobility in local social systems provides archaeologists with a more nuanced view of how and by whom community stability and change were created or maintained. This question is particularly salient for Southwest communities, as some researchers have posited community-shared control of resources or land tenure, without examining how this control was linked to differences in social status. In many small-scale societies, local resources, rights, and decision making are controlled by stable, high-status individuals and groups, rather than the community as a whole (Kopytoff 1987:53; Levy 1992:31–57). In regions where movement is frequent, the status of individuals or groups is often associated with the order of arrival in new areas (Kopytoff 1987:40–41; Schlegel 1992; Watson 1970:115–16). As a result, archaeologists should determine which parts of local systems were



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stable and whether certain factions were making decisions on behalf of the group as a whole. In the Southwest, archaeologists often treat ritual architecture, such as great houses or great kivas, as communal spaces and proxies for community (Gilpin 2003), although we know relatively little about who controlled these structures and whether some of them were residential (Kintigh 2003). Increased attention to variability in the use life, function, and location of these types of architectural complexes has the potential to provide a more complete understanding of their role in local social systems, social variability among settlement groups, and the linkage between focal settlements (sensu Hamnett 1977) and networks of population circulation. Frequent movement, whether permanent or short term, also influences how communities are bounded socially. In most small-scale societies, movements between residential groups are often easily accommodating by maintaining flexible membership rules (Brison 1994; de Lepervanche 1967–68; Hamnett 1977, 1985; Kopytoff 1987; Schlegel 1992; Wagner 1974; Watson 1970, 1985). Although there is usually an emic ideal about who has rights to join a group or who possesses land tenure, this ideal is often violated in practice, as rules are changed or outright ignored (Brison 1994; Hamnett 1977; Kopytoff 1987; Watson 1970, 1985). As a result, socially important boundaries constantly shift as population movement redefines community membership and spatial patterns, particularly over the time scales of archaeology. Although at times social interactions may conform to the assumptions of naturalized views of community, which posit homogeneous, bounded, and inwardly focused networks (sensu Isbell 2000), critical ethnographic studies suggest this pattern is unlikely in most small-scale agricultural societies. A number of recent ceramic compositional studies in the Southwest indicate that the social groups that comprise communities maintain distinct sets of social ties that often extend beyond community boundaries (Abbott 2000; Gilpin and Purcell 2000; Harry 2003; Hegmon 2002; Kantner et al. 2000). These crosscutting social ties can be seen as evidence that many Southwest communities were also relatively weakly bounded and comprise groups with diverse histories, as one would expect given the ethnographic examples discussed here (also see Hegmon 2002:278). Finally, population circulation is often a key part of the transformation of local-level social organization due to its disruption of existing social networks and fragmentation of social groups (Alt 2006; Cobb 2005; Cobb and King 2005; Fowles 2005; Hill et al. 2004; Kowalewski 2006; Nelson 2000; Pauketat 2003, 2007). The renegotiation of community-scale social organization following movement, particularly when groups with diverse origins are involved, may lead to radical changes in community form, often with unintended consequences. Research by Mississippian

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archaeologists demonstrates that significant shifts in local community organization can also have cascading impacts across large geographic areas. Timothy Pauketat’s (2003, 2007) and Susan Alt’s (2006) research illustrates how many key changes in Mississippian traditions and community organization were linked to the movement of diverse groups of farmers throughout the American Bottom and beyond just prior to the ascent of Cahokia itself. Charles Cobb and his colleagues (Cobb 2005; Cobb and Butler 2002, 2006; Cobb and King 2005) have identified numerous instances where the rise and fall of other Mississippian centers were linked to large-scale population shifts. In some cases, these shifts coincided with the redefinition of place and society, a process that Cobb and Adam King (Cobb 2005; Cobb and King 2005) suggest originated in the social ambiguity of movement into unoccupied areas. In the American Southwest, many changes, including the advent of new ritual practices and shifts toward nucleated settlement in the late AD 1200s, coincided with the large-scale movement of populations on the Colorado Plateau. Although movement has long been suspected to have played a role in stimulating these changes (Adams 1991; Crown 1994; Fish et al. 1994; Lyons 2003), the local-scale relationships among social change, movement, and community formation are only beginning to be understood. By analyzing variation in the process of community formation in a newly settled area, with a particular focus on the impacts of mobility among small-scale groups, the study I present in this book illustrates how changes in population circulation in at least a portion of the Southwest were linked to significant social transformations with panregional consequences.

A Framework for Studying Community Formation and Circulation In the remainder of the book, I focus on three interrelated processes: movement, settlement, and social interaction. Each is an important factor in determining how networks of population circulation guide, and are in turn guided by, the formation and maintenance of social groups. Later chapters present analyses of a range of data types to explore multiple parameters of each of these processes to assess how variability in mobility, social groups, settlement practices, and historical contexts influenced the formation of El Morro settlement systems during the AD 1200s. Many of my analyses employ a historical, comparative perspective that situates social practices within specific temporal and regional contexts rather than the exploration of hypotheses derived from overarching determinative models (compare to Cameron and Duff 2008; Cobb 2005;



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Pauketat 2001, 2003, 2007). This historical-processual research model balances the necessity of studying particular instances of social change as historically contingent with wider goals of understanding generalities in social process (Pauketat 2001). Rather than testing generalized models of behavior, the historical-processual approach emphasizes specific practices—what particular people or groups of people actually did at specific places and times in the past. In pursuing this type of study, I aim to explain how changes occurred in El Morro settlement systems at a specific time and place, albeit as I note in later portions of the book, these changes had profound implications that reverberated for centuries in Zuni region settlement systems and beyond. Despite the narrow focus on the El Morro Valley, larger generalizations about community organization and mobility can then be made by comparisons among various cases, within the wider Zuni region, in the Southwest, and in other parts of the world (see Pauketat 2007 for an illustration of this comparative approach). I utilize comparisons within and between local settlement systems, both within the El Morro Valley study area and across the wider Zuni region, to judge the importance of various factors, such as whether mobility was more frequent in certain contexts than others or whether some settlement systems were more socially diverse. There are rarely good standardized measures that allow us to accurately contrast these types of social processes in different contexts. Thus, perhaps the best way to examine the origins and effects of similarities and differences is direct, historically situated comparison. This approach is especially useful in the Zuni case as subareas in the region have unique settlement histories that influence the development and transformation of local settlement systems over time (Duff and Schachner 2007). A historical, comparative perspective is one of the best methods for examining how social transformations arise, as it allows archaeologists to determine what is unique about certain social contexts that promote (or inhibit) change (Pauketat 2001, 2003, 2007). In the final chapter of the book, I present a new cultural history of social change in the El Morro Valley to provide insights into ancient Southwest communities but also to discuss the implications of this research for the archaeological study of communities and mobility in early farming societies in general. During data analysis in later chapters, I also take great care to avoid the pitfalls of a naturalized community approach (Isbell 2000; Schachner 2008). The ethnographic examples summarized earlier in this chapter highlight the importance of alternative models that lack the well-defined territoriality, internally focused socioeconomic interaction, and rigid social boundaries characteristic of most naturalized community models. Instead, I assess how the small-scale social groups that comprise larger social systems utilized circulation, settlement location and differentia-

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tion, and social interaction to create the social fields in which they existed (Adler 2002; Gerritsen 2003; Hegmon 2002; Varien and Potter 2008b; Yaeger and Canuto 2000). To do this, many of the analyses that follow focus on small residential groups and then work up the inferential ladder to discuss the formation of larger social units. This distinction is important because it treats the origins of communities as a research question and process rather than as a natural component of ancient societies to be identified in the archaeological record (Gerritsen 2003:111; Yaeger and Canuto 2000:5).

Movement By studying the timing, frequency, geography, and intensity of mobility, one can understand the physical process of movement as well as the social context within which it occurred. Documentation of the timing and sequence of movements into a region enables the assessment of variation in the pace of settlement growth and the identification of initial settlers, who in ethnographic contexts often exert control over later settlement decisions and local social hierarchies (Brison 1994; Kopytoff 1987; Schlegel 1992; G. Stone 1996; Watson 1970, 1985). The ability to differentiate between the rapid formation of an entire settlement cluster versus slow, punctuated growth is also important, as these different patterns may result from dissimilar levels of preexisting coordination between constituent social groups. I examine the timing of movement into the El Morro Valley in chapters 4 and 6 by comparing results from intersite ceramic seriations and intrasite and regional-level dendrochronological analyses. An assessment of the frequency of residential mobility is also imperative, because this allows for the determination of its relative importance in a given area and is a necessary data requirement for addressing the absolute versus classificatory contemporaneity of settlements when discussing settlement patterns. The frequency of residential mobility is often difficult to determine, but site occupation spans can be used as a rough measure (Varien and Ortman 2005). Although site occupation spans are also difficult to assess archaeologically, a few avenues are available. In chapter 4, I examine multiple lines of evidence to assess site occupation length, including cooking pot accumulation, intrasite dendrochronology, trash deposition, and architectural technology. These analyses focus on multiple sites of varying types and sizes in order to understand a range of potential movement frequencies. Characterization of variation is important because the longevity of residential groups is often correlated with social standing and influence over social and mobility networks



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(Brison 1994; Hamnett 1977, 1985; Kopytoff 1985; Stone 1996; Watson 1970, 1985). Some sense of the geographic scale of residential mobility, as well as other movements, such as the transfer of spouses or participation in regional ritual events, can be gained through ethnographic analogies and the tracking of the movement of material goods. In chapter 5, I consider examples from Zuni ethnography to identify regionally important places on the landscape and to understand the geography of movements, such as those related to farming, hunting, and ritual, that rarely leave material traces. Although the use of ethnographic analogies does not provide a direct means for inferring these types of movements in the past, it can provide a way to estimate their relative geographic scale and facilitation of contacts between social groups. Temporary movements structure residential mobility (Watson 1985:31–32); thus, defining their probable geography is one way to understand the spatial scope of the latter and present a fuller depiction of population circulation. Material flows, especially of goods produced from local resources, are also good indicators of the strength and geographic scope of local-level social and circulation networks (Chapman and Prothero 1985b). Material goods can be moved in a number of different ways, including exchange and through residential mobility (Beck 2009; Zedeño 1998), but by tracking their movement and how that relates to the flow of people, archaeologists can define the geography of mobility processes. A number of studies have shown that even in cases where material goods move into an area through exchange, this process reflects social ties that were activated through residential mobility (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002). Thus, the geography of sources for material goods is often a reasonable proxy for the geography of patterns of residential movement and temporary travels within a region. In chapter 5, I analyze a range of material goods, including pottery and obsidian artifacts, to assess the geographic range of movement involved in the settlement of the El Morro area. Analysis of the movement of material goods also enables archaeologists to monitor the intensity of movement between areas. Presumably, if people move more often between two different areas, material goods will be transferred between those areas at a higher rate (Bernardini 2005). In chapter 5, I examine variation in the proportions of material goods from different parts of the Zuni region present in the El Morro Valley to identify areas between which more intensive networks of population circulation existed. To analyze regional variability in the intensity of movement and interaction, I compare evidence from El Morro to multiple, different subregions within the Zuni region and the wider Cibola area. This analy-

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sis highlights a few areas within the Zuni region between which material flows, and most likely residential movements and other travels, were particularly intense.

Settlement I examine the process of settling new areas and the formation of new social groups by analyzing two parameters: spatial patterns and site differentiation. As discussed previously, analyses of these parameters are often the primary means of defining communities archaeologically. Spatial patterns, such as clustering and the maintenance of boundaries or unoccupied zones, are often seen as indicative of the creation of socially independent communities or settlement clusters. In some cases, however, the analysis of spatial patterns has been turned on its head in that archaeologists often start from a community center (e.g., Chaco great houses, Hopewell enclosures, British Neolithic henges) and then attempt to identify (or even assume) a surrounding cluster of residential sites, thus inevitably confirming the presence of the social phenomenon (i.e., community) of interest. In the spatial analyses that I undertake in chapter 6, I take a less constrained approach that does not attempt to find a potentially etic entity in the remains of the past. Rather, I view individual residential structures, in this case pueblo room blocks, as the primary points of analysis and proceed from the bottom up. This avoids the problem of a priori assigning an organizational form to local social systems and forcing past settlement practices to conform to naturalized community models (also see Gerritsen 2003). I also assess whether spatial patterns identified in the archaeological record were socially meaningful. Some patterns, such as clustering, can almost always be defined in the archaeological record, especially using quantitative methods. But the distances between clusters may not have presented much of a physical challenge to the movement of people between clusters. Archaeologists often assume that spatial clusters are produced by bounded social groups, yet clusters can be the product of a variety of factors, including the distribution of agricultural lands, sequential occupations that are not temporally differentiated by archaeological dating methods, or even due to sampling or other artifacts of the analysis process (see Whiteley 2004 for discussion of similar problems that arise in defining regional clusters). As noted previously, spatially bounded social units may be less universal than archaeologists have traditionally thought given the importance of population circulation in many smallscale societies. Thus, I present a variety of analyses and examine a range of data types to assess whether site clustering was present, and if it was, what factors may have been creating the pattern.



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An important component of a site-level approach to local settlement practices is analysis of settlement differentiation. In chapter 6, I examine variation in a number of variables, including settlement (room block) size and function, to assess the scale and types of social groups involved in the formation of new local settlement systems. These analyses identify socially important places that could have been either loci for social interactions or the residences of leaders. Ethnographically, these types of sites are often marked by their size or the presence of public, ritual architecture (Brandt 1994; Hamnett 1977, 1985; Kopytoff 1987). As residents of these types of sites were likely key players in the origination and transformation of local settlement systems and social identities, it is important to determine where these sites were and how they related to other residential sites in the valley. I do not make the assumption that all of these types of sites have similar architectural forms, however, and recognize that variation may be an important part of the process of forming new social groups. The settlement analyses of chapter 6 draw heavily upon comparison of differences in site type among settlement groups within the El Morro Valley study area, as well as with others in the wider Cibola area. These multiscalar comparisons enable an assessment of how specific social contexts and patterns of movement shaped variability in settlement types across the region.

Interaction Networks of social interaction are strong structuring influences on patterns of movement. One of the best means for studying these interactions is through analyses of flows of locally produced material goods, such as pottery, that can be tracked to their source. In chapter 7, I discuss the material evidence for differences in the social interactions of multiple residential groups within a few different settlement clusters in the El Morro Valley. Differences in interaction may be indicative of either social diversity or developing hierarchies in the valley. As discussed earlier, both of these parameters would have influenced social group formation and population circulation during the settlement of the area in the AD 1200s. Multiple studies of movement in the Southwest have analyzed interaction to infer the presence of social diversity in local settlement systems (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002; Eckert 2008; Lyons 2003; Neuzil 2008; Zedeño 2002). If a settlement group is founded by diverse smaller, residential groups with variable histories of movement, and hence different social networks, one would expect that these differences would result in disparities in the source areas of material goods found at individual residential structures. If, on the other hand, members of a preexisting social group founded multiple nearby pueblos, I would expect

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each room block would have similar material assemblages. Tracking social diversity is one of the ways to identify composite or coalescent communities composed of diverse social groups, which are often loci of change and generate new forms of social relationships (Cordell 1995; Hill et al. 2004; Kowalewski 2006; Pauketat 2003; Schwartz 1970). If social hierarchy were an important structuring factor in determining networks of interaction and movement, one would expect to find evidence of patterned differences in social ties at sites occupied by groups with higher social standings. Leaders often play an outsized role in networks of population circulation due to their more extensive social contacts (Kopytoff 1987; Watson 1985; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). In the El Morro case, I would expect residents of larger, longer lived focal settlements, who may have been leaders, to have more diverse and longer distance exchange ties when compared to other households. In the analyses of pottery movement in chapter 7, I pay particular attention to how access to pottery from different geographic sources varies by site type.

Circulation and Community in Ancient Southwest Society The analyses in the remainder of this book explore how population circulation, settlement practices, and social interaction were drawn upon by ancestral Pueblo farmers to create new social systems in the El Morro Valley during the AD 1200s. By tracking these three interlinked social phenomena in multiple settlements in the El Morro Valley, and by comparing those processes with settlement in other parts of the Zuni region, I provide a number of insights into how ancient communities were created, maintained, and transformed. These analyses build upon prior studies of small-scale farming societies to provide a more complete picture of how intermediate-scale social systems, which were vital aspects of ancient Pueblo peoples’ lives, were constituted in practice and situated in specific, regional spatial and historical contexts. More broadly, these analyses provide a detailed critique of traditional archaeological approaches to the study of community organization and highlight the key role that population circulation plays in the creation, maintenance, and transformation of social groups.

CHAPTER THREE

Ancient Zuni Settlement and Community Organization

Ancestral Pueblo residents of the Zuni region were often at the forefront of significant pan-regional changes in settlement patterns and community organization during the late pre-Columbian era (roughly AD 1000– 1500). The well-dated archaeological record of this area provides an excellent opportunity to understand how intraregional shifts in population circulation, settlement, and social interaction contributed to the creation of new forms of community organization. This chapter provides an overview of the geography, environment, and culture history of the Zuni region and the El Morro Valley study area. I also summarize earlier archaeological research aimed at understanding the long-term development of communities in the broader Cibola area. Some of these studies have been particularly influential during the last 25 years of archaeological research examining community organization in the Southwest.

Defining the Zuni Region Although among the first areas of the American Southwest to be subjected to archaeological study (Cushing 1890; Fewkes 1891; Mindeleff 1891), definitions of what constitute the Zuni region and the wider Cibola area have fluctuated over time (Carlson 1970; Gladwin 1957; Kintigh 1996, 2007; LeBlanc 1989). A number of different aspects of the archaeological record have been used as regional markers, including architecture, settlement patterns, and pottery styles, but these indicators

33

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do not always exhibit overlapping geographic distributions. On the other hand, all definitions consistently note that the area of dense, long-term settlement now located in the modern Zuni Indian Reservation and immediately surrounding locales was the primary population and social center of the area. This is the area most often referred to as the Zuni region and represents the geographic and demographic core of the ancient Cibola area, which also includes more distant areas, such as the upper Little Colorado River valley and Rio Puerco valley. Although the archaeological records of these latter areas are similar to those of the Zuni region in many respects, they often exhibit important differences that are likely the product of interaction with residents of districts adjacent to the Cibola area, such as the Mogollon region to the south or the San Juan Basin to the north. These more distant areas are occasionally explored in this book, although most of the analyses focus on the core Zuni region, which is geographically defined by the Zuni River and its main tributaries, including Jaralosa Draw and Hardscrabble Wash (fig. 3.1). This area is physically bounded by the Zuni Mountains on the northeast, the Continental Divide and a chain of volcanic craters to the east, the edge of the

t

50 km

figure 3.1.  The Cibola area and Zuni region.



Ancient Zuni Settlement and Community Organization

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Zuni Plateau to the south, and the confluence of the Zuni and Little Colorado Rivers to the west.

Zuni Region Geography, Climate, and Agriculture The geography and climate of the Zuni region are defined by its location on the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Much of the area contains numerous narrow canyons dissecting sandstone mesas covered in piñon, juniper, and ponderosa pine forests. Expansive grasslands, such as the floor of the El Morro Valley or rolling ridges west of the Arizona-New Mexico state line, are present at the margins of the region. The entire region slopes down from the Continental Divide on the east, and all of the drainages eventually funnel into the Little Colorado River. Along the Zuni River and its tributaries elevation ranges from over 7,200 feet on the floor of the El Morro Valley to roughly 6,000 feet at the Arizona–New Mexico state line. The Zuni Mountains represent the nearest accessible mountainous area, topping out at nearly 9,000 feet. Winter snow pack in the Zuni Mountains is vital for feeding surface streams and groundwater that support agriculture in the region (Ferguson and Hart 1985). The El Morro Valley is situated in the eastern portion of the region, nestled between the Zuni Mountains and a series of 300–500-foot-tall mesas (more accurately described as cuestas) that define its southern and eastern edges (fig. 3.2). Much of the valley floor is covered in volcanic deposits from cinder cones located to the east along the Continental Divide. As in most parts of the Southwest, precipitation in the Zuni region is closely correlated with elevation (Ferguson and Hart 1985:12–13). Modern records indicate that these differences are fairly minor within the primary areas of ancient habitation between 6,000 and 7,000 feet, where average annual precipitation ranges from 12 to 13 inches (Kintigh 1985:92–93). Most of this precipitation falls either during the winter from November to March or as late summer monsoons from July to September (Ferguson and Hart 1985:13). Winter rains and snow provide moisture for plant germination, while the summer monsoons are essential for crop maturity (Hack 1942; Muenchrath and Salvador 1995). The relatively low average precipitation has led Keith Kintigh (1985:99) to suggest that some form of water control would have been required for all ancient agricultural production in the region (also see Muenchrath et al. 2002). A range of techniques for maximizing the amount of water that flows to fields has been documented for both the pre-Columbian and historic periods. These include floodwater farming, ak-chin fields, terracing, and irrigation (Cushing 1920; Damp, Hall, and Smith 2002; Kintigh 1985:96–102; Muenchrath et al. 2002). Small irrigation ditches have

figure 3.2.  The El Morro Valley showing survey areas and major sites.

4 km

2 mi.



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been noted in multiple locations along the Zuni River and its tributaries, with some dating as early as 1000 BC (Damp et al. 2002:674). Most residential sites, including those in the El Morro Valley, are situated near slopes that concentrate water, and the remains of checkdams and other agricultural features are commonly found nearby (Kintigh 1985; Muench­ rath et al. 2002). Short growing seasons also present farmers in the Zuni region with a significant challenge (Brandt 1995; Ferguson and Hart 1985:14–15; Kintigh 1985:93; Sandor 1995). Historically, average growing season varies more significantly with elevation than precipitation does and ranges from a mean of 150 days at the Pueblo of Zuni (6,440 ft. in elevation) to 113 days at El Morro National Monument (7,218 ft.) (Kintigh 1985:table 7.2). Although Southwest archaeologists often cite 120 days as the minimal growing season necessary for maize, it is likely that many preColumbian varieties may have matured more quickly (Snow 1991). Judging from the extent of settlement in the El Morro Valley and other similarly high-elevation areas, it is clear that ancestral Pueblo farmers must have used some means for coping with short growing seasons, such as rapidly growing varietals, the exploitation of particular microclimates, or the planting of crops at multiple times each spring. Even with these efforts, growing season length was likely a persistent challenge in eastern portions of the Zuni area (Brandt 1995; Kintigh 1985:98; Sandor 1995). Our knowledge of past climate in the area has significantly improved since the 1990s. As part of Fence Lake Coal Mine Project, Carla Van West and Henri Grissino-Mayer (2005) produced a detailed, long-term dendroclimatic reconstruction spanning 2,129 years from 137 BC to AD 1992 that is applicable to all of the Cibola area, including the Zuni region at its center. Their work combines insights from Grissino-Mayer’s studies (1995, 1996) of changes in precipitation based upon a tree-ring chronology from El Malpais National Monument with work by Matthew Salzer (2000a, 2000b) on past temperature fluctuations using high-elevation bristlecone pine chronologies from the San Francisco Peaks. The El Malpais National Monument chronology is from the eastern margins of the Zuni region, providing a local, long-term view of precipitation patterns, while the San Francisco Peaks temperature chronology is applicable to much of the Colorado Plateau (Van West and Grissino-Mayer 2005:33.1– 2). When combined, the two chronologies provide a long-term perspective on when periods were wet or dry as well as whether they were warm or cool. In the past, researchers often assumed that warm and dry or wet and cool periods were correlated (e.g., Kintigh 1985:93–96; Watson et al. 1980:214). Van West and Grissino-Mayer’s work shows that while this is frequently true, a more nuanced view of the relationship between tem-

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perature and precipitation is possible. The ability to infer warm or cool periods is particularly important in areas, such as the El Morro Valley, where growing season length may have been a more frequent problem affecting agricultural success. Van West and Grissino-Mayer (2005:33.3–5) analyzed year-to-year variation in temperature and precipitation and identified multiyear climatic intervals that shared common traits. The relative intensity of these intervals was quantified by calculating the degree to which precipitation and temperature varied from their respective means for the entire 2,129year time period. In addition, they were able to rank particular intervals against one another in terms of severity, measuring not only the degree to which precipitation and temperature was abnormal during a specific interval but also how long particular climatic trends persisted (Van West and Grissino-Mayer 2005:33.5). Table 3.1 presents the thirteen climatic intervals that correspond to the primary occupation of the El Morro Valley, which roughly spans the period between AD 1200 and 1350. This period coincided with a number of climatic extremes, including two of the most severe wet and cool intervals in the sequence (AD 1198–1212 and 1224–49), one of the most severe dry and cool intervals (AD 1338–52), a severe dry and warm interval (AD 1272–97, the “Great Drought”), and an uncommonly wet and warm interval (AD 1298–1314). Eight of the thirteen intervals (97/160 years) were characterized by cool temperatures, which during some periods were quite severe. Patty Jo Watson and others (1980:214) posited that settlement of the El Morro Valley would have been advantageous during warm, dry intervals when the high-elevation area likely experienced longer growing seasons than normal and was probably wetter than lower parts of the Cibola area. As will be discussed in chapter 5, these lower areas were the source of most migrants into the valley during the AD 1200s. Warm periods were actually uncommon during the period of settlement, however, and only two short warm periods (AD 1221–23 and 1250–57) date to the main period of immigration into the valley (roughly AD 1225–75, see chapter 4). In fact, the settlement of the valley largely coincided with a period of cooler than normal temperatures punctuated by a few warm periods. Due to the high elevation of the El Morro area, cool periods would have been the least optimal time for settlement, suggesting that people moving into the valley considered factors other than a favorable climate or had ways to buffer potential shortfalls in such a risky location. In chapter 5, I discuss evidence that suggests residents of the El Morro Valley simultaneously maintained access, and possibly residences, in both the El Morro area and nearby lower elevation locales to the west as a risk-buffering strategy enabled by frequent population circulation.

20 8 3 26 8 4 10 26 17 6 9 8 15

AD 1193–1212 AD 1213–1220 AD 1221–1223 AD 1224–1249 AD 1250–1257 AD 1258–1261 AD 1262–1271 AD 1272–1297 AD 1298–1314 AD 1315–1320 AD 1321–1329 AD 1330–1337 AD 1338–1352

Wet Dry Dry Wet Dry Mixed Wet Dry Wet Wet Wet Wet Dry

Precipitation 6 31 86 3 66 103 31 3 7 84 78 33 15

Precipitation Rank Cool Cool Warm Cool Warm Cool Cool Warm Warm Cool Warm Cool Cool

Temperature 9 19 35 15 74 79 16 27 22 69 43 4 11

Temperature Rank 15 50 121 18 140 182 47 30 29 153 121 37 26

CIV Rank 1 9 33 3 35 7 12 7 3 39 19 7 3

Severity Rank

Notes:  For detailed descriptions of how intervals are defined, ranking methods, and calculation of climate intensity value (CIV), see Van West and Grissino-Mayer (2005). Precipitation and temperature rankings are assigned by sorting index values calculated for each interval and giving the highest ranks to intervals closest to the mean. For precipitation, this results in ranks of 1–109 for negative departures from the mean (dry periods) and 1–90 for positive departures (wet periods). For temperature, negative departures are ranked from 1 to 104 and positive departures from 1 to 95. For example, the AD 1272–1297 interval was the third driest on record, while the AD 1224–1249 interval was the third wettest. CIV measures variation in both precipitation and temperature, and rankings are overall measures for all 199 intervals. In all cases higher values indicate conditions that more closely approximate normal patterns. The severity ranks are derived from comparing CIV measures within particular climate classes. For example, the AD 1193–1212 period is the most severe wet and cool interval, and the AD 1272–1297 period is the seventh most severe dry and warm interval in the 2,129–year period from 137 BC to AD 1992.

No. of Years

Interval

Table 3.1.  Van West and Grissino-Mayer Climate Intervals

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Zuni Settlement Patterns and Chronology AD 1050–1350 People residing in the Zuni region significantly transformed the spatial and demographic organization of their society during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries. Population aggregation increased over time, eventually resulting in nucleation into a series of massive villages by the AD 1300s (Kintigh 1985, 2007; Kintigh et al. 2004).1 The following summary begins with the late Pueblo II period (AD 1050–1150), in part because it directly precedes changes that coincided with the occupation of the El Morro Valley but also because it marks the period in which great house communities with Chacoan characteristics were constructed in the area (Fowler et al. 1987; Roberts 1932). Many settlements founded during later periods have characteristics that echo those of the Chaco period (Duff and Schachner 2007; Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh 1994; Kintigh et al. 1996). Unfortunately the pre–AD 1000 era is relatively poorly understood in the Zuni region. Despite tantalizing evidence for the early adoption of maize agriculture (Huber 2005a) and irrigation technology (Damp et al. 2002), the Archaic, Basketmaker, and Pueblo I periods have received little attention compared to the same intervals in surrounding areas (see Peeples, Schachner, and Huber 2012 for a summary). Our knowledge of later periods is quite good, however, and illustrates that social transformations in the El Morro Valley had their roots in the changes that began during the late Pueblo II period.

Late Pueblo II (AD 1050–1150): The Chaco Period The vast majority of late Pueblo II period settlements in the Zuni region were small farmsteads dispersed widely across the landscape. Although these sites are found in almost all parts of the area, occupation was most common along major drainages and in their side canyons and less frequently in high-elevation zones (Kintigh 2007; Peeples and Schachner 2008). Late Pueblo II period residential sites typically consisted of small masonry pueblos (room blocks) averaging a few rooms in size, an associated pit structure or two, outdoor work areas, and formalized middens. A household’s nearest neighbor may have been a few hundred meters or more distant. Few pueblos were more than twenty rooms in size, suggesting that day-to-day social life was organized primarily along household or lineage lines (Steward 1937). Although loose clusters of Pueblo II period sites can be identified in the region, lower densities of sites rather than their complete absence often mark areas between clusters (Kintigh 2007). A few Chaco-style architectural complexes have been recorded in



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the Zuni region, including Village of the Great Kivas (Roberts 1932), H-Spear (Kintigh 2007), Gonzales Well, and Bosson Wash (Fowler et al. 1987). These complexes exhibit many of the features typical of Chaco-era centers, including great houses with multistory core-and-veneer architecture and blocked-in kivas, great kivas, roads, and earthen mounds (Stein and Lekson 1992). Chaco-style great houses were more common in other parts of the Cibola area, suggesting the Zuni region proper was perhaps a peripheral part of the Chaco regional system during the late Pueblo II period (Duff and Schachner 2007) (fig. 3.3). Large numbers of Chacostyle great houses and contemporary residential pueblos were built in the Red Mesa Valley north of the Zuni Mountains (Kantner et al. 2000; Van Dyke 2000), along the Rio Puerco (Stein and Fowler 1996), and in the Carrizo Wash/Largo Creek area south of the Zuni Plateau (Duff 2005; Vivian 2005). Although residents of the Cibola area were clearly aware of, and participated in, developments in Chaco Canyon, most Chacoan elements appear to have been adopted within a local cultural framework rather than imposed by outsiders (Duff and Schachner 2007; Van Dyke 2000, 2003; Vivian 2005).

50 km

figure 3.3. Regional site distribution during the Chaco period, AD 1050–1150.

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population circulation and zuni communities

Early Pueblo III (AD 1150–1200): The Pueblo “Dark Ages” The early Pueblo III period is probably one of the most poorly understood intervals in the archaeology of the entire Colorado Plateau (Kintigh 2007; Stein and Fowler 1996; Varien et al. 1996). The beginning of this period closely follows the cessation of construction activity in Chaco Canyon, and much of the phase coincides with a long-term drought between AD 1131 and 1192. Although broken by a short interval of wet years and not of particularly great magnitude, this period of dry, warm conditions stands out for its length (Van West and Grissino-Mayer 2005:33.18–33.19). The archaeology of this period is known almost entirely through survey. Nearly all Zuni region Pueblo III period sites with dendrochronological samples have been dated to the AD 1200s (Anyon 1984; Schwendler 2008; Wandsnider n.d.; Watson et al. 1980; Zier 1976; see chapter 5), with the exception of a few sites in the northwestern part of the Zuni region (Anyon, Collins, and Bennett 1983). Most sites allocated to the early Pueblo III period have been assigned to this period based on ceramic seriation (Eckert 1995; Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh et al. 2004; Kulow, Huntley, and Eckert 2005; Schutt 1997). Most archaeologists have assumed that settlement during this interval represents a transition between the small, widely dispersed residential clusters of late Pueblo II period and the dense, increasingly aggregated residential clusters of the late Pueblo III period (Duff and Schachner 2007; Kintigh 1996; Kintigh et al. 1996). Some of the Chaco-style great houses constructed during the late Pueblo II period were remodeled and used during this interval (e.g., Village of the Great Kivas). The tempo and geographic extent of settlement during this period are unclear, however. There are some indications that early Pueblo III period settlement may have been more prevalent on the margins of the Cibola area where Chaco great houses were more common (Fowler et al. 1987; Huber 2005b; Schachner and Kilby 2005; Schutt 1997), but without better chronological control these patterns remain provisional. This period deserves increased attention, as its study should yield insights into both the aftermath of the demise of the social system centered on Chaco Canyon and the transition toward late Pueblo III period aggregation.

Late Pueblo III (AD 1200–1275): Post-Chaco Aggregation The late Pueblo III period has been the focus of increased research attention since the 1980s. Prior to that decade, archaeological knowledge of this phase derived almost exclusively from scattered surveys on the Zuni Indian Reservation (Hunter-Anderson 1978; Kintigh 1980; Marshall 1974) and the Cibola Archaeological Research Project (CARP) in the El



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Morro Valley (LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). This period is the primary temporal focus of research presented in this book. Two key settlement shifts occurred during this interval. First, people built large numbers of residential pueblos in high-elevation areas such as the El Morro Valley. Along the Zuni River drainage, this process is marked by the fact that pre–Pueblo III period sites are rare in high-elevation survey areas east of the historic Zuni farming village of Pescado (S. Kelly et al. 2005; Marshall 1974; Saitta 1994a; Watson et al. 1980). Similar increases in numbers of sites above 7,000 feet occur in nearby areas, such as near Mariana Mesa (Huber 2005b; McGimsey 1980) and Cebolleta Mesa (Roney 1996). Intriguingly this shift was not accompanied by a significant downturn in population in lower elevation areas. In fact, population levels continued to grow in most areas that had been previously occupied (Kintigh 1996, 2007; Kintigh et al. 1996, 2004; Peeples and Schachner 2008). Second, population aggregation increased at multiple scales. Although most pueblos in the region were architecturally similar to those of the late Pueblo II period, the average number of rooms in each pueblo increased (Kintigh 2007). Some very large pueblos up to 100 rooms in size were also built (Kintigh 1994; Saitta 1991, 1994a, b). The increases in room block size suggest that residential groups may have been expanding during the AD 1200s. Along with the appearance of larger individual pueblos, a number of very dense clusters of pueblos were founded, indicating increasing spatial aggregation (Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh 1994, 1996, 2007; Kintigh et al. 1996). These clusters ranged in size from roughly ten to as many as thirty contemporary pueblos, each within a stone’s throw of its nearest neighbors. Examples of these types of sites include Hinkson and Jaralosa along Jaralosa Draw (Kintigh et al. 1996), and Scribe S, Pettit, Los Gigantes, and Tinaja in the El Morro Valley (Saitta 1994b; Schachner and Kintigh 2004; Watson et al. 1980). Late Pueblo III period sites are often found outside of these clusters during full-coverage surveys, and in some cases distinct settlement clusters are difficult to discern (Kintigh 2007; also see chapter 6). Some of the late Pueblo III period settlement clusters contain at least one larger room block that echoes Chaco-style great house architecture, including banded or core-and-veneer masonry, multistory or highceilinged rooms, blocked-in or courtyard kivas, roads, and earthen berms (Kintigh 1994, 1996) (fig. 3.4). Two of the best examples of these buildings include Hinkson (Kintigh et al. 1996) and Los Gigantes (Schachner and Kintigh 2004). Many of the post-Chaco great houses, including Hinkson and Los Gigantes, are also associated with large, shallow, unroofed great kivas ranging from 23 to 32 meters in diameter and sur-

44

population circulation and zuni communities

figure 3.4.  The Hinkson great house.

rounded by low platforms (Kintigh et al. 1996; McGimsey 1980; Schachner and Kintigh 2004). These ritual structures include some elements of earlier Chacoan great kivas, but they are far larger and could accommodate many more participants and spectators (Kintigh 1994). Kintigh (1994) argues that the construction of Chaco-style complexes during the AD 1200s may have been an instance of peer–polity interaction among communities undergoing changes in organizational complexity. Fowler and others (1987) see these changes as evidence for long-term continuity in Cibola community organization and the continuing importance of Chacoan religious themes. Site clusters with great houses and unroofed great kivas are most commonly found in the core Zuni region, but they are also located along the Rio Puerco (Fowler et al. 1987) and in the Carrizo Wash/Nations Draw area south of the Zuni Plateau (Fowler and Stein 1992; McGimsey 1980) (fig. 3.5). Post-Chacoan great houses have been identified on Cebolleta Mesa to the east (Roney 1996), but unroofed great kivas have not been recorded there. In the Cebolleta Mesa area and along the Rio Puerco, post-Chaco great houses are often found within settlement clusters con-



Ancient Zuni Settlement and Community Organization

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50 km

figure 3.5. Regional site distribution during the post-Chaco period, AD 1200– 1275.

taining multiple temporal components dating to the Basketmaker III through Pueblo III periods (Elyea, Hogan, and Wilson 1994; Schutt 1997; Weaver 1978; Wozniak and Marshall 1991), unlike those in the Zuni region that are largely single component (Kintigh et al. 1996, 2004). The association between post-Chaco great houses and settlement clusters is less clear in the Carrizo Wash/Largo Creek area to the south, as large-scale, intensive surveys of the areas around post-Chaco great houses have yet to be conducted.

The Pueblo III–Pueblo IV Transition (AD 1250–1300) The transition between the Pueblo III and Pueblo IV periods marked one of the most significant shifts in ancestral Pueblo settlement and society. Large parts of the northern Southwest were depopulated, including the northern San Juan (Cordell et al. 2007; Kohler, Varien, and Wright 2010), San Juan Basin (Stein and Fowler 1996), and Kayenta regions (Lyons 2003). The movements out of these regions resulted in significant demographic shifts for the entire Southwest, as well as within particular regions (Doelle 2000; Duff 1998; Wilcox, Gregory, and Hill 2007). In

46

population circulation and zuni communities

addition to pan-regional demographic changes, this transition was marked by the construction of large, nucleated pueblos, each with populations sometimes reaching over 1,000 people (Adams and Duff 2004) (fig. 3.6). Nucleation occurred at slightly different times in each region, but it seems to have begun in the late AD 1200s and was essentially completed throughout the Pueblo Southwest by AD 1350. Residents of the Zuni region were among the first to build large, nucleated pueblos. The timing of this shift is somewhat unclear, however. Some argue that the transition occurred rapidly and simultaneously across the region at approximately AD 1280 (LeBlanc 1999, 2001; Watson et al. 1980). This interpretation is largely based on differences in tree-ring dates from a sample of villages in the El Morro Valley. Other researchers suggest that this depiction of the transition is too abrupt (Duff and Schachner 2007; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985). Seriation of ceramic assemblages, which derive from a much larger number of sites, suggests that some of the large, nucleated pueblos may have been built between AD 1250 and 1275. If this were the case, the transition to nucleated settlements occurred earlier and more gradually than previously thought. More important, large nucleated pueblos and the aggregated settlement groups described in the previous section may have coexisted for a short interval. This would have created a rather different social landscape and suggests that much more variability in community

figure 3.6.  The Kluckhohn ruin in Togeye Canyon. The Pettit Site is on top of and surrounds the butte in the bottom left. (Photo courtesy of Keith Kintigh)



Ancient Zuni Settlement and Community Organization

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organization may have existed at this time than prior models have posited (Duff and Schachner 2007). Without further field research, the exact nature of this transition will remain open to debate, but our interpretations of the late Pueblo III period should take into account the possibility that early nucleated pueblos were contemporary with aggregated groups. This possibility, which has important implications for how ancient Zuni communities were conceived of and constructed, is explored at various points in this book.

Early Pueblo IV Period (AD 1275–1350) By AD 1280 or a few years after, all of the late Pueblo III period aggregated settlement groups were depopulated and nearly all people in the Zuni region were residing in nucleated pueblos. Some researchers have argued that the concentration of previously independent social groups into large nucleated pueblos may have been an overt attempt to express community boundaries and identity (Bernardini 1998; Potter 1998). The superficial appearance of solidarity, however, is belied by the fact that most of these early Pueblo IV period villages were occupied for only one or two generations at most (25–50 years; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985). The shift toward nucleation was also accompanied by significant changes in land use, as limited-activity sites dating to this period are much less common than those of earlier intervals. This suggests that most subsistence activities were concentrated near nucleated pueblos and that land use may have become more geographically restricted (Kintigh 2007; LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). This change may foreshadow a late Pueblo IV period (AD 1350–75) shift in agricultural practices identified by Kintigh (1985). He proposes that at this time ancient Zuni farmers began to rely more heavily on irrigation agriculture fed by springs and the main drainages rather than the more dispersed, runoffdominated agriculture of earlier eras. Prior to AD 1350, most Zuni region villages were located in the eastern portions of the Zuni River drainage, with most of the regional population residing in the El Morro Valley and immediately adjacent areas (Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985) (fig. 3.7). A handful of scattered Pueblo IV villages were located in other parts of the Zuni region, particularly along Jaralosa Draw and the lower Zuni River, but these sites were generally much smaller in size (100–200 rooms vs. 400–800 rooms) (Huntley and Kintigh 2004). Some early Pueblo IV villages in other parts of the Cibola area, such as those near Mariana Mesa (McGimsey 1980; Smith and Robertson 2009) or along the Rio Puerco (Fowler et al. 1987), were depopulated by AD 1300, while others, such as those in the upper Little Colorado area (Duff 2002), remained occupied until the late AD 1300s.

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population circulation and zuni communities

50 km

figure 3.7. Regional site distribution during the early Pueblo IV period, AD 1300–1350.

Sometime during the AD 1350–75 interval, people in the upper Zuni River drainage either moved downstream to a series of villages between modern Zuni and the Arizona-New Mexico state line or out of the region entirely (Kintigh 1985). Many of the villages founded at this time were still occupied when the expedition led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado entered the American Southwest in 1540, and one, the Pueblo of Zuni, is still occupied today (Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985). During the protohistoric and historic periods, the El Morro Valley and many other parts of the Cibola area continued to be used by Pueblo people, especially from Zuni (Ferguson and Hart 1985) and Acoma (Dittert 1998), but these areas ceased to be loci of permanent Pueblo residence.

Studies of Zuni Communities, Settlement Patterns, and Social Interaction Settlement clustering and its social implications have been important topics of study in the Zuni region since the 1970s. Much of this study has occurred as part of research focusing on the sociopolitical implications of



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population aggregation (LeBlanc 1978, 1999, 2001; Kintigh 1994; Kintigh et al. 2004; T. Stone 1992, 1994; Watson et al. 1980). Other archaeologists have more explicitly focused on community organization through analyses of the relationship between sites with ritual architecture and smaller residential pueblos (Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh 1994; Kintigh et al. 1996) and studies of social interaction (Duff 1993, 1994; Huntley 2004, 2008; T. Stone 1992, 1994). Due in part to the fact that interregional migration does not appear to have been a major factor in Zuni region archaeology until the founding of the protohistoric villages (Duff 2002; Mills 2007; Schachner 2006), most studies of community organization have not problematized the role of population movement in shaping social groups and boundaries. In the following section, I summarize prior research on ancient communities in the Zuni region and point out areas where the current study offers new perspectives, data, and interpretations.

Communities and Aggregation The trend toward aggregation was recognized fairly early on in Zuni region archaeology (Spier 1917), but it was not an explicit focus of research until after the rise of processual archaeology in the 1960s. CARP was one of the first projects to attempt to define settlement clusters through full coverage survey and examine the trajectory of settlement change within particular localities over the long term, albeit scarcely more than 100 years in the El Morro case (LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). This research convincingly demonstrated the trend toward aggregation and eventual nucleation of population during the late Pueblo III and early Pueblo IV periods. CARP researchers noted that large nucleated pueblos were frequently associated with earlier clusters of aggregated pueblos, and they proposed that preexisting, community-level social units constructed most of the nucleated pueblos (LeBlanc 1978, 2001; Watson et al. 1980). Steven LeBlanc (1999, 2001) proposes that this shift in settlement pattern occurred due to increasing concerns with defense as conflict intensified in the northern Southwest. Some Zuni region archaeologists have questioned whether violence was as prevalent as LeBlanc argues, however (Duff and Schachner 2007; Kintigh et al. 2004; T. Stone 1992, 1994). While there are burned rooms at Scribe S and other excavated sites, which LeBlanc points to as evidence for conflict, to my knowledge there has been no indisputable evidence found in the Zuni region in relevant temporal contexts equivalent to that seen in the Mesa Verde region, such as unburied individuals and skeletal trauma, where conflict is better documented (Kuckelman 2002; Kuckelman, Lightfoot, and Martin 2000, 2002). Clear evidence for violence at the time of the transition has been

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population circulation and zuni communities

found at two large nucleated villages in the southeast periphery of the Cibola area, Techado Spring and Horse Camp Mill (McGimsey 1980; Smith and Robertson 2009), but these sites are well outside of the dense Zuni region core. What remains difficult to discern in the archaeological record is whether shifts toward the construction of defensive settlements in one region were indirectly triggered by increases in violence in nearby areas. It is possible the clear increases in violence in the Mesa Verde and Kayenta regions may have had far-reaching effects on settlement choices in other regions, especially considering the movement of populations out of those areas in the late AD 1200s (Cordell et al. 2007; Kohler et al. 2010; Lekson and Cameron 1995; Lyons 2003; Roney 1995). I return to this topic in the concluding chapter. Several studies have suggested that the shift toward nucleated pueblos arose due to other factors. Tammy Stone (1992, 1994) utilized the CARP data along with information from the Ojo Bonito Archaeological Project (OBAP) and Heshotauthla Archaeological Research Project (HARP) to suggest that increasing aggregation in the Zuni region was linked to changes in social organization that developed out of shifts toward larger communal rituals beginning in the Chaco period. Her research examined multiple processes that would have led to aggregation, and she argued that environmental and defensive concerns were not major factors in the transition (T. Stone 1992:171–80). Kintigh and colleagues (2004) take a fine-grained approach to aggregation using HARP data that focuses on settlement changes in the area surrounding the Pueblo IV period pueblo of Heshot uła over the course of nearly 400 years. Their work shows that at least for the core Zuni region, aggregation occurred gradually over the Pueblo II and III periods prior to a rapid shift toward nucleation at around AD 1275. They note that most population movement into the Heshot uła area occurred during the AD 1125–1225 interval and coincided with the construction of the Spier 81 great house and great kiva, but not significant reorganization of settlement distribution (Kintigh et al. 2004:444–45). They also hypothesize that the construction of the large, nucleated pueblo of Heshot uła at roughly AD 1275 necessitated cooperation between multiple clusters of residential pueblos and possibly the creation of a new, larger scale unit of social organization linking previously independent groups (Kintigh et al. 2004:450). Unlike some parts of the Zuni region, such as the El Morro Valley, the deep temporal depth of settlement and lack of late immigration into the Heshot uła area suggests that this was largely a local process, however, and likely involved small, adjacent communities (Kintigh et al. 2004). A common theme in the work of Kintigh and his students is that aggregation was driven primarily by social phenomena and that environ-



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mental and economic factors played a secondary role (Kintigh 1985, 1994; Kintigh et al. 2004; T. Stone 1992, 1994). These studies also proceed with the implicit assumption that some form of community-level organization must have existed, at least from the Chaco period on. Our understanding of exactly how this process occurred could be improved through a more complete knowledge of the diversity of component social groups and the mechanisms through which small residential groups interacted and were socially defined. Prior studies have relied heavily on regional survey data and thus understandably lack detailed considerations of site-level changes and variability. The current study adds this dimension through a multiscalar approach that uses excavated data from a number of individual sites as well as full-coverage surveys. The addition of excavation data from a variety of sites allows for analyses of important factors such as variation in the frequency of mobility and participation in networks of social interaction.

Landscape Approaches and the Manuelito Model The Manuelito Model proposed by John Stein and Andrew Fowler takes a slightly different approach linking the historical development of communities across the Cibola area to efforts to maintain long-term continuity in ritual architecture and landscapes (Fowler and Stein 1992; Fowler et al. 1987; Stein and Fowler 1996). Their work has influenced how archaeologists working in many areas of the northern Southwest conceptualize social processes and community structure in the Chaco and postChaco periods (e.g., Adler 1996; Bradley 1996; Gilpin 2003; Kantner 2003; Kantner and Mahoney 2000; Kintigh 2003; Kintigh et al. 1996) and presciently foreshadowed the later explosion of landscape approaches in Southwest archaeology (Anschuetz et al. 2001; Fowles 2010; Snead 2008; Van Dyke 2007). Their model was initially developed while studying the archaeology of Manuelito Canyon, a tributary of the Rio Puerco near the Arizona–New Mexico state line that was densely occupied by ancestral Pueblo farmers from at least the Basketmaker III through late Pueblo III periods (Fowler et al. 1987). The Chaco and post-Chaco period settlement systems in the canyon were notable for visual and physical connections (roads) between a series of sequentially used ritual centers, illustrating the vital importance of connections to important places of the past (Fowler et al. 1987). The Manuelito Model more fully defined the relationships among distinguishing characteristics of ancestral Pueblo ritual landscapes, including great houses, great kivas, and landscape modifications such as roads and mounds (Fowler and Stein 1992; Fowler et al. 1987; Stein and Lekson 1992). The proponents of the model noted that these features, along

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population circulation and zuni communities

with residential pueblos, exhibited common patterns of association in nearly all of the area encompassed by the Chacoan system (Fowler and Stein 1992; Stein and Lekson 1992). In addition, they observed that these features were not restricted to the Chaco period and that examples of this pattern could be found during both earlier and later time periods (Fowler and Stein 1992; Fowler et al. 1987). As a result, many archaeologists working in the Zuni region and other areas that contain Chaco-style great houses now proceed with the assumption that ritual features along with an associated cluster of residential pueblos are the typical spatial expression of a Chaco or post-Chaco period community. The Manuelito Model proponents inferred that physical and visual connections between temporally sequential ritual centers were used by ancient people to memorialize strong continuity in community organization and identity throughout the Basketmaker through the post-Chaco period. They interpreted this emphasis on connections and continuity as evidence that each community was “a rigid social and political structure that defined and maintained the boundaries of the old communities from at least Basketmaker times on” (Stein and Fowler 1996:116). Their model suggests strong boundaries existed between communities and that there was considerable temporal continuity in identity and social relationships. Arizona State University (ASU) researchers explicitly drew upon the Manuelito Model during their excavations and survey along Jaralosa Draw in the area surrounding the Post-Chaco Hinkson great house (Kintigh et al. 1996). Their studies provide a unique view of local settlement changes over a large area during the period between AD 800 and 1350. They produced additional documentation of connections between sequential ritual centers, such as a road connecting the Hinkson great house with the Pueblo IV period village of Ojo Bonito, and the extensive use of Chaco architectural styles in later villages (Kintigh et al. 1996). Full coverage survey, however, documented unexpected departures from the Manuelito Model, such as a lack of association between some sites with ritual architecture and clusters of residential pueblos. For example, the Chaco period H-Spear great house is located nearly 10 kilometers away from the largest cluster of contemporary residential pueblos (Kintigh 2007). As a result, Kintigh (2003) suggests archaeologists be wary of the use of ritual or public architecture as a proxy for the presence of ancient Southwestern communities or assuming the nature of intrasettlement cluster social interaction based on idealized models.

Communities and Social Interaction A number of recent studies in the Zuni region have employed chemical compositional analyses to track the movement of pottery vessels to docu-



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ment multiple scales of social interactions linked to the process of aggregation (T. Stone 1992, 1994), regional social organization and relationships among different subregions (Huntley 2008), interregional population flows and exchange (Duff 2002), and intracommunity organization (Duff 1993, 1994). These studies have provided a key additional line of evidence for inferring community-scale and intraregional social organization that complements and challenges the settlement pattern-based studies discussed previously. These studies begin to shift the archaeological depictions of ancient Zuni communities from static, often spatially defined structures, to dynamic, historically situated products of interaction (cf. Yaeger and Canuto 2000). Tammy Stone (1992, 1994) used weak-acid inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy (weak-acid ICP) of red and white ware pottery to track exchange between three Zuni subregions, represented by the OBAP (Jaralosa Draw), CARP (El Morro Valley), and HARP (Pescado Basin) study areas, and its link to changes in aggregation, during the late Pueblo II through early Pueblo IV periods. Her results suggest that little exchange occurred between different subregions in the Zuni area and that there were no significant changes in this pattern as people aggregated on the landscape. Her total sample sizes were quite small, however, particularly within individual time periods (roughly 100 sherds from across the entire region for each time period). The lack of interaction between subregions was interpreted as supporting models of aggregation that focused on local, intracommunity processes. Andrew Duff (1993, 1994) used weak-acid ICP and refiring techniques to examine intracommunity pottery exchange during the postChaco period in the OBAP and HARP areas. He suggested that pottery exchange between different settlements within roughly 10–15 kilometers of one another was frequent in the OBAP area, and that some residential groups may have specialized in the production of certain types of pottery. This pattern indicates that local communities were fairly well integrated, with frequent movement of finished products within the community indicating strong social ties. He was not able to reach similar conclusions for the HARP area, in part due to the geological homogeneity of that area precluding intracommunity monitoring of pottery movement. Suzanne Eckert (1995) later demonstrated that some of Duff ’s analyzed sites from the OBAP area were sequentially occupied, however, and thus it is likely that some pottery was transported through movement, rather than exchange, as people aggregated around the Hinkson great house. This interpretation suggests that population movement was an important factor in shaping patterns of ceramic distribution in at least some parts of the region during the Pueblo III period. It should also be noted that the patterns of ceramic distribution identified by both Stone and Duff need to be

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population circulation and zuni communities

reevaluated using more accurate methods, as weak-acid ICP has been shown to have a few significant flaws that can lead to spurious results (Neff et al. 1996; Triadan, Neff, and Glascock 1997). Deborah Huntley (2008), building upon data generated by Duff ’s (2002) interregional study of pottery circulation, used multiple analytical techniques, including instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of ceramic pastes, electron microprobe analysis of glaze paint composition, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) to measure lead-isotope ratios in glaze paints, to assess the formation of subregional social groupings and identities in the Zuni region during the Pueblo IV period. At this time, all people were residing in nucleated pueblos, which were clustered within a few different areas within the region (e.g., Jaralosa Draw, Pescado Basin, El Morro Valley). One of the primary goals of Huntley’s research was to explore the social organization of these clusters, as well as define what types of relationships existed between clusters. One of the major strengths of Huntley’s study is that it relies on multiple lines of evidence, allowing her to focus on multiple scales of interaction, including within clusters, between clusters, and across the region as a whole. Unfortunately, the exact nature of interaction within clusters was difficult to assess due to the lack of necessary geologic resolution, but she was able to conclude that there did not appear to be strong social boundaries between individual villages, as people generally shared similar technological recipes for ceramic production and some pottery moved between villages in the same cluster. Her study also suggests that the exchange of pottery between different clusters of Pueblo IV period sites was uncommon, although there did appear to be a small amount of movement of pottery from the western portions of the Zuni region to the east. She interpreted this pattern to indicate that exchange was not structured by formal social alliances within the region and that the small amount of exchange present may have been linked to the periodic hosting of large, integrative rituals involving residents from multiple pueblos and pueblo clusters. Perhaps most intriguing, Huntley’s studies of glaze paint technology demonstrate that recipes for paint production were widely shared across the region. She suggests this may have been due to the fact that social boundaries between settlement clusters and villages were permeable, with people crossing boundaries fairly frequently to move between villages to participate in ceremonies, visit kin, and occasionally change residence, enabling technical knowledge to transfer widely and rapidly (Huntley 2008:73–78). Taken together, Huntley’s multiscalar approach suggests a more complex, varied pattern of interaction between residents of Pueblo IV period villages in the Zuni region than most previous models that posit more formalized relationships and fairly standardized organiza-



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tional structures. The analyses of population movement during the Pueblo III period that I present later in the book suggest that this pattern of complex, multilayered interaction has deep roots in the Zuni region.

Critiquing Archaeological Models of Zuni Region Communities The previously discussed studies have contributed significantly to our knowledge of local settlement patterns and community organization in the Zuni region, but by addressing some of their limitations, the research presented in this book extends this knowledge further. First, most previous studies have either emphasized similarities rather than differences in community organization across the Zuni region and wider Cibola area, or they have focused on single communities or study areas, precluding a strongly comparative approach. As discussed previously, to better understand social transformations archaeologists must explore potential axes of variability as well as the larger social field in which local social process plays out. Huntley’s (2008) multiscalar study demonstrates the benefits of this type of approach, which provided evidence for multiple crosscutting social relationships that did not neatly correspond with local or regional spatial patterns. Second, most studies generally proceed with the assumption that some social unit akin to naturalized models of communities (Isbell 2000; Schachner 2008) must have existed at all times in the past. In some respects, the prevalence of naturalized models in Southwest archaeology derives from attempts to find community-scale social units equivalent to historic Pueblo villages, which often contained hundreds of individuals and multiple social units, in ancient contexts characterized by radically different social groups, social histories, and settlement patterns. As discussed in the previous chapter, community-scale social units are not necessarily important or even prevalent in many small-scale societies, especially where movement was frequent and residential groups were small. At best, communities were activated in particular contexts (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:6). Instead, we are better off beginning with social units that are more clearly present and demarcated, such as the residential groups residing in the small pueblos scattered across the Zuni region, and then exploring multiple dimensions of interaction (i.e., exchange, movement, ritual participation, etc.) to infer the presence and importance of larger scale social units, such as communities. A third issue in studies of community organization in the Zuni region is that ritual architecture is often depicted as uncontested, integrative space that served as a community-level gathering point and proxy for community identity. There is still very little information that would allow

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archaeologists to determine who, if anyone, resided in great houses or how the postulated residents of these buildings interacted with other people living nearby (Kintigh 2003). This is a fundamental question and a serious data gap that has key implications for our understanding of how local communities and social identities originated and were transformed. Imagined community approaches, by emphasizing the diversity of people’s roles and actions in social settings (Hegmon 2002; Isbell 2000; Pauketat 2000), highlight the potential for multiple meanings and asymmetric experiences of community and encourage exploration of how ritual architecture was experienced by different groups and contributed to the construction and maintenance of local interaction. Fourth, in many places where large areas of survey coverage exist in the Zuni region, the spatial associations between clusters of residential pueblos and ritual architecture are often debatable or nonexistent (Gilpin 2003; Kintigh 2003, 2007). This may not be simply a result of our inability to properly identify the social and spatial relationships embodied by community membership. Instead, it may be indicative of the fact that residential and subsistence activities—the most common practices in people’s lives—occurred with relatively little reference to ritual centers or similar features of the landscape. While these ritual places were undoubtedly important, they do not necessarily imply the presence of bounded social units or identities postulated by naturalized community models. Finally, archaeologists have a relatively limited understanding of the frequency or geographic scope of intraregional movement in the Zuni region, precluding judgments about how socially bounded spatial clusters were in the past. As discussed in chapter 2, in many small-scale societies, social networks created by kinship, ritual, and exchange crosscut boundaries between local systems and serve as potential avenues for sometimes frequent intercommunity movement. The effects of these types of movements on community structure have rarely been considered in Southwest archaeology (or elsewhere for that matter), yet undoubtedly they were key factors shaping the formation and maintenance of social groups and relationships. The current study addresses these problems by examining the archaeological record in new ways while remaining cognizant of the limitations of that record. As discussed in chapter 2, I proceed with the assumption that social units equivalent to what archaeologists term communities may not have existed at all times in the ancient past and may instead have appeared in particular contexts. In addition, I assess variability in both settlement patterns and site differentiation rather than assume the presence of idealized, uniform patterns. Finally, I consider the important role of intraregional population movement in the creation and maintenance of communities and other social groups.



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The Data Set One of the strengths of this study is that it utilizes multiple types of archaeological data and examines those data at several scales to provide a historically rich depiction of cultural process. A series of archaeological projects in the El Morro Valley have produced a large body of information, including settlement pattern and architectural data, dendrochronological samples, and ceramic compositional studies. All of these types of data are utilized in the current study to provide a more complete picture of the process of settlement of the valley in the AD 1200s.

Settlement Pattern Data Nearly half of the roughly 160 km2 El Morro Valley has been surveyed (fig. 3.2). Although the valley has not been completely surveyed, which would be ideal for spatial analyses, most of the known areas of dense settlement have been examined. Most of the survey blocks in the valley were originally chosen to define settlement patterns around large, wellknown Pueblo III and Pueblo IV period settlements (LeBlanc 1978; Saitta 1994a). These early surveys have since been augmented by archaeological research in the previously unsurveyed areas around Los Gigantes and El Morro National Monument. In total, these surveys have shown that most ancestral Pueblo settlements were located near slopes conducive to runoff farming, either along the mesas and canyons that define the southern and western margins of the valley or along the foothills of the Zuni Mountains. Although some sites have been located in the flat, central portions of the valley that are covered by old basalt flows, most of this area was devoid of settlement. It is unlikely that large settlement groups remain to be found given current survey coverage and the fact that much of the valley has been examined by multiple reconnaissance surveys focused on finding large sites (Kintigh 1985; Spier 1917; Woodbury n.d.; see Kintigh 1996). If unknown settlement groups are present, they are most likely located either southeast of El Morro National Monument or between the Scribe S and Tinaja survey areas. Woodbury (n.d.) noted a few larger sites in each of these areas in the 1950s, but since that time they have not been relocated or systematically recorded.

Excavated Material In addition to survey data, excavated material is available from four settlement groups, Los Gigantes, Scribe S, Togeye Canyon, and Tinaja (table 3.2). These groups represent four of the nine to twelve major areas of settlement in the valley (see chapter 6). Each of these groups has been

LA427

LA59323 LA59325 LA59326 LA59354

LA1571 LA59489 LA59485 LA109857

LA56159 LA56159 LA149030 LA149030

CS144

CS9 CS11 CS12 CS40

CS190, 29Va1 CS195, 29Va45 CS191, 29Va2 LZ1323, 29Va29

LZ1200 LZ1209 LZ1228 LZ1232

Field Number

209(12)

25 35 60 40

154(6) 100 13 35(2)

45 4 9 20

Rooms (Blocks)

?

? ? ? ?

4 1 0 0

1 1 0 2

Kivas

Testing

Testing Extensive Extensive Extensive

Extensive Midden testing Extensive Midden testing

Testing Extensive Midden testing Midden testing

Excavations

CARP

CARP CARP CARP CARP

DU EMVPP DU EMVPP

EMVPP EMVPP EMVPP EMVPP

Project

Notes: CARP, Cibola Archaeological Research Project, curated at Arizona State University; DU, Wake Forest University/University of Denver Pettit site collections, curated at University of Denver; EMVPP, El Morro Valley Prehistory Project, curated at Arizona State University.

Tinaja

CS9 CS11-Upper CS12 CS40

Scribe S Group

Pettit CS195 Six Rocks LA109857

Togeye Group

Los Gigantes Great House LZ1209 LA149030 LA149033

Los Gigantes Group

LA Number

Table 3.2. Sites and Settlement Groups Used in Primary Analyses



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completely surveyed, and excavations at multiple room blocks within each group have yielded detailed architectural information, large artifact samples, and numerous dendrochronological samples. The El Morro Valley data set is unique for the Zuni region in that multiple proximate settlement groups can be examined using both excavated and survey data. A brief description of each settlement group is presented next. Los Gigantes.  The Los Gigantes group is located on top and at the base of a large mesa in the west-central portion of the valley (fig. 3.8). The largest room block in the group has been identified as a post-Chaco great house and is located near a large, unroofed great kiva (Schachner and Kintigh 2004). A number of smaller pueblos are located in the immediate vicinity of the great house as well as within a few kilometers. Test excavation occurred both at the great house and at many of the surrounding room blocks (S. Kelly et al. 2005; Schachner and Kintigh 2004). Two small pueblos were selected for intensive, systematic excavation to assess

100 m

figure 3.8.  The Los Gigantes core area.

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site occupation length using ceramic accumulation estimates (Thompson 2005). Pottery samples from the great house, a nearby room block, and two pueblos located roughly 1 kilometer away were selected for the compositional analysis presented in chapters 5 and 7 (table 3.2). Scribe S.  The Scribe S site is the most well-known Pueblo III period settlement group in the valley and was intensively examined by CARP in the 1970s (Watson et al. 1980) (fig. 3.9). Scribe S consists of a group of Pueblo III period room blocks located a short distance from the Pueblo IV village of Pueblo de los Muertos. Like Los Gigantes, there is a dense cluster of room blocks surrounded by a number of more dispersed pueblos within a few kilometers. In addition to mapping the main settlement group and surveying its surroundings, CARP researchers excavated multiple rooms within each of nine different room blocks at Scribe S. These excavations produced a large dendrochronological sample that provides a detailed picture of settlement growth during the AD 1200s. Ceramic compositional samples were selected from four of the room blocks near the center of the Scribe S group. Togeye Canyon.  Togeye Canyon is one of the most densely settled portions of the El Morro Valley. Numerous pueblos are located at the base of the mesa slopes that define the canyon edges (fig. 3.2). The canyon was surveyed by Wake Forest University, the University of Denver (Saitta 1994a), CARP (LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980), and ASU yielding a detailed view of local settlement patterns. Wake Forest and University of Denver archaeologists conducted extensive excavations at the Pettit Site, a group of six room blocks located on a butte in the center of the valley, as well as at two smaller pueblos, Six Rocks and Kachina Corner (Saitta 1987). ASU has since tested the middens of a number of pueblos in the area, including CS195, a large pueblo located near the mouth of the canyon (S. Kelly et al. 2005). In this case compositional samples were submitted for analysis from Pettit, Six Rocks, CS195, and LA109857, the latter of which consists of a pair of pueblos. Tinaja.  The Tinaja group was originally recorded during Leslie Spier’s reconnaissance survey of the Zuni region (Spier 1917) and was later subjected to test excavations by CARP (Watson et al. 1980). The group consists of a dense cluster of twelve room blocks that are on top of and surrounding a small butte in the far eastern portion of the El Morro Valley (fig. 3.10). Unlike most other settlement groups, Tinaja consists almost exclusively of room blocks located within a stone’s throw of one another. Only three other contemporary room blocks are present within the Tinaja survey block. Ceramic compositional samples were selected from differ-

figure 3.9.  The Scribe S settlement group.

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LA427

figure 3.10.  Tinaja.

ent areas, rather than room blocks, in the Tinaja group due to differences in how artifacts were collected in this group during CARP.

Comparative Approach As stated in chapter 2, examining intraregional population movement and its relationship to the formation of communities is difficult unless one



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has the ability to compare how this process occurred in multiple social systems. The analyses that follow rely heavily on comparisons between settlement groups in the El Morro Valley and define axes of variability that are apparent among component residential groups. In addition, I compare the El Morro area to the Pescado Basin (Heshot uła area) (Kintigh et al. 2004) and Jaralosa Draw (Kintigh 2007; Kintigh et al. 1996), two other parts of the Zuni region for which similar information about Pueblo III period settlement exists. The latter two areas are good candidates for comparison, as they both have long-term settlement histories extending over centuries, unlike El Morro, although some of the broad outlines of settlement change are similar. Comparisons among different parts of the region highlight how population circulation shaped the unique circumstances of the formation of communities in the El Morro Valley.

CHAPTER FOUR

Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation The temporal rhythms of movement are one of the most difficult parameters of systems of population circulation to measure archaeologically. This problem is particularly troubling due to the importance of understanding timing when modeling the effects of circulation on the longterm formation and composition of residential groups, communities, and larger social networks. Much of the difficulty in assessing residential mobility and other movements in the archaeological record derives from the fact that our chronological methods are often too imprecise to adequately capture processes that occurred on intervals of a generation or less, such as those noted in the ethnographic cases summarized in chapter 2. Some recent attempts at estimating ancient residential mobility in the Southwest have had great success (Varien 1999a; Varien and Ortman 2005), however, illustrating that in strong archaeological cases with well-developed chronologies, which I would argue includes the El Morro Valley, delineation of temporal patterns of movement is possible and yields novel insights into ancient settlement and social systems. In this chapter, I utilize a variety of data types and methods to examine two parameters of movement, frequency and timing, in order to understand how temporal variation in movement influenced the formation of local social systems in the El Morro Valley.

Estimating the Frequency of Population Circulation Site occupation span is a good measure of the frequency of residential movement in mobile, agricultural societies (Hamnett 1977; Varien and

64



Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

65

Ortman 2005; Watson 1985; Whittle 1997). As people move between sites more frequently, the average occupation span of individual sites is reduced, especially if sites are not reoccupied and if the primary unit of movement corresponds with the unit of residence. The archaeological study of site occupation spans is difficult, however, as most dating methods are too imprecise to identify changes over short periods of time or because precise methods, such as tree-ring dating, usually do not directly date the activities of interest (i.e., the dates of site construction and abandonment). Recently archaeologists have successfully used pottery accumulation studies to provide estimates of site occupation spans in a variety of areas (see summary in Varien and Mills 1997). Mark Varien and colleagues’ studies (Varien 1999a; Varien and Ortman 2005; Varien and Potter 1997) of site occupation length in the central Mesa Verde region have been among the most prominent and well illustrate the utility of using pottery accumulation measures to track changes in residential mobility. Their research approximates site occupation spans by estimating the total number of cooking pots discarded during the occupation of a site and dividing that total by the average number of pots used per year by each household residing at the site. The total number of pots is usually estimated by dividing the total weight of pottery by the average weight of vessels from the analyzed time period. Population estimates are derived using a combination of methods, such as counting the number of habitation rooms or hearths (Varien 1999a) Among these variables, the most difficult to define is the average number of cooking pots discarded in a year. Although most studies have relied on ethnographic estimates (see Varien and Mills 1997), Varien (1999a:62– 88) relied on a strong archaeological case, the Duckfoot site, a nearly completely excavated small Pueblo I period hamlet with hundreds of treering dates spanning nearly the entirety of its occupation span from AD 850 to 880 (Varien 1999a:62–88). Using the estimate of average cooking pot discard from Duckfoot, Varien was then able to estimate occupation spans for a number of sites in the Mesa Verde region dating to a variety of time periods (Varien 1999a:89–111; Varien and Ortman 2005). These studies indicate that Pueblo III period (AD 1150–1300, contemporaneous with the occupation of the El Morro Valley) sites in the Mesa Verde region were lived in for one to four generations (10–80 years). Analyses of Mesa Verde habitation sites occupied during the Basketmaker III through Pueblo III periods (AD 750–1300) indicate that average occupation spans increased over time as the frequency of residential mobility declined (Varien and Ortman 2005). Varien’s methods represent a breakthrough in Southwest archaeology as they enable a move beyond estimates of occupation spans based on

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population circulation and zuni communities

average structure use-life, which are often used to help control for the influence of variation in site occupation lengths in population studies (e.g., Schlanger 1988; Wilshusen 2002) and to assess occupation spans at sites where precise tree-ring dates are absent or few in number. Varien’s research also provides solid evidence for the observation that many, if not most, ancient habitation sites were occupied for far shorter periods than those working with “deep sedentism” models of ancestral Pueblo residential mobility have often proposed (also see Hantman 1983; Lekson 1990). By comparing site occupation span estimates for different regions, archaeologists can track differences in the frequency of population circulation in various parts of the Southwest. Archaeologists working in the El Morro Valley are often struck by the sparseness of surface scatters associated with Pueblo III period room blocks. Unlike pueblos in other parts of the Zuni region, such as the Pescado Basin or Jaralosa Draw, most El Morro Valley pueblos possess extremely low density scatters of pottery, lithics, and other artifacts. In fact, at many Pueblo III period pueblos in the valley, even those over fifty rooms in size, it can sometimes be very difficult to find any artifacts on the surface. Casual collecting of surface artifacts in the recent past does not seem to have been responsible for this pattern, as the El Morro sites are no more accessible than sites in most other parts of the Zuni region and variation in artifact assemblages within the valley does not appear to be linked to proximity to roads or modern settlements. The El Morro Valley Prehistory Project (EMVPP) that I codirected with Keith Kintigh of Arizona State University investigated the possibility that these sparse surface scatters resulted from short occupation spans by subjecting two small pueblos in the Los Gigantes group to systematic testing modeled after Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s Sand Canyon Small Site Testing Program, which used intensive, stratified random sampling of small sites to estimate cooking pot discard and site occupation spans (Varien 1999b).

Ceramic Accumulation Studies In a recent masters’ thesis, Scott Thompson (2005) utilized Varien’s methods for estimating site occupation spans at LZ1204 and LZ1209, two pueblos that are part of the central core of the Los Gigantes group (LA56159) (see fig. 3.8). In both cases, Thompson conservatively estimated site occupation spans were less than 10 years using a range of values for population size and ceramic accumulation rates (table 4.1). Even if his estimates are off by a factor of two, which seems unlikely, these occupation spans are much shorter than what many archaeologists might suspect and much shorter than estimates derived from the average



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Table 4.1. Occupation Estimates for LZ1204 and LZ1209 Room Block

No. of Rooms

1209

4

1204

6–8

No. of Households 1 2 2 3

Point Estimate

95% Confidence Interval

2.9–3.7 years 1.5–1.8 years 6.7–8.4 years 4.5–5.6 years

2.8–4.5 years 1.4–2.2 years 6.4–8.7 years 4.3–5.8 years

Note:  Estimates are presented in ranges. Thompson (2005) used various possible accumulation rates in order to understand the range of probable occupation spans.

use-life of pueblo buildings. In fact, estimates of the use-life of Puebloan buildings generally range from 15 years for jacal construction or pitstructures to 40 years for masonry pueblos (Ahlstrom 1985; Schlanger 1988; Wilshusen 2002). Both El Morro pueblos had full height masonry walls and could have been occupied for much longer than the periods estimated had people not chosen to move. No usable artifacts were recovered from either pueblo and the roofs of both structures had been dismantled and removed, suggesting the perishable portions of the architecture were still in usable condition when the room blocks were abandoned. These two pueblos were selected for excavation because they are typical of most small pueblos in the valley in terms of size, construction method, and surface artifact density. It should be noted, however, that by some measures these two small pueblos might have been among the longest occupied small room blocks in the Los Gigantes group, as they possessed among the most clearly defined trash areas associated with any of the pueblos in the vicinity. LZ1204, which was one of the larger room blocks in the group, had the third deepest midden of any of the nine Los Gigantes room blocks tested by the EMVPP. Extrapolating from this admittedly tiny pottery accumulation sample, it is likely that the vast majority of pueblos in the valley with similarly depleted surface assemblages were also occupied for short periods of time. A few other lines of evidence derived from excavation projects that did not pursue the sampling strategy necessary for the pottery accumulation estimates, including trash deposition patterns, architectural remodeling and technologies, and intrasite dendrochronology, support this interpretation.

Trash Deposition and Midden Depths One rough means of gauging the low levels of trash accumulation associated with most small pueblos in the El Morro Valley is a comparison of midden depths to other excavated Pueblo III middens in the Jaralosa Draw area and to contemporary sites in the Mesa Verde region (figs. 4.1

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population circulation and zuni communities

figure 4.1.  Box plot of midden depths in the El Morro Valley, Jaralosa Draw area, and Mesa Verde area (Schachner 2007:Table 5.2; Varien 1999b:Table 1.1).

and 4.2). There are clearly problems with using midden depth as a proxy for occupation length, because it does not take into account differences in midden area, site size, variation in trash disposal behavior, or postdepositional processes. On the other hand, midden depth is easily measured, so it should be comparable across sites and regions. In addition, there do not appear to be obvious differences in how trash was disposed of in the areas that I discuss here. Most trash was deposited in discrete areas located a short distance from a room block and the current scatters are of similar magnitude (tens of square meters) in all three areas. Ostensibly, shallow middens indicate short occupation spans, other factors being equal. Ancient residents of both the Zuni and Mesa Verde regions were cognizant of this fact, as some great houses in both regions have middens that were artificially augmented with other cultural fills to increase their height (Cameron 2002, 2009; Kintigh et al. 1996). A large midden, or at least the appearance of a large midden, was likely considered indicative of deep historical ties to particular places. The augmented middens at some great houses suggest that people who wished to enhance their claims of residential time depth or land tenure manipulated these visual metrics. As can be seen in figure 4.1, middens associated with room blocks in the Zuni region are generally shallower than those in the Mesa Verde area, suggesting that Zuni Pueblo III period occupation spans were often shorter. This pattern is more apparent in the dot plot in figure 4.2. Of



Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

69

figure 4.2.  Dot plot of midden depths in the El Morro Valley, Jaralosa Draw area, and Mesa Verde area (Schachner 2007:Table 5.2; Varien 1999b:Table 1.1).

particular interest in this latter figure is the large number of very shallow middens associated with the El Morro Valley sites. Although the mean and range of midden depths for both Zuni subregions are similar, there appears to be a bimodal distribution in the El Morro area, with a larger proportion of sites having middens less than 25 cm in depth (8 of 21, 38 percent versus 1 of 15, 7 percent for Jaralosa Draw and 0 of 13 for Mesa Verde). Shallow midden depths are even found at large El Morro Valley pueblos, such as CS81, a sixty-five-room pueblo at which surface and midden trash is virtually nonexistent. The bimodal distribution of midden depths in the El Morro Valley suggests that there was some variation in site occupation length, which is not unexpected. This variation is explored further in the following discussions of tree-ring dating and ceramic seriation. In general, however, the high proportion of shallow midden depths corroborates the limited pottery accumulation data and provides some support for the interpretation that residential mobility was frequent in the El Morro area in comparison to both the central Mesa Verde and Jaralosa Draw areas. The average depths of Jaralosa Draw middens are comparable to those in the El Morro Valley, but, as discussed previously, there are many more very shallow middens in the latter area. One key contrast that may in part be related to these differences is that the Mesa Verde and Jaralosa areas have long continuous settlement histories (Kintigh et al. 1996; Varien 1999a, b), unlike the El Morro Valley, which as I demonstrate later in the chapter was settled for a comparatively short duration.

Architectural Technologies and Remodeling An assessment of architectural technologies provides another means of estimating site occupation spans and the frequency of residential mobility. Houses that are intended for longer occupations are usually constructed using more durable materials and methods (Binford 1990; Diehl 1992; R. Kelly et al. 2005; Kent 1992). This observation has been corroborated in the Southwest by archaeological studies using precise dating

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methods (Ahlstrom 1985). Documenting differences in construction methods is a useful way to measure how long people intended to reside at particular sites, as opposed to how long they actually did reside at sites as measured by occupation length (cf. Kent 1992). In addition, as some construction methods necessarily limit potential site use-life, their identification provides a means of estimating maximum possible occupation length barring extensive remodeling. The Pueblo III period archaeological record of the El Morro Valley is somewhat unique in the Zuni region because of the common use of jacal construction. Jacal architecture is most frequently found in pre–AD 1000 room blocks in the Zuni region (Roberts 1931, 1939) and is not considered characteristic of later time periods. In the El Morro Valley, however, some late Pueblo III period structures are constructed entirely out of jacal, while others exhibit a combination of jacal and masonry construction (table 4.2). Table 4.2.  Architectural Technologies at Excavated Sites in the El Morro Valley Site

Architectural Technologies

Los Gigantes Los Gigantes Great House LZ1204 LZ1209

Masonry Masonry, jacal, masonry/jacal Masonry, masonry/jacal

Scribe S CS9 CS11 Upper CS11 Middle CS11 Lower CS12 CS39 CS40 CS44 Tinaja

Masonry Masonry Masonry Masonry Masonry, jacal Masonry Masonry Masonry, jacal Masonry

Michaels Land Exchange AR-03-03-02-00511 AR-03-03-02-00511A AR-03-03-02-00518 AR-03-03-02-00519 AR-03-03-02-00520 AR-03-03-02-00788 Hokona

Masonry Jacal, jacal/masonry Jacal Jacal, jacal/masonry Jacal, masonry Jacal, masonry Masonry/jacal



Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

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A number of late Pueblo III sites that consist of jacal surface structures associated with small, subterranean pitstructures have been excavated in the El Morro Valley as part of the Michaels Land Exchange project (Anyon 1984; Wandsnider n.d.) and recent reconfiguration of New Mexico Route 53 (Schwendler 2008). On the surface, these sites appear to be simple artifact scatters. Upon excavation, jacal and masonry architecture become apparent and these sites yield pottery and tree-ring dates indicative of contemporaneity with sites with more typical late Pueblo III architecture and surface manifestations (i.e., masonry pueblos and discrete middens). Some of the jacal structures in the El Morro Valley were large, subrectangular rooms, while others were simple arcs open to the elements on one side. Most sites contained multiple jacal structures, sometimes in association with a single contemporaneous one- or two-room masonry structure. The masonry structures were devoid of internal features, suggesting they were largely used for storage. All of these jacal sites have features and artifact assemblages indicating that they were not functionally different from other small pueblos. Given ethnographic evidence that people select architectural technologies most suited to their intended occupation span, the most parsimonious interpretation of these sites is that they were intended for similar uses as masonry pueblos, albeit for shorter spans of time. Unfortunately, the exact length of these occupations is difficult to determine with current data, but the original excavators concluded that the sites were not seasonal occupations (Anyon 1984; Schwendler 2008). The fact that Southwest jacal structures generally last less than 15 years and that the El Morro Valley sites lack evidence for significant remodeling suggests their occupations were similar in length to those of LZ1204 and LZ1209 in the Los Gigantes group, if not shorter. Even Pueblo III period sites in the El Morro Valley that appear from the surface to be typical masonry pueblos contain jacal walls. At LZ1204, portions of both the exterior wall and interior cross walls were constructed out of jacal (fig. 4.3). At both LZ1204 and LZ1209, one three-walled room open to extramural space in front of each pueblo had partial masonry walls with a jacal superstructure. Jacal walls and semienclosed rooms were noted at at least two pueblos at the Scribe S site as well. The use of jacal walls may have been more frequent than suspected during the original excavations at Scribe S, as many of the pueblos were partially dismantled prehistorically, making it difficult to trace some walls (CARP Archives n.d.). Some of these missing walls may have been jacal or mixtures of jacal and masonry technologies. Sandstone or basalt is ubiquitous and abundant throughout the valley and commonly found in pueblos, indicating that the choice to construct less durable walls was not made due to raw material shortages. More

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population circulation and zuni communities

figure 4.3.  Post holes from jacal walls at LZ1204 room block at Los Gigantes (photo by author).

likely, these decisions were based on expectations about how long a pueblo would be occupied and in order to limit the labor required to quarry and shape stone. Thus, it appears that some sites in the region were occupied with the intention to either move on or remodel the initial construction a short time later. The fact that relatively low-cost, short use-life architectural technologies were used at multiple excavated sites indicates that the residents of many El Morro pueblos knew they would move residences within a short period of time. Of course, the fact that some sites, such as LZ1204 and LZ1209, which were largely built with more long-lasting technologies, were also occupied for short periods suggests that construction methods alone are not always the best indicator of occupation length. Another striking aspect of the El Morro pueblos is a decided lack of evidence for remodeling. Multiple floors were not encountered at the Los Gigantes great house or either of the two smaller pueblos where architectural areas were excavated as part of the EMVPP. Multiple floors were recorded in only one room (CS9–51) out of more than thirty excavated by CARP at nine Scribe S room blocks (CARP Archives n.d.). There is very limited evidence for remodeling of walls as well. At Scribe S, the only



Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

73

definitive evidence of wall remodeling also occurred in CS9–Room 51. Most of the room blocks at Scribe S had been extensively robbed of stone, however, making assessment of changes in walls difficult. The only evidence that could be considered a common indicator of remodeling in the valley is the filling of doorways. Six filled-in doorways were noted in the walls of the Los Gigantes great house. This pattern is difficult to interpret, however, as it could be the result of actual remodeling of rooms during site occupation, the temporary use of doorways during initial construction that were later filled, or the complete sealing of the pueblo when its residents moved away. Overall, there is little architectural evidence that any of the Pueblo III period room blocks in the El Morro Valley underwent significant remodeling as would be expected over occupation spans exceeding the typical life span of pueblo architecture (20–40 years, Wilshusen 2002:107–8). As discussed later in the next section, there is some indication that pueblo roofs were repaired, but even in these cases, site occupation lengths scarcely exceeded a single generation.

Site-Level Dendrochronology Dendrochronology provides another means of examining site occupation length and remodeling. Site construction dates are usually signaled by a peak period of tree-cutting activity spanning a few years’ time, as construction wood was often left to cure for multiple years before use (Ahlstrom 1985). If multiple peaks of tree cutting exist at a site, this is usually a good indication that additions were made to the site or new beams were added during remodeling. Because roofs are often the most perishable part of pueblo architecture due to structural decay and insect infestation, they were modified more often than walls. Whether new beams were added as part of an addition or due to remodeling can usually be determined if a pueblo’s tree-ring data are presented by individual room. A total of 297 tree-ring samples from archaeological sites in the El Morro Valley have been assigned a date by the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research (LTRR) at the University of Arizona. Of these, 187 are from Pueblo III period sites and are presented as stem-and-leaf diagrams in figure 4.4. Stem-and-leaf diagrams are useful methods for presenting tree-ring data as they provide an easy way to identify peaks of tree-cutting activity and denote cutting (underlined) versus noncutting dates. Note that only dates with r and/or B suffixes, which were assigned during analysis by the LTRR, are considered cutting dates in the following analyses. Many of the El Morro sites, including CS9, CS11–Upper, CS40, CS44, LZ1204, Hokona, and all of the Michaels Land Exchange sites, have either a single cutting date, a small number of cutting dates from a span of 3 years or less, or a series of noncutting dates. The Tinaja sample

Scribe S CS 9 Room 51

120|7 121|1

CS 11 Lower Upper Room 41 113|0 Room 71 124|9 Room 76 Room 43 114|9 121|0 1 1 1 6 Room 77 123|8 124|6 7 9 125|4 126|2 4 4 6 Room 79 Room 49 117|9 126|9 Room 80

122|5 122|2 115|2 123|1 125|0 113|6 116|1 126|4 5 126|1

CS 11 Combined Lower Combined Upper 113|0 113|6 114|9 115|2 117|9 116|1 121|0 1 1 1 6 122|2 5 123|8 123|1 124|6 7 9 9 125|0 125|4 126|1 4 5 126|2 4 4 6 9 CS 12 CS 12 Room 1 122|4 Room 11 123|1 124|2 Room 2 122|9 126|6 Room 3 120|2 121|9 122|9 124|5 126|0 1 7

100|7 115|7 116|0 117|0 119|2 7 120|2 121|1 122|6 6 8 8 123|0 2 5 124|0 0 0 0 0 4 4 4 125|5 6 6 6 6 126|4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 555555 127|5 5

figure 4.4. Stem-and-leaf plots of El Morro Valley tree-ring dates from Pueblo III sites.

CS 12 CS 12 123|0 6 8 Room 13 118|0 Room 4 125|2 120|6 124|4 CS 12 100|7 Room 14 116|4 115|7 117|5 Combined 116|0 4 120|2 117|0 5 123|3 118|0 124|3 7 9 9 119|2 7 125|0 2 8 120|2 2 2 6 126|3 4 5 7 7 121|1 9 127|3 122|4 6 6 8 8 9 9 123|0 0 1 2 3 5 6 8 124|0 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 4 4 4 5 7 9 9 125|0 2 2 5 6 6 6 6 8 126|0 1 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 7 7 7 7 127|3 5 5 CS 40 CS 39 Room 65 107|2 Room 61 111|7 115|5 116|3 119|6 7 120|3 Room 62 121|1 123|5 125|6 CS 44 126|5 Room 49 127|6 6 6 6

122|8 123|3 125|3 6 126|7 124|0

120|0 9 127|5

Michaels Land Exchange AR-03-03-02-00520 AR-03-03-02-00511A Jacal 200 116|2 Pitstructure 999 115|6 122|4 Pitstructure 118|4 126|8 AR-03-03-02-00519 117|3 Jacal 1

Pitstructure 3038 127|122 Jacal 3 Jacal 4

121|7 99|9

AR-03-03-02-00788 Pitstructure 112|6   105

(continued)

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population circulation and zuni communities

Hokona LA153714 Feature 22 127|2 Hokona Combined Feature 24 124|6 126|7 127|4444555 Los Gigantes LA56159 LZ1200 Room 3 125|3 4 Los Gigantes 126|6 9 Combined 127|0 Room 6 125|3 126|3 4 4 Room 12

124|8

LZ1204 Firepit

123|8

Tinaja Room 1 126|2 Tinaja Combined Room 11 125|1 127|0 0 Room 21 114|2 120|4 128|4 Room 33 111|9 Room 42 103|0 116|7 117|3 Room 43

123|4 126|9

Surface

124|6 126|5

figure 4.4.  Continued.

124|6 126|7 127|24444555

123|8 124|8 125|3 3 4 126|3 4 4 6 9 127|0

103|0 111|9 114|2 116|7 117|3 120|4 123|4 124|6 125|1 126|2 5 9 127|0 0 128|4



Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

77

is also problematic, with only two cutting dates and only one or two dates from individual rooms. The tree-ring data from these sites provide little evidence for remodeling or long occupations. These patterns could arise due to the lack of cutting dates compared to noncutting dates, the small number of samples recovered in each case, or actual site construction behavior. Unfortunately, differentiating among these possibilities is difficult. Patterns at other sites are more easily interpreted due to larger sample sizes and the presence of multiple cutting dates spanning longer periods of time. The Scribe S group has the largest tree-ring sample in the valley and provides the best opportunity for interpretation of occupation spans at multiple room blocks located near one another, including CS12, CS11– Lower, and CS39. CS12, one of the largest room blocks at Scribe S, also has the largest tree-ring sample from any Pueblo III pueblo in the El Morro Valley due to extensive burning and excavation. Cutting dates are present for the 1220s, 1240s, 1250s, 1260s, and 1270s. The fact that only two cutting dates are from prior to the AD 1240s suggests these beams were likely salvaged from earlier, nearby structures. Construction most likely began in earnest in the AD 1240s followed by multiple remodeling episodes. How long CS12 was occupied after the latest cutting date of AD 1275 is unclear, but most likely this period was short (Ahlstrom 1985; Hantman 1983). The construction of the nearby, large, nucleated Pueblo de los Muertos in the AD 1280s resulted in the dismantling of many of the room blocks in the Scribe S group, including CS12 (Watson et al. 1980). Thus, the occupation of CS12 probably ceased sometime in the mid-to late AD 1270s or early AD 1280s after an occupation spanning roughly 40 years. CS11–Lower also has cutting dates indicating construction began in the AD 1240s. In this case, there are no later cutting dates associated with a remodeling episode, but the presence of noncutting dates in the AD 1260s suggests remodeling occurred sometime after this point and occupation likely continued into the AD 1270s as well. The tree-ring dates from CS39 are difficult to interpret, as the two earliest cutting dates, AD 1211 and AD 1235, may represent salvaged wood based on the distribution of tree-ring dates for the Scribe S group as a whole. The presence of cutting dates in the mid-AD 1270s suggests that construction at CS39 ceased at the same time as the other room blocks at Scribe S. Overall, the room blocks at Scribe S appear to have been built simultaneously sometime in the AD 1240s and occupation continued into the AD 1270s or early AD 1280s. The small amount of tree-ring information from the other room blocks at Scribe S is consistent with this occupation estimate. How long each of these other room blocks was occupied is less clear, however, and some

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population circulation and zuni communities

may have been occupied for very short periods of time. The smallest room blocks, such as CS9 and CS44, are the most likely to have been occupied for short periods given their similarity in size to LZ1204 and LZ1209 at Los Gigantes. A small number of anomalous cutting dates from AD 1211 (three from three room blocks), the AD 1220s (two from one room at CS 12), and the AD 1230s (two from two room blocks) at Scribe S suggest that some wood was likely obtained from earlier pueblos in the area. The fact that these samples are not concentrated in particular rooms or room blocks supports the interpretation that they may have been salvaged. Pueblos from the early AD 1200s have not been conclusively identified in the El Morro Valley, however, so exactly where this wood came from is unclear. The presence of a few beams from this period suggests that at least a small number of pueblos may have been built in the valley during the AD 1210–40 interval. This occupation was likely very small; otherwise it would be more apparent in chronological examinations of pottery from survey sites. A few possible early AD 1200s sites are identified in the ceramic seriation in this chapter and in chapter 6. Unfortunately, none of these have been the subject of excavations, and no tree-ring samples are currently available. Alternatively, these beams may have been dead wood available on arrival or were brought from more distant pueblos outside the valley. Although seemingly unlikely, the latter scenario is plausible given the evidence I present for population circulation in later chapters. Overall, the main portion of the Scribe S group appears to have been occupied between the AD 1240s and 1270s. Even though this range is much longer than the short occupation estimates for the Los Gigantes room blocks, it is still short in comparison to most Pueblo III occupation spans estimated by Varien (1999a:table 5.4) for the Mesa Verde area, the majority of which average greater than 40 years. The short occupation spans at Scribe S are especially surprising given that many of the Scribe S room blocks are much larger (30–60 rooms) than most of those in Varien’s sample. Los Gigantes has more limited dendrochronological evidence for estimating occupation spans. The only tree-ring date that is not from the great house is a single noncutting date from firewood in a roasting pit at LZ1204. Only two cutting dates were recovered at the great house, dating to AD 1253 and 1270, suggesting it was occupied for at least 20 years or so. Seven of eight noncutting dates fall between these two dates, which seems unlikely if the great house was occupied for many years past AD 1270. Coupled with evidence from the ceramic seriation discussed in the next section, the largest and most socially important build-



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ing in the group appears to have been occupied for a little more than 20 years. This span is approximately two to ten times longer than the site occupation estimates based on pottery accumulation for nearby LZ1204 and LZ1209. Thus, in this group it seems that at least one pueblo, the great house, was occupied for roughly a generation, with nearby smaller pueblos occupied for shorter periods. The overall settlement group population was likely smaller than would be estimated if one assumed all of nearby room blocks were completely contemporaneous. The pattern of occupation at Scribe S may have been similar, but at the present time occupation spans of the smaller room blocks there cannot be estimated directly. In total, various lines of evidence related to site occupation length suggest that El Morro Valley pueblos were occupied for relatively short periods of time in the AD 1200s. Site occupation length estimates range from a few years in the case of LZ1204 and LZ1209 to nearly 40 years in the case of CS12 and other room blocks at Scribe S. All of these occupation ranges are less than standard estimates for the use-life of pueblo buildings, which is not surprising given the lack of remodeling at El Morro Valley pueblos. Residents of some El Morro pueblos seem to have anticipated short occupations as indicated by the common use of jacal architecture. Expectations for short occupations are most clearly expressed at the Michaels Land Exchange sites and at Hokona, which were largely jacal, but may also be indicated by the construction of the jacal/masonry hybrid pueblos elsewhere.

Refining Estimates of El Morro Valley Chronology In addition to providing a more complete understanding of the frequency of movement by El Morro Valley residents, a second facet of understanding the temporal rhythms of movement is an exploration of the exact timing of movement into the valley. Although El Morro Valley chronology has been extensively explored in prior analyses of CARP data (Duff 1996; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985; LeBlanc 1975, 1976, 1978; Marquardt 1974, 1978; Watson et al. 1980), I provide a new perspective that integrates the large body of data that has been generated in the valley since the mid-1970s. This combined analysis provides insights into overall timing of movement into the valley, as well as support for the inference of frequent mobility by residential groups. In total, the El Morro chronological data provide one of the most temporally precise views of movement in the Pueblo Southwest if not the archaeology of small-scale farming societies more broadly.

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Dendrochronology and the Timing of Migration Into the El Morro Area The large body of tree-ring dates from the El Morro Valley provides an excellent means for tracking changes in the pace of construction and identifying pulses of movement into the area. A similar approach was taken by Varien (1999a:126–38) to identify the major periods of construction and settlement growth associated with different communities in the Mesa Verde region. As stated previously, a total of 297 tree-ring samples from the El Morro Valley have been assigned either cutting or noncutting dates. Of these, 187 derive from Pueblo III period sites, while 110 are from five large, nucleated Pueblo IV period villages (Atsinna, North Atsinna, Cienega, Mirabal, and Pueblo de los Muertos). Sixty-six of the total are cutting dates (using the same criteria as in the prior section), while 221 are noncutting dates. As can be seen from figure 4.5, all cutting dates derive from the period between AD 1211 and 1288. The noncutting dates have a wider range, from AD 990 to 1349. Although noncutting dates are not particularly useful for identifying initial construction periods, they are useful for delineating minimal last dates of activity (Ahlstrom 2008). The most striking pattern in figure 4.5 is the fact that tree-felling activ-

Noncutting

figure 4.5.  All tree-ring dates from the El Morro Valley.



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ity is concentrated between AD 1240 and 1290, with peak cutting activity occurring between AD 1260 and 1280. The noncutting dates exhibit a very strong peak in the AD 1260s, and if one assumes that these dates are near-cutting dates, this supports the notion that construction in the valley peaked during this interval. Only seven cutting dates precede the AD 1240s, and all of these were recovered from scattered contexts at Scribe S. As discussed previously, these likely represent beams salvaged from structures constructed prior to the main period of building activity. When viewed in total, the tree-ring data are solid evidence that construction activity and the peak period of movement into the valley occurred over a span of scarcely more than a single generation in the mid- to late AD 1200s. The other prominent pattern is the lack of cutting dates and presence of very few noncutting dates that postdate AD 1290. Four of the nu­ cleated pueblos, Cienega, Mirabal, Atsinna, and Pueblo de los Muertos, have been assigned to the period from roughly AD 1275 to 1350 based on prior ceramic seriations (Huntley and Kintigh 2004). Despite the fact that 110 tree-ring samples from these sites have been dated and a far larger number of rooms from these sites have been excavated than the sum-total of excavated Pueblo III period rooms, only six dates, all noncutting, postdating AD 1290 have been recovered. All of these late dates are from Atsinna. It is unlikely that the lack of late dates is due to salvaging after depopulation of the El Morro area, as later Zuni region villages were located well downstream at distances (30 km and up) that would have made widespread salvaging cost prohibitive. There are a few possible interpretations for the lack of post–AD 1290s dates. First, this pattern could have occurred if very few changes were made in the architecture of the nucleated pueblos after their construction began in the late AD 1270s or 1280s. There is evidence for extensive additions to the initial construction at the most extensively excavated Pueblo IV village, Pueblo de los Muertos, however. Hundreds of surface rooms were built on the edges of the original plaza (Watson et al. 1980:207). Similar additions and remodeling are present at Cienega and Mirabal (Watson et al. 1980:209–11). It is possible that these changes occurred within a decade or so of initial construction and did not result in the inclusion of post-AD 1290 dates, but this implies rapid growth soon after the pueblos were first built. A second possibility is that the widespread presence of earlier Pueblo III period room blocks with still serviceable roofs resulted in the use of massive amounts of salvaged wood in the nucleated pueblos. This seems quite probable considering the late construction of most Pueblo III room blocks, with many having beams that would have been less than 20

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years old by the AD 1270s and 1280s. On the other hand, the Zuni Mountains are directly adjacent to the El Morro Valley and would presumably have been covered with large stands of trees suitable for construction material. Extensive reuse of beams might be indicated by the large number of noncutting dates from nucleated pueblos. Only 11 out of 110 (10 percent) dates from the nucleated pueblos are cutting dates, versus 55 of 187 (29 percent) from the aggregated sites. It is possible the surfaces of beams were damaged during salvaging, making them more likely to have been stripped of their outer rings. A change in beam preparation could also account for the large number of noncutting dates, especially if people began to strip the bark off beams, although I am not aware of evidence for this practice in the El Morro Valley. Regardless of the explanation, however, it seems that construction activity declined significantly by AD 1300, raising the possibility that the large nucleated pueblos began to decline in population within 20 years of their initial construction (see Kintigh 1985:110–12). It should also be noted that there is very little temporal separation between the last cutting dates at pueblos in aggregated groups and the first cutting dates at the nucleated pueblos. The last cutting dates at Scribe S are from AD 1276, while nine of the eleven cutting dates from the nucleated sites are from between AD 1279 and 1288. The other two are AD 1260 at Mirabal and AD 1274 at Atsinna. Assuming that occupation at the aggregated groups continued for a few years after the last evidence for construction raises the possibility that many of the aggregated groups were still occupied while the nucleated pueblos were being built. This is clearly the case for the Tinaja group, which has cutting dates at AD 1270 and 1284, spanning the gap between the Scribe S (aggregated) and Muertos (nucleated) phases proposed by Watson and colleagues (1980:205–7). Regardless of site type, however, construction in the valley was concentrated during a short interval between AD 1240 and 1290. During this time period, hundreds of pueblos were built containing thousands of rooms. The El Morro Valley went from being a relative backwater on the Cibola landscape to one of the most densely occupied parts of the entire Southwest (Duff and Schachner 2007; Wilcox et al. 2007). Although previously a frontier, by the late AD 1200s, the El Morro Valley was likely the primary social center in the Cibola area. People who resided in the valley at this time also witnessed dramatic changes within the span of a single generation as massive, nucleated pueblos were first constructed and then completely replaced the smaller room blocks that had typified settlement for the preceding 400 years.



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Ceramic Seriation Ceramic seriation enables the exploration of El Morro chronology using a much larger data set that includes the vast majority of known sites in the valley that lack dendrochronological samples. Some of the first applications of frequency seriation in North American archaeology were conducted using Zuni region pottery (Kroeber 1916; Spier 1917), and a number of advances in seriation methodology have been produced while examining the CARP pottery data (Duff 1996; Kintigh 1985; Le Blanc 1975, 1976; Marquardt 1974, 1978). Either typological or attribute-based seriation is particularly effective in this region (see Duff 1996) because Pueblo III and early Pueblo IV period Zuni area ceramic types are easy to identify, their spans of production have been well defined due to extensive crossdating with tree-ring specimens (Carlson 1970; Eckert 2006; Fowler 1989; Hays-Gilpin and van Hartesveldt 1998; Kintigh 1985, 1996), and temporally diagnostic changes occur in design style, slip color, paint technologies, and line thickness across multiple types (Anyon 1984; Hays-Gilpin and van Hartesveldt 1998; LeBlanc 1975, 1976; Marquardt 1974; Spier 1917). In the interest of brevity, I present only a short summary of the analytical process here and focus instead on the resulting temporal groups. For discussion of details concerning methodology, sample and variable selections, and the interpretation of the outputs of the analytical techniques themselves, see Schachner (2007:160–71). In this seriation, two quantitative methods, correspondence analysis and k-means clustering, were used to seriate pottery assemblages from a total of 135 samples derived from both excavated and surface contexts. This combined method has proven useful in the Cibola area (Duff 1996; Huntley 2004, 2008; Kintigh et al. 2004; Schachner and Kilby 2005), as it provides both a graphic display of patterns in the data and summary statistical information for assigning temporal periods to groups of sites. Samples were included from room blocks in aggregated groups and a few of the nucleated settlements that may have been occupied prior to AD 1275 based on their pottery assemblages. The seriation results in the division of El Morro assemblages into five ceramic groups, which for the most part correspond to temporal divisions in the data set (table 4.3; fig. 4.6). Only ceramic group 1, which consists of two sites with early pottery, is distinct from the rest in terms of which types are present, rather than the proportion in which types are present. Ceramic group 1 includes two artifact scatters that likely represent intermittent, short-term use of the area during the Pueblo I or Pueblo II periods (LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). Intriguingly, no sites with pot-

2

1.6 0 4.5 0 0 7 2.9 0 2.9 0 0 0 0 7.4

10.1 0 4.5 0 0 71.7 2.9 0 2.9 0 0 0 0 7.4

Note:  Highest means for each variable are in boldface type.

Early Cibola White ware Puerco Black-on-white Reserve Black-on-white Tularosa Black-on-white Pinedale Black-on-white Indet. Cibola White ware Wingate Black-on-red Wingate polychrome St. Johns types Late St. Johns variants Pinedale types Heshotauthla types Kwakina polychrome Indet. White Mountain Red ware Number of sample units

SD

Mean (%)

1

Table 4.3. Summary of Temporal Ceramic Groups

.1 .2 .3 8.1 1 35.4 1.1 .3 21.6 2.1 0 .1 0 30

Mean (%)

31

2

.3 .7 .7 4.7 1.5 3.7 2 1 5.8 2.6 .2 .3 0 6.1

SD .1 .3 .3 4.7 .8 25 .5 .1 20.5 2.3 .2 .4 .8 44.2

Mean (%)

61

3

.4 .8 .7 4.3 1.4 6.6 1.2 .4 7.4 2.6 .6 .8 2.6 4.9

SD

.4 3.7 1.8 5.6 0.9 .2 7.5 4.5 .3 1.7 4.5 8.6

.1 2.6 .8 12.3 0.3 .1 20.7 3 .1 .7 1.8 57.4 36

0

.4

SD

0

.1

Mean (%)

4

.6 3.5 .5 17 0 0 58.2 1.2 0 0 0 19.1

0 0

Mean (%)

5

5

0 0 1.1 3.3 .9 13.4 0 0 11 1.6 0 0 0 3.9

SD



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AD

figure 4.6.  Date ranges for Pueblo III period ceramic groups.

tery assemblages associated with the ceramic complexes used between AD 1000 and 1225 were identified (see Kintigh 1996:table 9.1), verifying the proposed temporal gap in use of the valley prior to the massive population increase in the mid–AD 1200s (LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). The remaining four groups represent slightly different intervals during the late Pueblo III period (AD 1225–75). These are distinguished from one another by variation in the proportions of types present and by increasing proportions of red ware. Ceramic group 3, the largest group in terms of number of samples, represents the typical Pueblo III period assemblage from the valley and is dominated by St. Johns types and Tularosa Black-on-white. This group includes a number of tree-ring dated contexts from CS9, CS11, and CS12 at Scribe S, and from the Tinaja group (CS144). Given the tree-ring evidence from Scribe S, this group most likely corresponds to the interval between roughly AD 1250 and AD 1275, which coincides with the peak of construction activity in the valley. Ceramic group 2 dates either slightly earlier or to the beginning of this interval. This group has a higher proportion of black-on-white pottery than any of the other Pueblo III period groups, which typically suggests an earlier date (Anyon 1984; Clark et al. 2006; LeBlanc 1975, 1976). Unfortunately chronometric dates are not available from any of these sites, but an estimate of occupation beginning sometime between AD 1225 and AD 1250 seems reasonable. The few scattered beams with cutting dates from this interval at Scribe S were likely salvaged from sites built during this initial period of settlement. Ceramic group 4 represents the opposite end of the El Morro Pueblo III sequence and likely dates to the period in the AD 1270s when many of the smaller room blocks were decommissioned and people began to construct large nucleated pueblos. This group includes slightly higher proportions of late St. Johns types and the initial appearance of early Zuni Glaze Ware, which was first made around AD 1275 (Eckert 2006). Members of this group include a number of contexts from the Tinaja group, which is the only aggregated group with dendrochronological samples

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indicative of occupation both prior to and after AD 1280. In addition to many of the proveniences at Tinaja, a few contexts from the Los Gigantes great house and its surrounding room block group, as well as some room blocks at Scribe S, are assigned to this cluster. All of these contexts likely date to the terminal occupations of these sites, which appear to have been sometime in the AD 1270s or early 1280s. Intriguingly, all of the surface assemblages from the Kluckhohn ruin, a large nucleated pueblo, are assigned to this interval as well. This indicates it was likely occupied sometime during the late AD 1200s and was contemporary with the latest of the aggregated groups. All surface assemblages from the Box S ruin, another large nucleated pueblo located in the extreme northwest part of the valley, are members of ceramic group 3, suggesting occupation there may have begun even earlier. Other nucleated pueblos in the El Morro Valley, which were not included in the current analysis, are well dated to the last two decades of the AD 1200s and the early AD 1300s judging from available tree-ring dates and prior ceramic seriations (Huntley 2008; Huntley and Kintigh 2004). The later nucleated pueblos have much higher proportions of Zuni Glaze Ware and lower amounts of Pueblo III types, such as Tularosa Black-on-white or St. Johns Polychrome, than either Box S or Kluckhohn, or the smaller pueblos. Ceramic group 5 includes a small number of sites differentiated from others by very high proportions of St. Johns types (nearly 60 percent of cluster 5 assemblages). All of these assemblages have small sample sizes (all less than 50 sherds, 4 of 5 less than 35), so this pattern may be a function of sample size rather than temporal or behavioral differences. These sites probably date to sometime in the late Pueblo III interval (AD 1250–75) based on the predominance of red ware, but they do not seem to represent a distinct temporal interval. Ceramic seriation corroborates and complements many of the patterns illustrated earlier in this chapter with other data and allows for a few further conclusions about population circulation in the region. First, movement into the valley appears to have occurred relatively rapidly and does not exhibit continuity with any pre–AD 1225 period of occupation. The El Morro Valley record contrasts sharply with other portions of the Zuni region and wider Cibola area, which exhibit exceptional time depth and continuity across this interval (Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh 2007; Kintigh et al. 2004; Roney 1996; Weaver 1978). The lack of permanent settlement in the El Morro Valley during the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries suggests that the mid–AD 1200s movement into the valley occurred within an area that was ill defined socially and relatively devoid of prior claims of land tenure compared to others parts of the Zuni region with longer, more continuous occupation histories.



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Temporal Rhythms of Population Circulation

Second, the ceramic seriation corroborates the observation that site occupations were fairly short and that people moved frequently even after initial settlement of the valley. The assemblages from most sites where multiple samples were analyzed are assigned to either a single temporal interval or two consecutive ones (table 4.4). Since temporal intervals identified during seriation correspond to periods of roughly 25 years or less, this supports the inference that El Morro pueblos were usually occupied for far less than 50 years. In only three cases do assemblages from a single site date to three temporal intervals. One of these is the Los Gigantes great house, which based on tree-ring evidence appears to have been occupied for at least 20 years. Another, CS11, which actually consists of at least four different room blocks, also yielded tree-ring dates suggesting occupation for at least 25 years. The remaining site, LZ1329, consists of multiple small room blocks, which may in fact be noncontemporaneous. Finally, two of the three sites that contained assemblages assigned to three temporal intervals are large pueblos in excess of forty rooms. One of these was clearly the most socially important pueblo in its settlement Table 4.4. Sites With Ceramic Assemblages Assigned to Multiple Groups Group Site Los Gigantes Great House LZ1204 LZ1209 LZ1207 CS9 CS11 CS12 CS39 CS40 CS138 CS144 CS187 LZ1228 LZ1323 LZ1329 LZ1346 CS193 CS195

Total No. of Samples

2

3

4

5

11

4

4

2

1

2 1 2 2 5 2

3

5 5 2 2 8 2 2 2 5 20 2 4 2 3 3 2 6

4

1

1 8 2

2 2 1 5 11

4 1 2 1 1

2 1 1 1 5

1

1

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population circulation and zuni communities

group (the Los Gigantes great house), while the other is at the center of one of the largest settlement groups in the valley surrounding a large open space that may be an informal plaza (CS11). This pattern corroborates that seen in the tree-ring data indicating larger pueblos tended to be longer lived. The long life of large pueblos is not unexpected, as it parallels both ethnographic data (Hamnett 1977, 1985; Watson 1985) and patterns seen in other archaeological data from the Southwest, particularly the Chaco period, when great houses experienced longer periods of use and frequent episodes of reoccupation compared to surrounding small pueblos (Schachner and Kilby 2005; Van Dyke 2000; Windes and Ford 1996). Thus, multiple lines of evidence suggest larger social groups in the El Morro area were more residentially stable than others. This pattern is further explored in chapter 6. Overall, analysis of El Morro Valley chronology suggests that settlement of the area occurred in a dynamic, rapidly changing social context characterized by frequent shifts in residence, variability among site occupation spans, and the creation of new social and settlement groups where none had existed.

CHAPTER FIVE

Geography of Population Circulation Archaeologists have been more successful at exploring the geography of mobility than perhaps any other parameter of population circulation. The geography of mobility can be defined through many of the traditional methods of archaeology, including settlement pattern analyses and the identification of artifacts that have been moved from their location of production. Yet these studies reveal only an incomplete view of ancient population circulation that emphasizes permanent residential moves, activities that consistently result in the discard of artifacts, and economic networks. The myriad of shorter term movements engaged in by past people is often undocumented. To address some of these shortcomings, I present a two-pronged approach to exploring mobility in this chapter. This approach relies on combining insights from ethnographic studies of mobility, in this case accounts of historic Zuni movements that have left few archaeological traces on the landscape but were nonetheless crucial in shaping regional population circulation, with an examination of the movement of multiple types of artifacts that would have been transferred through mobility of various sorts within the Zuni region and beyond. This combined effort identifies multiple circuits of population circulation that would have been implicated in the formation of new settlements in the El Morro Valley during the AD 1200s.

Historic Zuni Land Use and Mobility Although great strides have been made in recent years to improve the archaeological study of the roles of individual sites and people in larger

89

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population circulation and zuni communities

landscapes, many of these treatments are still partial. Unfortunately, many movements that are vital in the creation of cultural landscapes, such as for hunting or ceremony, are largely invisible archaeologically (although see Bradley 2000; Potter 2004; Snead 2008; Van Dyke 2007). Many of the movements by Zuni people that I discuss in this section leave few or no lasting traces on the landscape around Zuni Pueblo yet are important components of Zuni subsistence, identity, and religion. Despite the difficulties in identifying these types of mobility strategies or processes of landscape construction through the archaeological record alone, archaeologists should not ignore their important role in landscape use and change and the creation of networks of population circulation. The Zuni have had to, and continue to, confront many of the same spatial challenges of regional climate, geography, and ecology that would have affected ancient mobility processes in the region. Although the details of historic Zuni mobility patterns may differ from those of the ancient past, the general configuration and spatial scale were likely similar. Examination of general characteristics of historic mobility, such as overall geographic scale and scheduling, and their linkage to underlying ecological and geographic factors, provides insights into how these factors would have been addressed in the past. The inferred parameters of less archaeologically visible movements can then be compared to inferences about the geography, frequency, and intensity of mobility derived from archaeological data sets, such as those analyzed in chapter 4 and at the end of this chapter. Bernardini (2005) has analyzed Hopi migration traditions in a similar, pattern-oriented fashion in order to infer the social configuration and effects of migrations on the Colorado Plateau in the AD 1300s. His study identified general patterns in Hopi migration traditions that could be compared to information in the archaeological record to provide new insights into how migration proceeded and affected social diversity and interaction. A similar pattern-oriented approach can be used to infer the social effects of ancient landscape use (Schachner 2011a; Zedeño 2000). Ethnographic work began quite early in the Zuni area with the Stevenson expedition of the 1870s, enabling the documentation of Zuni mobility strategies prior to extensive Euro-American settlement of the area and resulting changes in local ecology and economy (Cushing 1896; Stevenson 1904). Although this early work provides an excellent, baseline de­ piction of Zuni landscape use in the 1800s, most studies of this topic have occurred in the last 30 years as outside scholars have collaborated with members of the Zuni tribe to improve the documentation of the geographic scope and economic, social, and religious significance of Zuni landscape use (Duff et al. 2008; Eggan 1980; Ferguson 1996, 2007; Ferguson and Anyon 2001; Ferguson and Hart 1985; Hart 1980). Many of



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these studies were conducted in order to document Zuni claims to land and resources lost since US control of the area began in 1846 (Eggan 1980; Ferguson and Hart 1985; Hart 1980, 1995). This research has produced a remarkably detailed view of how the Zuni utilized different places in a variety of areas both within and surrounding the modern reservation. In addition, these studies have demonstrated that many important places used by the Zuni, particularly destinations for ritual pilgrimages, have long histories of use that extend to the ancient past (Duff et al. 2008; Ferguson 2002, 2007; Ferguson and Anyon 2001; Ferguson and Hart 1985; O’Neill 1986). The historical and spatial continuity of use of significant sites is one of the primary reasons why use of ethnographic analogy to infer past landscape use in the Zuni region is practical. Zuni landscape use also illustrates the importance of movement in shaping society and landscape processes. Mobility has long played a fundamental role in Zuni ritual life and subsistence strategies. Much of the Zuni tribe has resided in a series of large villages along a short stretch of the Zuni River since at least the late AD 1300s. By the late seventeenth century, only a single village, Zuni Pueblo, remained as a primary residential center, and Zuni use of the rest of the area was dependent on moves of varying distances and durations. Only through movement were the Zuni and their ancestors able to obtain necessary resources, utilize a variety of ecological and topographic zones for farming and hunting, and visit important sacred places, including shrines, landscape features, and ancient villages. Much of this movement was rooted in the patterns of population circulation that existed in the ancient past. While most of the following section focuses on the pre-1900 period, many of the places and travels discussed here were key parts of Zuni ceremonial life, identity, and economy throughout the twentieth century and remain so today.

Farming Zuni farming during the historic period was concentrated along the Zuni River and its tributaries (fig. 5.1). The Zuni utilized both irrigated and floodwater fields, exploiting a range of environments to produce their primary subsistence crops, including maize, squash, and beans (Cushing 1920; Ferguson and Hart 1985:36–39). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Zuni acquired Eurasian crops, among the most important of which were peach trees that were planted in orchards in areas that were largely unsuitable for traditional crops due to topography or deficient soils (Ferguson 1996:31; Ferguson and Hart 1985:38). Geographically, Zuni farming can be divided into two zones (fig. 5.1). The largest extends up to 60 miles from Zuni Pueblo. Farming in this zone often coincided with sheepherding (Ferguson and Hart 1985:37)

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population circulation and zuni communities

50 km

figure 5.1. Historic period Zuni land use (after Ferguson and Hart 1985:Maps 13, 15, and 18).

and was probably a minor component of the overall agricultural economy at Zuni due to its infrequency. A smaller, intensive zone is defined by the distribution of seasonal farming villages along the Zuni River and its upper tributaries, the Nutria and Pescado Rivers. Seasonal villages and agricultural fields within this zone were arrayed over roughly 500 square miles. This area was the primary focus of Zuni farming activities and yielded the vast majority of agricultural products utilized by the Zuni for subsistence and trade (Ferguson 1996:55–72; Ferguson and Hart 1985). Because most of the tribe resided at Zuni Pueblo, agriculture required frequent movement, either directly to fields surrounding the pueblo itself or to more distant farming villages that were occupied primarily during the agricultural season (Cushing 1920; Ferguson 1996:55–72; Ferguson and Hart 1985; Rothschild et al. 1993). Seasonal farming villages within the intensive zone were fully established by the eighteenth century if not earlier and allowed for the exploitation of multiple agricultural areas around Zuni Pueblo (Ferguson 1996:31). The use of multiple field locations is a common strategy in Pueblo agriculture due to spatial variability in both soil quality and water availability, even over fairly short distances



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(Brandt 1995; Hack 1942; Sandor 1995). In the Zuni case, the establishment of farming villages up and downstream from Zuni Pueblo itself would also have enabled the exploitation of elevational zones with different average growing seasons (shorter to the east of the pueblo, longer to the west) (Kintigh 1985). Many of the seasonal farming villages established by the Zuni were located near prime agricultural lands and springs in areas that had once been densely occupied when the population of the area was much larger. These areas contained a number of pueblos that had been constructed in the fourteenth century, including Hawikku, Kyaki:ma, Pescado, Nutria, and Binnawa, and later depopulated during the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries as Zuni population became concentrated at the modern pueblo as a result of Spanish colonial actions, conflict, and population decline (Ferguson 1996:32). In many respects, after AD 1700 residents of Zuni Pueblo replicated the geography of the agricultural system of the then recent past by shifting the timing and geography of their mobility strategies. Instead of short-distance, temporary movements from multiple, residential villages to nearby fields, in the historic period the Zuni relied more heavily upon longer distance, seasonal movements to farming villages. Both strategies resulted in an extensive land use pattern covering a similarly sized geographic area, albeit in ways that have differing temporal rhythms and spatial patterns. Thus, despite changes in overall settlement distribution, the size of the area of intensive Zuni agricultural activities during the historic period provides a reasonable basis for estimating the geographic scope of ancient agricultural strategies. Movement during both periods involved comparable modes of transport and was constrained by similar ecological factors. Although some Zuni people kept horses and donkeys during much of the historic period, it is unclear how important they would have been for transport or if their availability influenced the location of fields and farming villages. Many intraregional movements during this interval were still accomplished on foot. In most cases the locations of farming villages were determined by the availability of water and higher quality soils (Ferguson 1996), rather than travel distances, as there are few optimum places with these characteristics along the Zuni River. In the historic and ancient cases, local ecological conditions, rather than transport costs, were probably the primary consideration determining the geography of Zuni farming strategies. The thirteenth-century residents of the El Morro Valley would have been well aware of the variability in agricultural potential within the Zuni region. Just as in the historic period, ancient people in the region would have utilized mobility to address these differences and establish fields in multiple locations with suitable characteristics. In the precolonial past,

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population circulation and zuni communities

however, residential locations were much more widely dispersed, and any movement to distant fields would have presumably facilitated and required social contacts between people from distinct social groups. Using the area of historic Zuni farming as a rough analog for the distance people may have traveled to fields, it would seem that much of the El Morro Valley and surrounding areas would have been potential agricultural locations used by ancient residents of the area (fig. 5.2). Seasonal farming villages have not been documented for the Zuni region or the El Morro Valley in the ancient past, although a few possible field houses have (LeBlanc 1978; Zier 1976). It is also possible that some of the apparent short-term occupations of small residential pueblos in the El Morro Valley documented in chapter 4 resulted from the sporadic use of these sites as people from nearby areas, such as the Pescado Basin, moved in and out of the valley for short periods of time. As the analyses of the movement of material goods presented later in this chapter indicate, this latter process seems quite probable, because frequent, reciprocal social interaction occurred between residents of these areas.

50 km

figure 5.2.  Potential farming zone around the El Morro Valley.



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Hunting During the historic period, Zuni people hunted wild game across nearly 45,000 square miles of the Southwest and in a range of ecological zones (fig. 5.1). Zuni hunters traveled throughout the Cibola area and sometimes went to even more distant places, such the Jemez Mountains, the Rio Grande Valley, and the Gila River and its tributaries (Ferguson and Hart 1985:42–43). The Zuni hunted animals to acquire meat and other animal products, such as hides and feathers. The latter were important for making clothing and tools and use in ceremonies (Cushing 1920; Ferguson and Hart 1985:43; Ladd 1963). Hunting often involved ritual practices, such as the visiting of shrines or offerings of prayers and items, such as prayer sticks and cornmeal. Ceremonies were especially important during hunts conducted over long distances (Ferguson and Hart 1985:43). Hunting activities were pursued by individuals and groups, with some large communal hunts focused on animals that could be herded, such as jackrabbits or antelope (Ferguson and Hart 1985:43). Zuni hunting was an important component of the social construction of landscape (Potter 2004) and likely brought the Zuni into contact with people from surrounding population centers. From a geographic perspective, the most striking aspect of historic Zuni hunting is its sheer scale (fig. 5.1). This area encompassed much of what is now western New Mexico and eastern Arizona. In fact, Zuni observation of boundaries in their hunting range appears to largely be a function of the presence of the home territories of other American Indian groups. If residents of the ancient Zuni region pursued hunting over a similar geographic scale, they would have been familiar with an extensive landscape encompassing many of the population centers on the southern Colorado Plateau, including villages in areas well outside of what archaeologists consider the Zuni region or wider Cibola area. It is possible that the more continuous distribution of population centers during the ancient past may have precluded hunting over such a wide area, and thus a range this large may be considered a probable maximum. Regardless of the potential limitation on its geographic scope, however, hunting trips would have provided opportunities for encounters with socially distant groups and familiarization with distant, potential residential locations, such as the El Morro Valley.

Ritual and Pilgrimage The Zuni landscape abounds with places of ritual importance, including shrines, ruins, trails, and natural features, such as lakes, mountains, and springs (Cushing 1896; Ferguson 2007; Ferguson and Hart 1985:50–51;

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population circulation and zuni communities

Tedlock 1979). Zuni people and ritual practitioners visit these places to make offerings, say prayers, and engage in communal ceremonies. Ritually important places are found in a diversity of areas. Some are very close to occupied villages, such as the Ahayu:da (War God) shrines located on buttes and mesas near Zuni Pueblo (Cushing 1896:417–25; Merrill, Ladd, and Ferguson 1993:524–25; Stevenson 1904: 34–50, 576–608), while others, such as the Grand Canyon or Escudilla Peak in Arizona, are located tens or hundreds of kilometers away (Ferguson and Hart 1985:50– 51). In terms of geographic area, Zuni people conduct rituals over an even larger range than they hunt game (Ferguson and Hart 1985:50–51). Although many distant places are visited sporadically, others are the destinations of regular pilgrimages by Zuni people. Two of the most important of these are Kołuwala:wa, or “Zuni Heaven,” and Ma’kyayanne, or Zuni Salt Lake (fig. 5.1) (Ferguson and Hart 1985:50–51; O’Neill 1986). These places have been in use for well over 1,000 years (Duff et al. 2008; Ferguson 2002; Hart 1985; O’Neill 1986:21). The long history of use of these places and their unique natural characteristics indicate they were ritually important to people living in the Zuni region and surrounding areas in the ancient past. Examining the importance, usage, and geography of these two places provides a starting point for defining a minimal space of intensive ritual use by ancient residents of the region. Kołuwala:wa is located near the confluence of the Zuni and Little Colorado Rivers, some 60 miles from Zuni Pueblo. The area includes a series of springs and shallow lakes and a number of shrines used by Zuni religious leaders during pilgrimages. Kołuwala:wa is sometimes referred to as “Zuni Heaven” as this is the location at which some Zuni gods reside and is the area to which the spirits of Zuni people go after death (Ferguson and Hart 1985:23, 51). The pilgrimages usually occur once every 4 years during the summer solstice, although off-year pilgrimages are sometimes made during periods of extreme drought to bring rain (O’Neill 1986:11). Roughly fifty Zuni religious leaders undertake the multiday journey to Kołuwala:wa on foot, stopping at designated shrines along the way (O’Neill 1986:17). The trail, We:sak’yaya Onnane (“The Barefoot Trail”), is well defined over much of its length through repeated use and the burning of vegetation (O’Neill 1986:13). Kołuwala:wa is also important to other Western Pueblos, including the Hopi, Acoma, and Laguna, who refer to it by the Keres name of Wenima, indicating that the location has been utilized by a variety of Pueblo groups in the past (Ferguson 2002). During earlier periods, when people were more widely distributed on the landscape, travels to Kołuwala:wa would have facilitated contact among ritual leaders from a variety of areas, especially if pilgrimages were coordinated with particular solar events such as the solstice, as they were in the historic period and are today.



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Ma’kyayanne, or Zuni Salt Lake, is also a major Zuni pilgrimage destination. Located just over 40 miles south of modern Zuni Pueblo, this remarkable geologic feature consists of a collapsed volcanic crater surrounded by a grassy plain (fig. 5.3). Inside the crater is a shallow salt lake nearly a square mile in area and two volcanic cinder cones, one of which also has a small pond in its interior. Ma’kyayanne is where Salt Mother, an important Zuni deity, resides and is the destination of annual pilgrimages to collect salt, which is an essential mineral, ritual item, and object of trade for the Zuni. There are also shrines at the lake dedicated to the War Gods (Eggan 1980:12). Other tribes have long recognized Ma’kyayanne as controlled by the Zuni tribe, and although members of other tribes also visit the lake, they do so with Zuni permission and follow Zuni proscriptions on proper travel and use (Hart 1980:505 quoting Stevenson 1904:357; although see Cushing 1896:354 for an account that suggests the Zuni did not allow members of other tribes to visit the lake in the past). Kołuwala:wa and Ma’kyayanne were clearly important places on the landscape in the ancient past. This is attested to by the archaeology of these areas as well as their geological uniqueness (Duff et al. 2008; Hart 1985; O’Neill 1986). Their uniqueness is important because places with similar characteristics do not exist in the region, precluding the use of other areas as substitutes during the ancient past when the distribution of settlement was quite different. It seems reasonable to assume that

figure 5.3.  Ma’kyayanne (Zuni Salt Lake) (photo courtesy of Keith Kintigh).

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population circulation and zuni communities

residents of the El Morro Valley and other parts of the region were aware of and traveled to these places, which would have marked distant, but nonetheless regionally important destinations for ritual travels. In addition to these movements, El Morro Valley people would have traveled to numerous other places, such as shrines or ruins, in nearby areas. All of these travels would have facilitated population circulation by residents of the El Morro Valley and surrounding areas, providing another avenue for the transfer of information and people that structured residential mobility in the region. Although nearly impossible to track in the archaeological record, it is clear that ancient residents of the Zuni region must have used movement to satisfy numerous subsistence, social, and ritual needs. These travels would have created a constant flow of individuals and groups within the region and are precisely the types of mobility that facilitate the flow of information and knowledge among many small-scale societies (Chapman and Prothero 1985a; Watson 1970, 1985; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). Residential mobility should be focused within the area defined by these social ties and knowledge of the landscape. Prior to the settlement of the El Morro Valley in the AD 1200s, Zuni region residents had likely visited the valley for short periods to gather resources, hunt, plant crops, and conduct rituals—possibly at some of the prominent rock formations such as Los Gigantes or El Morro, the latter of which contains a rare, permanent pool of water and resides along a long-used trail between Zuni and Acoma (Ferguson and Hart 1985). As the first migrants permanently settled the El Morro area, they would have created new social networks or migration streams, drawing people whom they were related to or knew to join them (Anthony 1990; Cadwallader 1992; Duff 1998; G. Stone 1996). The creation of migration streams is in many ways a self-reinforcing process, focusing interaction as population grows. In the following section, I assess some of the social ties of El Morro Valley residents would have drawn upon in order to examine this process and better define the geography and intensity of movement from particular areas within the Zuni region. These analyses of the archaeological record identify social networks of a similar scale as that estimated from the geography of historic Zuni mobility, corroborating insights gained from this more exploratory type of inference.

The Movement of Portable Artifacts Tracking the movement of portable artifacts has traditionally been one of the strongest archaeological methods for monitoring the geography and intensity of social interaction and, by extension, population circulation.



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Recent ceramic provenance studies by a number of Southwest archaeologists aimed at analyzing migration and social diversity are excellent examples of this type of research (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002; Lyons 2003; Neuzil 2008; Zedeño 2002). One difficulty inherent in this approach, however, is that it is often hard to judge whether the movement of pottery is a result of the permanent movement of people or the exchange of objects (Beck 2009; Zedeño 1998). Both transfer mechanisms involve movement of people at some level, however, and each is a result of the movement of materials and resources through social networks. Because the scale of social networks is closely related to the overall geographic range of movement, particularly at the intraregional scales discussed here, exactly which type of practice resulted in the movement of pottery is less important in identifying the overall geography and general structure of population circulation. As noted in chapter 4, migration into the El Morro Valley must have occurred, as the population increase during the AD 1200s is inexplicable without an outside source. Where that population came from and how people interacted with others in different parts of the Zuni region are largely unknown, however. Migrants would have brought pottery into the valley, and pots from nonlocal sources likely continued to be brought into the valley as migration streams developed and new El Morro residents interacted with people in the areas of their origins (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002; Lyons 2003; Zedeño 2002). Documenting the geographic scale and frequency of the movement of portable objects provides insights into a variety of processes, including the origins of El Morro migrants, the geographic expanse of their social networks, and the intensity of their ties to particular areas.

Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Zuni Region Pueblo III Period Pottery Archaeologists working in the American Southwest have often used instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) to study pottery production and distribution (Glowacki and Neff 2002). These studies have focused on a variety of topics, including the organization of pottery production and exchange (Bishop et al. 1988; Creel, Clark, and Neff 2002; Gilman, Canouts, and Bishop 1994; Harry 2003; Hegmon, Hurst, and Allison 1997; Hegmon et al. 1995; Triadan 1997; Zedeño 1994), the structure of regional ritual systems (Crown 1994), regional social organization (Bishop et al. 1988; Duff 2002; Huntley 2008), and migration (Bernardini 2005; Duff 2002; Lyons 2003; Zedeño 2002). Of particular interest is the fact that these archaeologists have pushed provenance studies beyond a basic concern with tracking the movement of pottery

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population circulation and zuni communities

and used INAA data to address a variety of social questions, many of which are relevant to understanding population circulation and social interaction. I submitted a total of 660 pottery samples, 481 from the four El Morro settlement groups introduced in chapter 3 and 179 from sites in six other parts of the Cibola area, for INAA at the University of Missouri Archaeometry Laboratory (MURR). These samples were analyzed along with 281 Pueblo IV period pottery samples and forty-eight archaeological and geological clay samples from the region submitted during prior studies (Duff 1999, 2002; Huntley 2004, 2008; Mills 1995; also see Schachner, Huntley, and Duff 2011). INAA is a bulk chemical compositional technique that identifies the concentration of a set of elements in a sample. Individual samples can then be statistically classified to form compositional groups corresponding to distinct pottery production zones or “recipes.” To eliminate the confounding effects of variably obtained slip clays and pigments, INAA of pottery at MURR focuses on ceramic pastes only. In this chapter I present an abbreviated overview of INAA methods and data analysis, Zuni geology, sampling issues, and the identification of compositional groups. For a more detailed exposition of analytical issues, see Schachner (2007) and Schachner et al. (2011). Previous studies by Andrew Duff (1999, 2002) and Deborah Huntley (2004, 2008) provide key background information for the current research and a solid basis for interpreting patterns of pottery movement in the early Pueblo IV period (AD 1275–1400), which immediately follows the primary period of interest in this book. Duff ’s study of Zuni region pottery circulation was part of a larger project aimed at examining regional organization in the Western Pueblo area during the Pueblo IV period. His research suggested that ceramic exchange was infrequent at this time, with less than 10 percent of pots sourcing to production zones outside of their region of recovery (Duff 2002:134). Most important, Duff (2002:132–34) was able to link four distinct compositional groups to different parts of the Zuni region, providing a basic outline for the geography of pottery movement. Huntley (2004, 2008) expanded upon Duff ’s original analysis through the submission of new INAA samples and compositional analyses of glaze paints and slip clays using other techniques. Huntley’s research largely corroborated Duff ’s and suggested that the small amount of pottery that was moved during the Pueblo IV period went primarily from western to eastern Zuni region villages. Huntley’s study refined the compositional groups defined by Duff and also identified a fifth Zuni region INAA group associated with Box S, a village occupied in the latter half of the AD 1200s (Huntley 2008:33–37). Duff ’s and Huntley’s INAA samples were included in the current study in order to increase the total sample size for



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defining regional production zones and to provide a wider temporal context. Later in this chapter I suggest a few important refinements of their model of Pueblo IV period pottery movement. INAA Methodology, Data Analysis, and Sampling.  The current project relied on analytical and quantitative procedures developed and refined over the last few decades at MURR (Glascock and Neff 2003; Neff 2002; Neff and Glowacki 2002). Compositional groups were identified through a combination of pattern recognition techniques, including statistical projection of new samples against Huntley’s and Duff ’s groups, cluster analyses, and examination of graphical plots. Following the procedure outlined in Neff (2002), Mahalanobis distances and Hotelling’s T probabilities for membership of individual samples in each identified compositional group were then calculated to evaluate and verify group discreteness and coherence (Schachner 2007:92–100; Schachner et al. 2011:2564–5). Once INAA compositional groups are statistically defined and verified, they are often matched to geographic production loci. Ideally, groups of pottery are compared to raw materials (clay and/or temper) of known provenience in order to make inferences about the location of pottery production (Neff and Glowacki 2002:Fig. 1.3). In practice, raw geologic clays or tempers are often difficult to match with groups of finished pottery due to the effects of raw material processing during manufacture (e.g., levigating clay, sifting temper, etc.). Unfortunately, clays from both archaeological and geological contexts in the Zuni region have proven of limited utility in determining production zones (Huntley 2008:37; Schachner 2007:130–31). The inability to match the majority of clays from archaeological contexts to INAA groups suggests that many recovered clays were intended for other purposes, such as wall plaster or mortar (Huntley 2008:37). The strategy of matching tempers to compositional groups is unavailable in the Zuni region due to the near ubiquitous use of crushed sherd temper after AD 1100 or so. A second method of linking compositional groups with geographic production zones is the invocation of the “criterion of abundance” (Bishop, Rands, and Holley 1982), which assumes that objects are most commonly found close to their source. Although this is a weaker method for establishing production loci, it can be strengthened through an analysis of local geology (Neff and Glowacki 2002:7). If the potential locations of production for different groups defined by the criterion of abundance can be shown to be geologically distinct, one can make a stronger argument for the geographic association of particular compositional groups. A few key principles were involved in selecting samples for this study. I submitted two different pottery wares for analysis: late White Moun-

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population circulation and zuni communities

tain Red Ware, primarily St. Johns and Springerville Polychromes along with a handful of Wingate and St. Johns Black-on-reds, and Cibola Corrugated. St. Johns Polychrome vessels were the most common painted type in the region during the period of interest and primarily used as serving bowls (Carlson 1970; Hays-Gilpin and van Hartesveldt 1998). Cibola Corrugated was by far the most common type of utility ware used in the region during the Pueblo III period (Fowler 1989; Hays-Gilpin and van Hartesveldt 1998). Most Cibola Corrugated vessels were cooking jars, but some may have been used for storage. These two different classes of pottery, one painted and the other unpainted and utilitarian, were sampled to track different types and scales of pottery movement. Generally in the Southwest, painted vessels were more widely circulated and often signal more distant social ties (Bernardini 2005; Bishop et al. 1988; Creel et al. 2002; Duff 2002), while unpainted and utilitarian ceramics were often traded among kin and track shorter distance networks (Abbott 2000; Duff 2002; Graves 1991). In addition, painted vessels likely had longer use-lives than corrugated pots (Varien and Mills 1997) and thus may have been more frequently transported during population movements. Thirty sherds, fifteen of each ware, were selected from the assemblages of four room blocks in the Scribe S, Tinaja, Los Gigantes, and Togeye Canyon groups, yielding samples of 120 sherds for each group. In selecting room blocks, I sampled a mix of large room blocks, such as the Los Gigantes great house, as well as smaller surrounding room blocks. Sherds were selected from a wide variety of contexts from each room block in order to avoid sampling sherds from the same vessel. Samples were also submitted from sites in other parts of the Cibola area to improve and expand the identification of compositional groups begun by Duff (1999, 2002) and Huntley (2004, 2008). This comparative sample included sherds from nearby areas that had not been previously sampled by INAA (Manuelito Canyon, Techado, and Cebolleta Mesa) and samples from Pueblo III period sites in parts of the Zuni region where previously only Pueblo IV villages had been sampled (Jaralosa Draw and Pescado Basin). Regional Geology.  Zuni area geology is both highly variable and spatially patterned, making it nearly ideal for INAA studies. A number of distinct geological formations are exposed, and the locations of these formations are correlated with changes in topography from east to west across the region. In addition, distinct areas of ancient settlement and geology tend to co-occur, supporting the association of compositional groups with particular areas (Duff 1999, 2002; Huntley 2004, 2008; Mills 1995). Variation in the geology of the region is largely determined by the pres-



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ence of a few major structural features (fig. 5.4). The most important of these is the Zuni Uplift created by the uplift of Precambrian rocks that now form the spine of the Zuni Mountains (Baldwin and Rankin 1995; Orr 1987). This uplift has exposed Triassic period (Chinle Group) deposits on the slopes of the Zuni Mountains, including along the northern and eastern margins of the El Morro Valley (Anderson and Maxwell 1991; Hackman and Olson 1977). Quaternary period volcanic deposits from a series of volcanic cones along the Continental Divide to the east cover much of the valley floor (Anderson and Maxwell 1991; Baldwin and

figure 5.4.  Zuni region geology (after New Mexico Geological Society 1996).

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population circulation and zuni communities

Rankin 1995). The western and southern edges of the El Morro Valley are marked by a series of cuestas composed of Jurassic period Zuni Sandstone capped with Cretaceous period Dakota Sandstone. Dakota Sandstone is exposed in a few portions of the Zuni region and thought to have been one of the primary geologic sources for pottery clays (Duff 1999, 2002; Mills 1995). The cuestas also mark the southern end of the Nutria Monocline (locally known as the Hogback), which is the western boundary of the Zuni Uplift. To the west of the Zuni Uplift is the Gallup Embayment, a large flatbottomed depression that extends north through the Rio Puerco valley along the Arizona–New Mexico border (Baldwin and Rankin 1995; Orr 1987). West of the Nutria Monocline, from roughly Ramah to the junction of the Rios Pescado and Nutria, is a large band of Gallup Sandstone overlain by Crevasse Canyon Formation sandstones with occasional exposures of Mancos Shale in the canyon bottoms (Hackman and Olson 1977; Orr 1987). The western boundary of this area is marked by the reappearance of overlying Dakota Sandstone along the Piñon Springs anticline (Hackman and Olson 1977; Orr 1987). This zone roughly coincides with the area defined as the Pescado Basin by Duff (1999, 2002). The geology of the westernmost portion of the Zuni region is quite different. In the area from Zuni Pueblo to the Arizona–New Mexico border, exposures of Chinle Group members are intermixed with overlying Tertiary period Bidahochi Formation sandstones (Hackman and Olson 1977; Orr 1987). This area corresponds to the Zuni Basin defined by Duff (1999, 2002). In the southwestern portion of the study region, along Jaralosa Draw, Cretaceous period deposits reappear, including Dakota Sandstone and Mancos Shale. These deposits were interpreted as likely sources for clays in the Jaralosa Draw area by Duff (1993, 1999, 2002). Compositional Groups.  Seven hundred eighty-four ceramic and clay samples from Pueblo III and Pueblo IV period sites were assigned to thirteen compositional groups (tables 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3). Most samples were assigned to one of three major groups, two of which represent pottery produced in the El Morro Valley, while the third corresponds to pottery produced in the Pescado Basin. The remaining ten minor groups are much smaller and represent either varieties of the major groups or new compositional groups that have not been extensively sampled. The location of inferred production zones is presented in figure 5.5. One hundred fifty-seven sherds (17 percent of the total) could not be assigned to any compositional group. The unassigned samples include roughly equal numbers of painted and corrugated samples (75 vs. 82) (table 5.4). This proportion of unassigned samples is not unusual for compositional analyses using INAA (Neff 2002:33–34). Samples remain unassigned for a few

EVCorr Box S Zuni-N

Zuni-1 Zuni-2

LPV

OBC

OBD Tec LC

Zuni-1 Zuni-2

Lower Pescado Village

Ojo Bonito Corrugated

Ojo Bonito Dakota Techado Little Colorado

EVC EVD PB

Abbreviation

El Morro Corrugated Box S Zuni-North

Minor Groups

El Morro Chinle El Morro Dakota Pescado Basin

Major Groups

INAA Group

Jaralosa Draw Techado Upper Little Colorado (Hooper Ranch)

Jaralosa Draw

Pescado Basin

El Morro Box S Manuelito Canyon El Morro Pescado Basin?

El Morro El Morro Pescado Basin

Production Zone

Table 5.1.  INAA Compositional Group Descriptions

Dakota Sandstone Dakota or Gallup Sandstone? Dakota or Gallup Sandstone? Bidahochi Formation? Dakota Sandstone Baca Formation? Mesa Verde or Dakota Sandstone or Mancos Shale

Chinle Group ? Dakota Sandstone

Chinle Group Dakota Sandstone Dakota or Gallup Sandstone

Geologic Association

4

21 31 11

9

31

57 27

11 17

229

144 192

No. of Samples

3B

Ojo Bonito 2

El Morro Ojo Bonito 2 East

Duff (2002)

2b, 4

2c

1 2b 2a

Huntley (2008)

CS9 CS11 CS12 CS40 Subtotal

Scribe S

Pettit CS195 Six Rocks LA109857 Subtotal

Togeye

Los Gigantes Great House LZ1209 LA149030 LA149033 Subtotal

Los Gigantes

El Morro Valley

11 12 6 11 40

6

2 2 2

5 2 11

4

EVC

6 6 7 8 27

19 19 11 8 57

6 15 8 3 32

EVD

4 4

1

4 1 1 6

1 1 1 2 5

1

3 3

2 3

1

EV ZuniCorr 1

El Morro Valley

8 5 6 3 22

1 3 8 10 22

8 8 11 9 36

PB

1 1 3 1 6

1 3 4

2 4

2

Zuni2

1

1

LPV

Pescado Basin

1

1

Box S

1 3 5

1

3 1 1 1 6

1 1 2 2 6

ZuniN

Rio Box S Puerco

Table 5.2.  INAA Compositional Group Assignments at Pueblo III Period Sites

1

1

OBC OBD

Jaralosa

1 3

2

Tec

LC

Little Techado Colorado

4 12

3 5

7 1 5 4 17

8 2 3 7 20

30 29 30 30 119

32 30 30 30 122

30 30 30 30 120

Unknown Total

5 3 7 2 2 19

3 4 2 2 11

Total

Cebolleta Mesa

Techado Spring Tri-R Pueblo Subtotal

Techado Area

112

169

2

6

23

133

7

4 1 5

5

1

2 3 5

2

1 1

Manuelito   Canyon

10

3

4 1 7

6

3

1 1

5 12 6 15 38

2 4 6

2

16 8 18 11 53

Hinkson Jaralosa Subtotal

Jaralosa Draw

LZ507 LZ719 LZ754 LZ796 LZ797 Subtotal

Pescado Basin

Area 1 Area 2 Area 3 Area 4 Subtotal

Tinaja

31

2

1

1

1

1

3

5

51

7

3

3

18

3

1 1

5

2 1 2 2 2 9

2

1 1

8

4 4 8

3

2

2

11

6 2 8

4

2

2

1 1 2

101

10

8 4 12

6

5 1 6

1 6

2 2 1

4 4 2 2 12

658

30

30 7 37

30

20 10 30

10 10 10 10 10 50

30 30 30 30 120

Total

Ojo Bonito Spier 170 Subtotal

Jaralosa Draw

Heshotauthla Lower Pescado Village Subtotal

Pescado Basin

Box S

Pueblo de los Muertos Cienega Mirabal Atsinna Subtotal

El Morro Valley

32

1 1

6 7 5 13 31

EVC

23

3 4

1

1

7 5 3 3 18

EVD

1

1 1

EV Corr

El Morro Valley

4

1

1

1

2

1 1

Zuni1

96

1 1 2

20 50

30

10

15 4 5 10 34

PB

8

5 6

1

1 2

1

LPV

Pescado Basin

16

12

4

4

Box S

Box S

Table 5.3.  INAA Compositional Group Assignments at Pueblo IV Period Sites

6

1 2 3

1

1

2

ZuniN

Rio Puerco

13

4 8 12

1 1

OBC

28

11 16 27

1

1

OBD

Jaralosa

56

16 8 24

5 7

2

4

7 4 5 5 21

283

34 35 69

35 71

36

30

36 22 22 33 113

Unknown Total



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Geography of Population Circulation

50 km

figure 5.5.  Pottery production zones in the Cibola area during the AD 1200s.

reasons, including small sample sizes, high probabilities of membership in multiple groups, and effects on chemical composition from stochastic variation in production techniques or postdepositional processes. The potential for high probabilities of membership in multiple groups may be amplified in Zuni region pottery due to the use of sherd temper, which may at times have been prepared using sherds from nonlocal or multiple sources. This problem does not appear substantial, however, as so far several Zuni INAA studies have exhibited clear and consistent data structure that would be unlikely to appear if variation in the composition of sherd temper were a significant confounding factor. The three major groups, El Morro Valley Chinle, El Morro Valley Dakota, and Pescado Basin, contain 565 (72 percent) of the samples that could be assigned. Of the 141 El Morro Valley Chinle samples from El Morro Valley sites, 70 percent (n = 98) were recovered from sites located along the base of the Zuni Mountains. Forty-eight percent (244 of 511) of all El Morro Valley pottery assigned to a compositional group came from these villages, suggesting that El Morro Valley Chinle samples are more common at these sites than one would expect by chance. The base of the Zuni Mountains is characterized by numerous outcrops of mem-

Total

Corrugated St. Johns Kwakina Heshotauthla Pinedale poly Late Zuni glaze Green ware/clay

144

1

110 26 1 6

EVC

192

2

79 102 1 8

EVD

11

11

27

6 19 1 1

EV ZuniCorr 1

El Morro Valley

229

37 126 20 45 1

PB

31

1

17 13

Zuni2

9

5 1

3

LPV

Pescado Basin

Table 5.4  Pottery Type Frequencies by Compositional Group

17

4 8 4 1

Box S

57

1

39 14 3

ZuniN

Rio Box S Puerco

21

21

31

5

11 11

4

OBC OBD

Jaralosa

11

1

1

3 6

Tec

4

3 1

LC

Little Techado Colorado

157

3

82 47 11 14

941

416 364 58 88 3 9 3

Unknown Total



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bers of the Chinle Group (fig. 5.4); thus, it would seem likely that sherds assigned to this compositional group were from pots manufactured using local clays from either primary or alluvial contexts. Samples assigned to the El Morro Dakota (EVD) group are common at most sites in the El Morro Valley, especially in the Togeye Canyon area. This compositional group consists of pots likely manufactured using clays from Dakota Sandstone, which is found on the cuestas surrounding Togeye Canyon. The association of this group with production in the Togeye area is supported by recovery of an unfired St. Johns Black-on-red bowl along with a ball of tempered clay at the Pettit site that are both assigned to this group (table 5.4). Duff (2002) and Huntley (2008) originally inferred the El Morro Valley Dakota group was produced in the Jaralosa Draw area due to the fact this group contained a large number of sherds from the Jaralosa area and fewer from El Morro in their samples (table 5.1). The addition of more El Morro Valley samples allows for their original group to be split into two distinct groups associated with different outcroppings of Dakota Sandstone, one located in the El Morro Valley and the other in the Jaralosa Draw area (Ojo Bonito Dakota). The El Morro Dakota, Ojo Bonito Dakota, and a number of the minor groups appear to represent the use of clays associated with different outcrops of Dakota Sandstone, which rises to the surface at a number of widely separated parts of the region. The Pescado Basin (PB) group is the largest of the major compositional groups. At least a few sherds assigned to this group are present at nearly every site sampled during this and previous INAA studies in the Zuni region (tables 5.2 and 5.3). Although it is possible that production of vessels assigned to this group occurred in both the Pescado Basin and El Morro Valley (Duff 2002:132; Huntley 2008:34–37), this group more likely represents production in the Pescado Basin due to its high frequency at sites there during both the Pueblo III and Pueblo IV periods and due to differences in geology between the two areas (Huntley 2008:37). The surface geology of the Pescado Basin is comprised largely of Gallup Sandstone and the Crevasse Canyon Formation with a few small exposures of Mancos Shale along the western canyon bottoms (Orr 1987). Dakota Sandstone is present in bands marking the extreme eastern and western boundaries of the basin (fig. 5.4). As noted previously, however, there is strong evidence that the eastern band of Dakota Sandstone is the source of El Morro Valley Dakota group clays, which are chemically distinct from the Pescado Basin group. Thus, I would suggest that the Pescado Basin group clays derive either from the widespread Gallup Sandstone and Crevasse Canyon Formation or the band of Dakota Sandstone on its western margins. Pescado Basin potters seem to have specialized in the production of

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painted bowls. Eighty-four percent of all samples from this group are painted vessels (table 5.4), and they are commonly found at sites in the El Morro Valley and other parts of the Cibola area that were occupied during the Pueblo III and Pueblo IV periods. These production efforts focused on St. Johns Polychrome and early Zuni Glaze Ware and may have foreshadowed the specialized production of late Zuni Glaze Ware vessels by residents of eastern Zuni region villages during the early protohistoric period (Huntley 2004; Mills 1995). The ten other groups identified during this analysis are much smaller in size and contain from four to fifty-seven samples each. Some of these represent slight variations of the major groups that likely resulted from subtle geological differences (e.g., different exposures of Dakota Sandstone) or divergent raw material processing and preparation, while others are linked to production zones where only a small number of vessels have been sampled, such as Zuni-North or Techado. Although the coherence and discreteness of the largest minor groups could be verified statistically (Zuni-North, Box S, Zuni-1, Zuni-2, Ojo Bonito Corrugated, Ojo Bonito Dakota), the others (El Morro Corrugated, Lower Pescado Village, Techado, and Little Colorado) could only be identified in graphic plots. These small groups (particularly the latter four) should be considered tentative assignments that may change with more intensive sampling, but the assignments are corroborated by both geologic and archaeological information, and thus useful for inferring patterns of pottery production and movement. For details of how these groups were identified and assigned to production zones, see Schachner (2007:123–29) and Schachner et al. (2011:2265–9).

Geographic Scale of El Morro Valley Pottery Circulation The probable geographic scale of population circulation engaged in by residents of the El Morro Valley in the AD 1200s can partially be addressed through the movement of pottery and other material goods into and out the valley. Here I examine differences in the distribution of pottery assigned to compositional groups at four El Morro settlement groups to infer variation in participation in networks of population circulation within the El Morro Valley and compare this information to patterns from other parts of the Zuni drainage. In chapter 7, I more closely examine the data to assess potential variation in the social ties of individual residential groups that may be linked to differences in social standing or histories of movement. The majority of pottery used in the El Morro Valley during the Pueblo III period was locally produced (table 5.2). This is true of both corrugated and painted wares. Local production is not surprising, as it was



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documented by Duff (2002) and Huntley (2008) and prepared clays and green ware vessels have been recovered from El Morro Valley sites. Pottery from both major El Morro compositional groups was identified at room blocks in all four El Morro Valley settlement groups. The fact that both sources are common throughout the valley suggests access to areas containing the two different major clay sources must have been unrestricted and/or movement of pottery within the valley occurred fairly often. Freedom to move within the valley and relatively open social networks would have encouraged this pattern of pottery distribution. Differences in the proportion of the two major sources are largely driven by proximity, with the Scribe S and Tinaja settlement groups having larger proportions of pottery produced using clays from the Chinle Formation upon which the sites are located and the Togeye Canyon and Los Gigantes settlement groups having larger proportions of pots produced using clays from the nearby Dakota Formation. Although difficult to address due to the small size of the compositional groups, pottery produced using either of the El Morro Valley minor groups (El Morro Valley Corrugated and Zuni-1) is not strongly associated with any particular settlement group. Examination of pottery from nonlocal sources suggests that two different networks of pottery and population circulation were involved in the initial settlement of the valley during the Pueblo III period. First, 22 percent of all pottery and 36 percent of painted pottery found at El Morro Valley sites was produced in the Pescado Basin. This relationship appears to be reciprocal as El Morro Valley pots comprise 30 percent of all pottery and 36 percent of the painted pottery at Pueblo III Pescado Basin sites (table 5.2). People residing in the El Morro Valley and the Pescado Basin were the only Pueblo III period Zuni region residents who shared such an intensive, reciprocal relationship. Second, the recovery of small amounts of pottery produced in other parts of the Zuni region and directly adjacent areas at El Morro Valley sites suggests a less intensive sphere of interaction created through infrequent population movement among more distant areas. Only trace amounts of pottery from the Puerco River and Jaralosa Draw areas are present in the El Morro Pueblo III sample (table 5.2). Only a single sherd of El Morro Valley pottery was recovered from Manuelito Canyon along the Puerco and none was recovered from Jaralosa Draw. Thus, movement, at least of pottery, between the El Morro Valley and these areas was infrequent, probably indicating less intensive social interaction. These relationships were clearly of a different scale and intensity than between the El Morro Valley and Pescado area. Pescado Basin pottery is commonly found at sites in Manuelito Canyon and along Jaralosa Draw, but little pottery from these areas is found at Pueblo III period sites in the

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Pescado Basin, indicating these relationships were not reciprocal. The unidirectional transfer of pottery may have been a product of the specialized production of painted vessels by Pescado Basin potters. The evidence for strong, reciprocal interaction between the El Morro Valley and the Pescado Basin is not surprising given their spatial proximity (fig. 5.5). Despite this interaction, however, settlement histories in the areas are strikingly different. The Pescado Basin had been settled for centuries (Kintigh et al. 2004), if not millennia (Damp et al. 2002) prior to migration into the El Morro Valley and occupation continued well after the El Morro Valley was depopulated in the mid-AD 1300s (Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh et al. 2004). Kintigh and others (2004) noted no population decline in the Pescado Basin during the period of migration into the El Morro Valley in the AD 1200s and instead posit that people may have been immigrating into parts of the Pescado Basin as well. Thus, it seems unlikely the population increase in the El Morro area was simply a product of sequential occupation of the two areas. Reciprocal movement of pottery between the Pescado Basin and El Morro Valley was probably a product of intensive exchange and population circulation between the two areas. These areas are a day’s walk from one another, and it would have been advantageous for farmers to have access to fields in both areas separated by nearly 200 meters in elevation. As discussed in chapter 3, these elevation differences would have translated into subtle, yet important differences in growing season length, which is one of the few variables that exhibits strong spatial variation along the course of the Zuni River and its tributaries. Growing season length would have been a particularly critical limiting factor on agriculture in the El Morro Valley (Kintigh 1985:93), encouraging the maintenance of social ties to, or fields in, nearby lower elevation areas. Although it is possible the distribution of compositional groups arose because some El Morro Valley potters procured raw materials directly from the Pescado area, the current data suggest this was unlikely as the percentage of Pescado Basin pottery at sites in the El Morro Valley is not correlated with geographic distance. If so, the Togeye Canyon group should have the highest percentage of pottery from this source area, when in fact it has the second lowest (table 5.2). Even if El Morro potters were traveling to obtain clay from the Pescado Basin, this would have required movement, permission from more proximate residents, and prior familiarity with resources in the area. Either cause would be indicative of frequent population circulation and closer social ties than those documented for other parts of the region. Multiple factors, including intermingled social histories, access to agricultural lands with variable characteristics, and the collection of natural resources, would have encouraged the flow of people and information



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between the El Morro Valley and Pescado Basin. The frequency of movement of pottery is a strong indicator that these two areas were likely joined by sustained and reciprocal movement and social interaction that created a strong network of population circulation unlike those currently known for other parts of the Zuni region. In addition to engaging in temporary travels to access resources in both areas, El Morro Valley and Pescado Basin residents likely had kin in both areas and may even have had residences in both places, analogous to the Rarámuri example discussed in chapter 2. The latter possibility is difficult to examine with currently available evidence, but it seems quite probable given the extensive evidence for interaction outlined here and evidence of short occupation spans at El Morro Valley pueblos discussed in the previous chapter.

Comparing Temporal Trends Comparison of the Pueblo III period El Morro Valley patterns with those of the early Pueblo IV period (AD 1275–1350) provides another avenue for understanding the relationships among different parts of the Zuni region and suggests that the network of population circulation evident during the Pueblo III period changed markedly by the late AD 1200s (also see Schachner, Huntley, and Duff 2011). In their analyses of Pueblo IV period pottery movement drawing upon a smaller sample of pottery, Duff (2002) and Huntley (2008) suggested that pottery moved infrequently from west to east into the El Morro Valley, with little pottery coming out of the valley in return. The current study supports this basic interpretation but also provides some additional historical context for interpreting Pueblo IV period patterns. First, the lack of pottery moving out of the El Morro Valley during the Pueblo IV period is even more striking given that this pattern contrasts strongly with that seen during the Pueblo III period when pottery from El Morro sources was common in the Pescado Basin. Only 7 percent of the sample from the Pescado area Pueblo IV villages (versus 30 percent during Pueblo III) derives from El Morro Valley source groups (table 5.3). By the Pueblo IV period, the reciprocal social network that existed during the prior period had been transformed and nearly unidirectionally oriented toward the El Morro Valley. This is not entirely surprising because the El Morro Valley was the demographic center of the Zuni River drainage during the late AD 1200s and early 1300s (Huntley and Kintigh 2004), but it does represent a marked shift from earlier time periods. The lack of reciprocity also suggests that networks of population circulation had shifted to a unidirectional pattern, with little movement out of the valley during the early Pueblo IV period. Second, Pueblo IV villages in the El Morro Valley have pottery from a

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smaller set of areas and compositional groups than those occupied during the Pueblo III period. El Morro Valley Pueblo IV villages have pottery from three areas, the El Morro Valley, Pescado Basin, and Box S, while Pueblo III sites have pottery from those areas as well as Jaralosa Draw, Manuelito Canyon, and the Techado area (compare tables 5.2 and 5.3). This shift in source diversity is even more evident if differences in compositional groups, rather than production zones (each of which may include multiple compositional groups), are compared. Pottery from eleven compositional groups is present at Pueblo III period sites in the El Morro Valley, compared to seven at Pueblo IV period sites. Although it is possible that the greater source richness (number of groups) in the Pueblo III sample is in part driven by sample size differences (417 samples with known sources for Pueblo III period vs. 92 samples for the Pueblo IV period), this appears to be unlikely based on the use of rarefaction, a quantitative technique for comparing differences in the richness of two samples (Baxter 2001:719–20). Rarefaction suggests that the probability that these differences are attributable to sampling error, rather than real differences in pottery movement between the two periods, is less than one out of ten (Schachner 2007:200). These temporal differences in pottery movement are probably attributable to the fact that Pueblo IV villages were much more spatially concentrated in the Zuni region than earlier Pueblo III period residences. The larger number of minor compositional groups identified at sites dating to the Pueblo III period may also be a product of higher mobility that would have enabled the use of a more diverse set of clay sources. Severin Fowles and others (2007) have documented a comparable decline in compositional diversity across the Pueblo III-IV transition in the northern Rio Grande Valley that they also attribute to contractions in mobility and aggregation in large villages.

Material Evidence for Interaction With People From Outside the Zuni Region Recent studies have suggested that at least during the Pueblo IV period, residents of the Zuni region were inwardly focused, interacting little with outside populations in comparison to residents of other parts of the Western Pueblo world (Duff 2002; Huntley 2008). Although this also appears to be true of the Pueblo III period as well, three additional data sets suggest some infrequent interaction occurred between people in the El Morro Valley and others on the margins of the Cibola area and further beyond. First, small samples of pottery from two areas near the edges of the Cibola area, Cebolleta Mesa and Techado, were examined by INAA as part of the current study. Sherds from pots produced in the Zuni drain-



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age, including both the Pescado Basin and El Morro Valley, are not uncommon in these nearby areas (table 5.2). A few sherds from pots produced in the Techado area were also identified in the El Morro Valley at sites in the Los Gigantes group (table 5.2). Unfortunately pots produced on Cebolleta Mesa cannot currently be identified with INAA due to the small, spatially scattered sample from that area. Thus, if we consider these areas as representative of those along the edges of the Cibola area, it would seem that although pottery, such as St. Johns Polychrome (Carlson 1970), may have been moved out of the Zuni drainage fairly often during the thirteenth century, these relationships were probably not translated into strong reciprocal networks of population circulation and exchange encompassing the wider Cibola area as a whole. Second, the presence of white ware with carbon-based paints in the CARP and EMVPP survey and excavation collections indicates interaction with areas outside of the Cibola area entirely (table 5.5). These sherds have painted designs similar to Mesa Verde–style white ware and are present in collections from ten sites in the El Morro Valley (out of well over 200 sites). Pottery with this type of paint and designs was produced in the northern San Juan and much of northwest New Mexico during the Pueblo III period (Roney 1995:Fig. 3). Roney (1995, 1996) interprets the distribution of pottery with these traits as evidence for interaction with northern San Juan populations and the presence of migrants from that area in northwest New Mexico and in the northern Rio Grande. The trace presence of this type of pottery in El Morro Valley asTable 5.5.  Carbon-Painted White Ware at El Morro Valley Sites

Site Name Scribe S

Kluckhohn Tinaja Los Gigantes Great House

Total

Site No.

Carbon-Paint White Ware Sherds

White Ware (Total) Pottery (Total)

CS9 CS11 CS39

2 1 3

81 143 98

739 760 1176

CS60 CS101 CS138 CS144

1 1 1 4

2 14 88 294

15 48 1019 1591

LZ1200 LZ1245 CS195

6 1 2

367 17 131

2879 172 1069

22

1235

9468

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semblages suggests at least a minor level of interaction with these populations as well. Finally, a small sample of Pueblo III period obsidian artifacts from the El Morro Valley have been chemically analyzed using X-ray fluorescence (Shackley 2005a) (table 5.6). The majority of obsidian in this sample was obtained from Mt. Taylor (Horace Mesa), which is the nearest obsidian source to the eastern Zuni region located roughly 80 kilometers northeast of the El Morro Valley (Shackley 2005b). The high quality and relatively discrete location of Horace Mesa obsidian likely made this raw material a target for direct procurement (Shackley 2005a:4). Smaller amounts of obsidian are also present from two sources located in the Jemez Mountains, 200 kilometers to the northeast of El Morro. Material from one of these sources, Cerro Toledo, is commonly found in gravel in the Rio Grande drainage, while the other, Valle Grande, is only present in the Jemez Mountains. The final source represented is Government Mountain, which is located in the San Francisco Volcanic Field near Flagstaff, Arizona, over 300 kilometers from El Morro. Government Mountain is one of the highest quality sources of obsidian in the Southwest (Shackley 2005a:4). One intriguing aspect of the location of these obsidian sources is that they map onto the east-west extent of mineral procurement pursued by the historic Zuni, which extends roughly from the San Francisco Peaks on the west to the Jemez Mountains on the east. The Zuni specifically reference Mt. Taylor as a source for obsidian (Ferguson and Hart 1985:48–49). The presence of obsidian on thirteenth-century El Morro Table 5.6.  Geographic Sources of Obsidian in the El Morro Valley Jemez Mountains

Los Gigantes LZ1200 LZ1209 LZ1210 Subtotal

Mt. Taylor Horace Mesa

Cerro Toledo

5 2

2

7

2

Atsinna Area LA149238 LZ149087 LA149090 Subtotal

1 1

Total

8

Valle Grande

Government Mountain

1 1 2 1 3

2

1

3



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Valley sites suggests either that the ancient residents participated in direct procurement of these resources in distant areas, as the historic Zuni sometimes did, or that some people had social networks that extended far outside of the valley. Although some of the obsidian may have arrived in the area through down-the-line exchange, particularly that from the more distant Government Mountain and Jemez sources, this contact would still have engendered the movement of information about distant areas as material passed through overlapping social networks. Of particular interest is the contrast between the obsidian evidence and the pottery data. The latter suggests that the strong ties between the El Morro Valley and Pescado Basin were coupled with more minor ties or infrequent movement into or from adjacent areas, while the former is indicative of much longer distance ties, which although perhaps less direct or frequently activated, may have represented important conduits for information and people across huge expanses of the Southwest.

Integrating Lines of Evidence In this chapter, I outlined the geography and intensity of movement involved in settlement of the El Morro Valley during the thirteenth century. The analysis of the movement of portable objects provides strong empirical evidence for intensive interaction along the Zuni River drainage coupled with weaker ties to adjacent areas. Movement and interaction resulting in the transfer of material culture represents only a part of the network of population circulation that would have encompassed the El Morro Valley and structured the founding of new settlements in the thirteenth century, however. By examining the Zuni ethnographic record, I provided insights into the geography and intensity of other processes, such as farming, hunting, and ritual, that are less visible archaeologically but no less important in the creation of social ties and the definition of regional landscapes. By focusing on archaeological and ethnographic evidence, the former tangible and empirical, and the other less so, a richer, more complete picture of the geography of ancient Zuni landscape use emerges. A graphic presentation of combining these different lines of evidence is presented in figure 5.6. Population circulation would have been a fundamental structuring component of the formation of El Morro settlement groups, as it would have influenced who founded new residences in the thirteenth century and how this process occurred. The apparent concentration of interaction within the El Morro Valley and Pescado Basin likely represents a core circuit of intensive interaction and movement that must be taken into account in understanding the settlement of the El Morro area. Not

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50 km

figure 5.6.  Geography of thirteenth-century mobility.

only does frequent movement of pottery mark this interaction, but it also is analogous in scale to the range of intensive agricultural mobility documented during the historic period. The intensity of interaction and probable advantages of linking agricultural production in both areas suggest that social boundaries between the two areas would have been weak and population circulation frequent. In many respects these areas should be considered part of the same local-level social system. This scale of social interaction is often missed during archaeological studies that focus on smaller areas. I argue in the concluding chapter that archaeologists cannot accurately depict community formation and social differentiation without addressing social interaction at this scale, which links multiple, potential community-scale social groups. The analyses presented in this chapter also identify a larger, extensive zone of infrequent interaction that would have been shaped by the occasional movement of material goods and infrequent residential mobility but also the myriad of temporary moves engaged in during hunting, ritual, and other activities that rarely leave archaeological traces. Movements at this scale would have enabled the flow of information that made the Zuni region, and Cibola area of which it was a part, distinct (i.e., Why



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does Cibola archaeology look different than that of the San Juan Basin to the north or the Mogollon Rim to the south?). The minor amounts of interaction between residents of the margins of the Cibola area and people in the El Morro Valley also suggest that some groups from these more distant areas may have been involved in the initial settlement of the valley in the AD 1200s, injecting a small, but perhaps important, component of social diversity. Exploration of the geography of intraregional population circulation opens up new insights into scales of social interaction and details of community formation that have rarely been considered in traditional archaeological studies of these processes. As I discuss in the remainder of this book, understanding the impacts of variability in population circulation is crucial not only for understanding the particular circumstances of community formation in the El Morro Valley but also for understanding social organization of this scale more generally in small-scale farming societies.

CHAPTER SIX

Settlement Patterns and Residential Differentiation

Analyses of settlement patterns have been by far the most common methodology employed in studies of ancient community organization in the Southwest and beyond. Archaeologists have used a variety of techniques, from simple map production to multivariate quantitative analyses of GIS data sets to identify and define ancient social units, including communities (see Peterson and Drennan 2005 for a recent overview). These analyses have enabled us to look beyond the confines of single sites and explore a burgeoning amount of high-resolution survey data available around the world. At the same time, however, these settlement pattern studies perhaps overprivilege the importance of sites—places where artifacts were deposited and architecture constructed that have then persisted through the ravages of time to be found by archaeologists—in defining ancient social groups over the actual interactions and movements of people that created and maintained the past entities we intend to study. Although places contributed to and partially constrained ancient social organization, they were not in and of themselves generators of communities or other social groups, and thus they cannot be the sole focus of analyses of ancient social organization. To more fully understand the role, and perhaps even lack of a role, of communities and other groups in ancient social life, requires tacking back and forth between various types of data. Studies of some of these data, such as the analyses of temporal patterns of residential movement and pottery distribution presented in the prior two chapters and chapter 7, delineate more dynamic networks of interaction and mobility, while others, such as the settlement pattern study outlined in this chapter, address relatively static places that were

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nodes of activity in a more diffuse, although perhaps more socially significant, cloud of ancient human interactions. In this chapter, I employ many of the traditional methods of settlement pattern analysis but do so with a self-critical eye. As I hope to illustrate, the meaning of many of the spatial patterns that we identify in archaeological survey data are open to varying interpretations even when we are aided by seemingly objective quantitative techniques. The analyses presented here challenge prior comparatively uniform and static models of Cibola community organization through the documentation of a range of variability in multiple parameters, including settlement clustering, chronology, and differentiation. Nearly all of this variability can be explained when the formation of thirteenth-century El Morro settlement systems is contextualized within regional networks of population circulation and contrasted with areas that exhibit markedly different settlement histories.

Settlement Clusters in the El Morro Valley The identification of spatial clustering of archaeological sites has been one of the primary means through which archaeologists have defined the spatial and social scale of community organization in the Southwest (Gilpin 2003; Kintigh 2003; Kolb and Snead 1997; Mahoney 2000; Powers et al. 1983; Snead 2008; Varien 1999a; Wilcox 1996). Many Southwest community studies have attempted to define spatial clusters of residential sites that are separated from one another by empty areas and, in doing so, postulate that these groups of settlements were the remains of socially bounded residential communities. In some cases, only large, focal structures, such as great houses, are identified and associated communities are assumed to exist within a standard-sized area, regardless of the actual site distribution. This top-down approach, while often useful in broadbrush regional studies, has encouraged Southwest archaeologists to view communities and settlement patterns in standardized, strongly hierarchical ways (see Gilpin 2003; Kintigh 2003 for discussion of problems in spatial analysis and Adler 2002; Hegmon 2002; Schachner 2008; Varien and Potter 2008b for discussion of theoretical problems). Archaeologists working in the El Morro Valley have long postulated that at least some degree of clustering of settlement existed in the area during the Pueblo III period (LeBlanc 1978; T. Stone 1992; Watson et al. 1980). In some parts of the valley, a number of room blocks were located in close proximity to one another with areas of less dense or no settlement in between. The densest of these clusters, such as Tinaja (fig. 3.10), consist of roughly 10–15 room blocks all located within tens of meters of

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one another. As most Pueblo III period room blocks in the El Morro Valley were contemporaneous, at least in a classificatory sense, it is reasonable to assume that these clusters represent social units of some sort, especially if one begins with a naturalized community model. The densest clusters often were located within areas of less dense occupation, however, where room blocks were separated by hundreds of meters or were only a short distance from other adjacent clusters (see fig. 3.2). In the following analyses, I take a bottom-up approach using the good, albeit still incomplete, survey coverage of the El Morro Valley and attempt to quantitatively discern clustering among individual room blocks. In doing so, it becomes clear that at least in some areas defining boundaries is an arbitrary process because even quantitatively defined clusters have varying characteristics, such as overall size, site distribution, and degree of boundedness. This observation parallels that seen in many archaeological case studies in the Southwest focusing on large block survey areas containing multiple potential clusters, which often show that site clusters are fuzzy and indistinct at best (Gilpin 2003; Kintigh 2003). A lack of clear spatial patterns is not surprising if we consider settlement clusters to be the result of a geographic and temporal palimpsest of activities linked to residential mobility and other movements and the ease with which individuals and households often cross social boundaries in small-scale societies. As discussed in chapter 2, a lack of strongly bounded community-scale social units was probably more common than not in small-scale societies characterized by dispersed residence due to the frequency of mobility and changes in social group composition. A lack of boundaries and settlement gaps in the past is not necessarily a result of archaeologists’ inability to see important boundaries in the archaeological record, but it may also be evidence that boundaries were in fact nonexistent or weak. Reliance on naturalized models of community encourages archaeologists to assume the former, rather than explore the possibility that communities or similar scale social groupings may have not existed at certain times or were not particularly important in day-to-day social and settlement processes. Individual room blocks rather than archaeologically defined sites are used as the primary data points in the following analyses. Archaeologists have recorded sites in the El Morro Valley in various ways, sometimes lumping multiple, closely spaced room blocks together as a single site, while in other cases recording each room block as a separate site. The former strategy is not unreasonable as presumably residents of closely spaced room blocks would have interacted frequently and it is sometimes hard to determine where the area associated with one room block ends and the next begins. The decision to lump together room blocks as ar-



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chaeological sites can be problematic in synthetic studies, however, as it is often done unsystematically and can result in misleading estimates of site size, type, and distances between sites. For example, Pettit, Tinaja, and CS142, three of the largest Pueblo III period settlements in the valley, have often been treated as single large room blocks in past studies, but they are actually composed of multiple room blocks of various sizes all within tens of meters of one another. These sites are thus more similar structurally to other aggregated groups, such as Scribe S and Los Gigantes, than later, large nucleated pueblos, such as Pueblo de los Muertos, than has often been acknowledged. A focus on individual room blocks, as emic constructions, also provides a more accurate sense of the size and spatial distribution of smallscale social units, including residential groups and households. Although many unrelated individuals likely resided in close proximity in later nucleated pueblos, it seems reasonable to conclude that in the Pueblo III period households choosing to reside in the same room block were linked through either kinship or other close social ties (Steward 1937). Thus, the archaeological distribution of room blocks on the ground in the El Morro Valley today is the end result of a settlement process and negotiation of social relationships at fairly small scales. In addition, given the evidence for short occupation spans of these pueblos discussed in chapter 4, the residents of these small buildings were probably the primary units of movement. This finding parallels the conclusion that small groups were the most common unit of movement in the ancient Southwest based on both Pueblo ethnography and archaeology (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Herr 2001; Herr and Clark 1997, 2002). The cluster analyses that follow focus on all room blocks that appear to have been occupied during the Pueblo III period in the El Morro Valley. The analyses in chapter 4 suggest that all of these pueblos were likely founded between AD 1225 and 1275 and that an overwhelming majority would have been occupied at some point between AD 1250 and 1275. Thus, although I am sure that treating a few generations of settlement in the valley synchronically clouds some of the spatial patterning that existed in the past, I would argue that this data set is as near to a synchronic view of ancient settlement as can be achieved archaeologically. Even if sequentially occupied room blocks are included in these analyses, it is likely that many abandoned settlements were still in systemic context in the past, playing active roles in people’s conceptions of place and space as points of memory, burial grounds of ancestors, sources of materials, and, in the shifting pattern of short-term residence that existed, places to which kin and others may return. The implications of potential temporal variation in settlement are explored later in this chapter.

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Spatial Patterns Survey coverage is strongest for the most densely occupied portions of the valley, especially the areas around its margins that were well suited to runoff agriculture due to favorable soils and slopes (see fig. 3.2). The least surveyed area is the broad expanse of lava flows that covers much of the valley floor. Most of this area is unsuitable for settlement, as the soils are quite poor and rocky (Kintigh 1985:99–101). Survey blocks in this area contain only a handful of residential room blocks, and reconnaissance efforts suggest this is a reasonable representation of valley floor settlement despite the small sample. Thus, even without complete coverage, current survey data provide information on the bulk of past settlements in the valley. I expect that future surveys may modify the apparent patterns to some extent, but they are unlikely to require significant revisions to the general picture of settlement presented here. In this analysis, clusters were defined through k-means nonhierarchical clustering using Euclidean (geographic) distances between room blocks (see Schachner 2007:213–15 for a detailed description of methodology). The difficulty of travel due to topographic changes, such as intervening mesas or canyons, was not taken into account. In most cases, travel in the valley would have been little inhibited by topography. As illustrated later, even within clusters with comparatively rough topography, the maximum distances between room blocks within the same cluster were relatively small (1–3 km). Most topographic changes could have easily been overcome on foot (tens of meters of elevation change at most, with few slopes too steep for foot travel). Even the most distant parts of the valley are well within a day’s walk of one another, suggesting that any clusters identified in this analysis could easily be traveled between during a short period of time. One of the major difficulties of statistical cluster analyses is that the methods themselves do not identify a “best” solution (i.e., number of clusters) that most accurately depicts inherent structure within the data. As a result, the choice of the number of clusters present or that require additional interpretation is often arbitrary or must be arrived at through a secondary stage of analysis, such as comparing analytical runs of actual data to randomized versions of the same (which is the method used here to identify “best” solutions) (Kintigh 2002). Although most discussions of clustering of archaeological sites focus only on a single clustering result (i.e., what the analyst, sometimes for unspecified reasons, has termed the “best” solution), I take a different tack and compare the two strongest solutions—in this case the nine- and sixteen-cluster solutions—to illustrate the ambiguities of cluster interpretation and to highlight different aspects of the El Morro Valley settlement process.1 Just as the analyses of



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compositional data presented in chapter 5, cluster analyses of spatial data should be viewed as iterative processes that rarely identify a single immutable solution. As can be seen figures 6.1 and 6.2, in some cases clusters correspond with survey units, while in other cases the cluster analyses subdivide survey areas into multiple clusters. A few of the groups identified by the cluster analyses are likely either portions of larger clusters partially recorded in small survey blocks, such as 1310, or areas of widely dispersed, low-density settlement located in flatter portions of the valley, such as 1280 and 74. Some of the quantitatively defined clusters correspond to those that have been identified qualitatively, such as Scribe S or Los Gigantes, but others are in areas that have not been perceived as necessarily having clear clustering, such as Togeye Canyon (compare to LeBlanc 1978; Watson et al. 1980). For the sixteen-cluster solution, all of the large clusters are over 100 rooms in total size and contain at least nine individual room blocks (table 6.1). In the nine-cluster solution, some clusters, such as CS142, Togeye Canyon, and El Morro, are much larger in both size and room count as adjacent clusters are joined. In other cases, such as Sandy Corner and Lookout Mesa, the total number of room blocks and rooms in a cluster change fairly little, as only low-density areas are added to a main cluster

figure 6.1. Nine k-means clusters in the settlement data.

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figure 6.2. Sixteen k-means clusters in the settlement data.

in the nine-cluster solution. The Tinaja cluster, which is well separated from others by open space, is the only cluster that persists unchanged in both scenarios. A few geographic characteristics suggest that the clusters identified in both solutions are of an appropriate size to correspond to potential community-scale social groups in ancient Pueblo society. A number of studies have shown that farmers typically travel between 1 and 2 kilometers from their residence to fields or to participate in communal work parties (Chisholm 1970; G. Stone 1991, summarized in Varien 1999a: 153–55). Thus, one would expect that most members of an intensively interacting community would be within roughly 2 kilometers of all other members. Most of the clusters identified in the sixteen cluster k-means analysis are smaller than this threshold or fall near its upper limit (table 6.1). The only exceptions to this pattern, such as Sandy Corner, result from cluster membership extending to isolated pueblos far from the main portion of the cluster. Most of the clusters in the nine-cluster solution are well above this threshold in size, suggesting frequent interaction might have been difficult. All fall below the 7 kilometer cutoff identified by Varien (1999a:155) as the distance within which less intensive agriculture and gathering most frequently occurs, however, suggesting that the nine-cluster groups were not too large to comprise community-scale social units.

1310 1280 74

Small

Vogt Ranch 29VA18 Togeye Canyon 195 1245 Los Gigantes Mesa Lookout Mesa Sandy Corner Scribe S 142 El Morro-1 El Morro-2 Tinaja

Large

Name

LZ1310 (36) LZ1280 (6) CS74 (1)

20MC24 (39) 29VA18 (30) CS190 (96+) CS195 (100) LZ1245 (33) LZ1200 (45) CS164 (80) CS154 (50) CS12 (60) CS142 (165) CS150 (39) LA1581 (100) CS144 (93)

Largest Room Block (No. of Rooms)

8 6 2

9 17 28 17 12 18 11 13 26 23 12 12 15

No. of Room Blocks

Table 6.1.  K-Means Clusters of El Morro Valley Pueblos

80 26 2

158 208 355 250 100 169 286 163 374 401 167 309 216

Sixteen Clusters

Total Rooms

.9 2.6 2.1

.9 1.5 1.7 1.7 2.6 (1.5-outlier) 2.0 (1.3-outlier) 2 3.5 (2.2-outlier) 2.3 (1.1-outlier) 1.4 (.4-outlier) 2.4 2.6 2.1

Maximum Distance Between Sites (km)

(continued)

3 1.6 .6

.8 .5 .4 .4 .7 .7 1.1 .6 (1.9 to large) .3 (1.3-outlier) .3 (1.3-outlier) .6 .6 4 (5 to large)

Minimum Distance to Neighboring Cluster (km)

1310

Small

Vogt Ranch Togeye Canyon Los Gigantes Mesa Lookout Mesa Sandy Corner 142 El Morro Tinaja

Large

Name

Table 6.1.  Continued

LZ1310 (36)

29MC24 (39) CS190 (96+) LZ1200 (45) CS164 (80) CS154 (50) CS142 (165) LA1581 (100) CS144 (93)

Largest Room Block (No. of Rooms)

8

26 44 31 17 15 49 24 15

No. of Room Blocks

80

366 595 279 312 165 775 476 216

Nine Clusters

Total Rooms

.9

2.7 2.9 3.8 4.2 5.2 3.5 5.1 2.1

Maximum Distance Between Sites (km)

3

.5 .5 .6 1.1 1.9 1.9 2 4

Minimum Distance to Neighboring Cluster (km)



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On the other hand, the identified clusters in both solutions are often in close proximity to one or more adjacent clusters. Many room blocks are closer to pueblos in other clusters than to other room blocks within their own clusters. This is particularly true of clusters along the mesas along the southwest side of the valley. In fact, the maximum distance between sites within the same cluster is almost always larger than the minimum distance between sites in different clusters in both cluster solutions, except for the distant Tinaja cluster in the eastern portion of the valley (table 6.1). In addition to their spatial proximity, many sites within different clusters would also have been intervisible to one another, making communication and interaction even simpler. Thus, although clusters can be defined quantitatively, they generally lack strong boundaries (i.e., open spaces or topographic barriers between clusters) and in many cases member room blocks were in fact in much closer proximity to room blocks in other clusters. I suggest that even though clusters can be quantitatively defined in the El Morro Valley, the proximity of clusters to one another and lack of clear boundaries between them is likely a product of a lack of well-bounded, community-scale social units during the initial period of settlement. The lack of strongly clustered settlement and spatial boundaries was probably promoted by the high frequency of mobility in the valley, which, even over short periods of time, would have resulted in spatial and social changes to any bounded cluster that may have appeared. Naturalized models of community encourage archaeologists to uncritically equate the delineation of spatial clusters with the presence of community-scale social organization, without fully examining what clusters actually represented in the past or if they would have necessarily concentrated interaction. Although clusters may be quantitatively defined, we must also ask whether they are behaviorally significant. Most clusters in the El Morro Valley are separated from one another by less than a kilometer, which could have easily been traversed multiple times a day and presented little physical challenge to people regularly engaged in extensive mobility to meet daily subsistence needs. In fact, nearly all clusters are within a relatively unchallenging round-trip walk of one another that could have been completed in a day or less, suggesting interaction between clusters throughout the valley could have been frequent. The fact that people in the El Morro Valley appear to have had free and easy access to pottery clays, or at least the pots, from different parts of the valley, supports the interpretation of relatively weak or nonexistent intravalley social boundaries (see chapters 5 and 7). The clustering identified by quantitative methods, as well as in earlier qualitative considerations of settlement processes in the El Morro Valley, is most likely a product of the concentration of sites in locations favorable

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for ancient Puebloan agriculture due to small-scale variation in the availability of water or high-quality soils and modern survey boundaries. As discussed in the last section of this chapter, the lack of distinct clustering and the sheer proximity of so many sites to one another in the El Morro Valley are even more striking when compared to other parts of the Zuni region that were occupied at the same time. As with many archaeological case studies, potential meaning of apparent patterns (or lack thereof) is often most productively explored through comparison.

Temporal Patterns An examination of the sequence of formation of residential groups is important for understanding how mobility shaped the creation of local settlement systems for two reasons. First, if a settlement group formed simultaneously rather than sequentially, this would indicate that component groups may have coordinated their movements through preexisting social ties. Second, the order of arrival of settlers is often drawn upon during the settlement process to justify the social power of, and control of local resources by, the earliest arrivals (Herr 2001; Kopytoff 1987; Schlegel 1992; G. Stone 1996). If this is the case, community leaders are likely to be associated with the earliest settlements and in turn may have drawn other settlers to reside nearby (Hamnett 1977, 1985). Temporal patterns in the El Morro data are difficult to discern for three reasons. First, because the occupation of the valley occurred during such a short period of time, it is difficult to differentiate temporally distinct phases of settlement. Even in the Zuni region, where ceramic seriation has proven amazingly precise, the resolution required to differentiate settlement phases during the AD 1200s pushes the technique to the limit (see chapter 4). Second, because most El Morro Valley pueblos were occupied for short periods of time, available ceramic samples, including from test excavations, are very small. Samples of sufficient size for quantitative analysis are available from only one-third of El Morro Valley room blocks identified during survey. Although they cannot be included in analyses of temporal trends, room blocks placed in a generic Pueblo III category based on architectural information and limited diagnostic pottery recording are included on figure 6.3 for spatial context. Finally, in a few cases it is hard to determine potential intrasettlement group temporal trends due to the fact that some aggregated settlement groups, such as Tinaja and CS142, were recorded as single sites in the field and associated surface collections are difficult to associate with specific room blocks. Given these difficulties, the temporal patterns presented here should be considered tentative. The majority of sites were assigned to single temporal intervals using

figure 6.3. El Morro Valley pueblos plotted by temporal cluster.

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population circulation and zuni communities

the ceramic seriation presented in chapter 4, while a small proportion were occupied during two or three periods (table 6.2). The most striking spatial pattern is the concentration of early pueblos on Lookout Mesa near the center of figure 6.3. Of the seventeen room blocks in the total sample that were occupied during this period, seven (41 percent) are on this mesa. These seven, out of eight room blocks assigned to a temporal interval and out of eleven total room blocks on Lookout Mesa, appear to have been first occupied sometime in the AD 1225–50 period. Unfortunately, one of the unassigned room blocks (CS156) with no chronological data is the largest Pueblo III period pueblo on the mesa. This site is nearly devoid of artifacts despite its large size. As none of the room blocks on this mesa have been excavated, no tree-ring dates are available for comparison with ceramic data. Other settlements with occupation beginning during this early interval include four pueblos on Los Gigantes Mesa, including the Los Gigantes great house, which is the largest pueblo in that settlement group, LA1581, the largest Pueblo III period pueblo in the vicinity of El Morro, and CS195, one of the two largest room blocks in Togeye Canyon. The remaining potentially early room blocks include CS136 in the Sandy Corner area and CS44 and CS11–Lower in the Scribe S group. In sum, early settlement in the valley seems to have been concentrated on Lookout Mesa in the central portion of the study region. In addition, a few of the sites that were at least at one point the largest room block in their respective settlement groups were founded at this time. The majority of room blocks within the valley that could be dated using ceramic seriation were occupied during the middle period of settlement from AD 1250 to 1275. Room blocks from this time period are found throughout the valley. As noted in chapter 4, this period coincided with the vast majority of tree-cutting activity identified through dendrochronology. It should be noted that the temporal breaks between ceramic groups Table 6.2.  Temporal Assignments for El Morro Valley Pueblos Temporal Assignment Early Early-Middle Early-Middle-Late Middle Middle-Late Late Pueblo III

No. of Pueblos 12 3 2 43 3 6 140

Estimated Dates

Ceramic Groups

AD 1225–1250+ AD 1225–1275 AD 1225–1300 AD 1250–1275 AD 1250–1300 AD 1265–1300 AD 1200–1300

2 2, 3 or 5 2, 3 or 5, 4 3 or 5 3 or 5, 4 4 None

Note:  Ceramic group numbers correspond to those used in Chapter 4.



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are somewhat indistinct (see chapter 4), so even sites assigned exclusively to the early or late periods were likely occupied during some part of this middle interval. This period corresponds with the peak of movement into the valley and may have been the demographic peak as well. Late period assemblages, which correspond to the interval between AD 1270 and 1300, were identified at only eleven room blocks in the sample. Judging from ceramic and tree-ring data, construction of most of the large, nucleated villages also began during this period, most likely after AD 1280 (Huntley 2008; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985; Watson et al. 1980). Of the eleven room blocks in aggregated groups occupied during this interval, two, the Los Gigantes great house and CS11– Lower at Scribe S, had assemblages dated to all three temporal periods. Three room blocks were potentially occupied only during the middle and late intervals, including parts of Tinaja, and single room blocks in the Scribe S and Los Gigantes groups. Only six room blocks were assigned exclusively to the late temporal interval, including one part of Tinaja, single room blocks in the Los Gigantes and Lookout Mesa groups, and three in the Scribe S group. Late period assemblages are defined by the presence of a few early Zuni Glaze Ware sherds and high red to white ware ratios. These patterns are also characteristic of the earliest assemblages from the later nucleated villages (Duff 1996; Huntley 2008; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985). The examination of temporal patterns raises a few interesting issues, but their implications for settlement formation are somewhat difficult to evaluate with current evidence. First, the concentration of early settlements on Lookout Mesa suggests that this settlement group may have been founded simultaneously by small residential groups with prior social contacts, most likely from the same area. Unfortunately, this fact was discovered after I selected samples for INAA, so this possibility cannot be evaluated with other evidence. Second, there does not appear to be any strong spatial association of sites occupied during single intervals anywhere else in the valley, except for possibly the Tinaja group, which tends toward the later end of the temporal range. The lack of strong spatial patterning is probably in part due to the fact that the vast majority of sites throughout all parts of the valley were occupied simultaneously between AD 1250 and 1275. On the other hand, it is also due to the fact that most settlement groups included a mix of room blocks founded and depopulated at different times. This pattern would have been generated in a context of frequent, short-term occupations where residential moves occurred primarily at the room block rather than settlement group level in a social field that lacked strong community-scale boundaries. Second, a few of the largest settlements in the valley have early components, indicating that their size and potentially social importance may have derived

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population circulation and zuni communities

from early arrival, as would be expected based on ethnographic models of settlement process in similar societies. As discussed later in this chapter, early occupation was not characteristic of all large room blocks, however, indicating that early arrival was not the only driver of the formation of large residential groups.

Residential Differentiation in the El Morro Valley Some room blocks may have been focal settlements anchoring movement within the El Morro Valley and surrounding region. The term “focal settlement,” as used by Hamnett (1977), denotes a residential site that is larger and longer lived than others. These settlements are typically key nodes for channeling residential mobility and other movements in agricultural societies due to both their sheer size and the frequent presence of important people and families. People tend to move in and out of these settlements more often and over a longer period of time than others as they participate in local circulation systems (see fig. 2.1). Other researchers have also noted that large, long-lived settlements in small-scale agricultural societies are often the residences of leaders and that in many cases this leadership is based on the fact that these people were among the first to move onto new lands (Herr 2001; Kopytoff 1987; G. Stone 1992). Thus, to determine how population circulation impacted the formation of larger groups, we must have some sense of how focal settlements were formed, articulate with other aspects of the settlement system, and were associated with various markers of leadership. Southwest archaeologists working on the Colorado Plateau have long recognized the presence of anomalously large room blocks among dispersed groups of residential pueblos. These large settlements are also often associated with large, presumably communal, ceremonial structures, most commonly great kivas (Herr 2001; Van Dyke 2002). This twotiered settlement pattern is usually considered characteristic of the Chaco period (AD 900–1150) (Gilpin 2003; Lekson 1991; Kantner and Kintigh 2006; Kantner and Mahoney 2000; Kintigh 2003; Powers et al. 1983), although others have recognized that this pattern extends into the Pueblo III period in a variety of areas, including the Zuni region (Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh 1994, 1996; Stein and Fowler 1996; Varien et al. 1996). The common use of naturalized community models has encouraged Southwest archaeologists to view these larger settlements as locations of communal ritual that integrated surrounding room blocks into unified communities. There is still little archaeological data that provide clear insights into who resided in these largest settlements or how their lives



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intertwined with others nearby (Kintigh 2003). Although the common assumption that residents of large room blocks were leaders in local social systems seems plausible, it is still unclear how these people may have assumed this position in the first place. In addition, reliance on naturalized community models often leads researchers to overlook cases that do not fit preconceptions. For example, archaeologists working in the Cibola area have identified a number of cases where large pueblos or ceremonial features were isolated on the landscape or where multiple, contemporaneous large settlements usually interpreted as community centers were in close proximity (Elyea et al. 1994; Herr 2001; Kintigh 2007; Wozniak and Marshall 1991). Although not necessarily the most common pattern, cases with different characteristics provide important avenues for comparison among settlement systems that may yield insights into more general processes, as well as the unique circumstances of local developments. To avoid some of the pitfalls of naturalized community models, I approach the analysis of large settlements in the El Morro record with the perspective that (1) considerable diversity may have existed in large room block form and function, (2) newly constructed large settlements were not necessarily built using earlier ideological models, and (3) that not every settlement group shared the same social structure and spatial pattern. This is especially important considering the fact that as a newly settled area, the El Morro Valley would have been an excellent locus for people to pursue social changes resulting in the creation of settlement forms different from those of earlier periods (Cobb and King 2005; Nelson 2000; Pauketat 2003). Forcing the El Morro record—or any archaeological case for that matter—into preconceived, naturalized models provides a very different view of settlement processes and in most cases, simply reconfirms prior views.

Variation in Room Block Size Figure 6.4 and table 6.3 summarize information on room block size in the study area. The most obvious aspect of these data is that the majority of room blocks, over 65 percent, are actually quite small, ranging from one to ten rooms in size. Only one or two households would have occupied most of these room blocks. LZ1204 and LZ1209, the two room blocks in the Los Gigantes group discussed in chapter 4, are typical of pueblos of this size. Room blocks of this size contain only 22 percent of the total number of rooms in the study area, however, suggesting only a minority of the valley population resided in pueblos this small despite their frequency. Fifty-three percent of the remaining room blocks (42 of 80) are slightly larger, falling within the eleven to twenty room range. These

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population circulation and zuni communities

figure 6.4.  Box plot of room block sizes.

slightly larger room blocks account for an additional 20 percent of the cumulative room count. The largest pueblos were a much more important part of the valley settlement system than their small number would suggest. Defining what constitutes a large pueblo is not obvious because there are no clear breaks Table 6.3. El Morro Valley Room Block Sizes Room Count   1–5   6–10 11–15 16–20 21–25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 46–50 51–55 56–60 61–65 66–70 71–75 76–80 81–85 86–90 91–95 96–100 165 Total

No. of Room Blocks

Percent of Total

Cumulative Percent

Total No. of Rooms

Percent of Total

82 67 23 19 4 7 3 10 1 3 0 1 1 2 0 1 0 0 1 3 1

35.8 29.3 10.0 8.3 1.7 3.1 1.3 4.4 0.4 1.3 0 0.4 0.4 0.9 0 0.4 0 0 0.4 1.3 0.4

35.8 65.1 75.1 83.4 85.1 88.2 89.5 93.9 94.3 95.6 95.6 96.0 96.4 97.3 97.3 97.7 97.7 97.7 98.1 99.4 99.7

212 500 306 359 94 208 100 391 45 150 0 60 65 140 0 80 0 0 93 296 165

6.5 15.3 9.4 11.0 2.9 6.4 3.1 12.0 1.4 4.6 0 1.8 2.0 4.3 0.0 2.5 0 0 2.8 9.1 5.1

229

Cumulative Percent 6.5 21.8 31.2 42.2 45.1 51.5 54.6 66.6 68.0 72.6 72.6 74.4 76.4 80.7 80.7 83.2 83.2 83.2 86.0 95.1 100.2

3264

Note:  Cumulative percents do not add to 100 due to rounding of individual rows.



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in the overall size distribution. No clear multimodal pattern that one might expect if there were a rigid settlement hierarchy and a clear division of focal settlements from normal room blocks is present. An arbitrary division that can be made is to focus on the largest twenty-five sites in the study area, all of which are marked as outliers in the box plot in figure 6.4. These large pueblos range from four to nearly twenty times the median room block size in the valley and comprise nearly 47 percent of the total room count in the study area during the Pueblo III period despite their comparative rarity. The substantial proportion of rooms in large room blocks suggests that nucleation, the congregation of a large number of households in single buildings, was a key process shaping El Morro Valley settlement well before the onset of the Pueblo IV period, which began with the construction of massive nucleated pueblos housing hundreds of residents each. Data for these twenty-five room blocks are presented in table 6.4 and maps of selected pueblos are presented in figures 6.5 and 6.6. A wide range of room block sizes is represented, with only one clear outlier, CS142-1, which has 165 rooms, significantly different in size from the other twenty-four. Intensive excavations have occurred at the Pettit site (CS190–1) (Saitta 1991, 1994b), all five large room blocks in the Scribe S settlement group (Watson et al. 1980), both of the large Tinaja room blocks (Watson et al. 1980), and at the Los Gigantes great house (Schachner and Kintigh 2004). These excavations have not revealed any information indicating large room blocks were functionally different from smaller pueblos. All contain domestic features and architecture, including habitation rooms with features used in food preparation and storage rooms. The excavations at the Los Gigantes great house suggest that the architecture at this pueblo may have been more formalized, including banded elements in exterior walls and higher ceilings, but the structure itself does not appear to have been used in different ways than surrounding room blocks. The only true distinguishing feature of large room blocks is their size and, in some cases, association with large ritual structures.

Large Room Blocks and Initial Settlement of the Valley As discussed earlier in this chapter, some of the largest room blocks in the valley were founded during the initial period of settlement, most likely just prior to AD 1250. Large pueblos in general were no more likely to have been constructed during the early period of settlement than smaller room blocks, however. A chi-square test suggests that significant differences do not exist in the timing of first occupation of large and small room blocks (table 6.5). The lack of association of large room blocks with occupation during the earliest period of settlement suggests that the formation of large residential groups in the El Morro Valley was not exclu-

CS142 CS142 CS142 El Morro El Morro El Morro El Morro Lookout Lookout Lookout Los Gigantes LZ1310 Pettit Pettit Pettit Sandy Corner Sandy Corner Scribe S Scribe S Scribe S Scribe S Scribe S Tinaja Tinaja Vogt Ranch

CS142-10 CS142-2 CS142-1 CS150 LZ1306 LA1581 LZ1299 CS76 CS81 CS164 LZ1200 LZ1310 CS192 CS190-1 CS195 CS107-1 CS154 CS11-U CS40 CS11-MS CS39 CS12 CS144-12 CS144-1 29MC24 1520

40 50 165 39 40 100 70 40 65 80 45 36 70 96 100 40 50 35 40 40 50 60 37 93 39

Room Count

16

1

4 1

1 1 1

1 1 1

4

Small Kiva

Note:  Period labels: E, Early; M, Middle; L, Late; P3, Pueblo III.

Total

Cluster Name

Site

Table 6.4.  Characteristics of Large El Morro Valley Sites

1

1

Great Kiva

1

1

Nearby?

Unroofed Great Kiva

4

1

1 1

1

Semienclosed Plaza M M M P3 P3 E P3 E L P3 EML P3 E P3 EM M M M ML M L M ML ML P3

Period



Settlement Patterns and Residential Differentiation

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40 m

figure 6.5. Selected large room blocks in the El Morro Valley.

sively a product of early arrival as one might expect based on the ethnographic record of movement into newly occupied areas (Herr 2001; Kopytoff 1987; G. Stone 1992). Large groups likely continued to enter the valley after initial settlement or formed in the valley later on. The relatively short occupation spans of most large room blocks (a

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population circulation and zuni communities

Room block

80 m

figure 6.6.  CS142 (Spier 142) settlement group (after sketch maps by CARP and Keith Kintigh).

single generation or so) indicate that at least in some cases residents of these buildings may have moved into the valley together and suggests large sites did not often form accretionally. Definitive conclusions about the construction sequence of these large room blocks are not possible because most excavations have been minor, but the frequent use of simple ladder construction at most seems indicative of rapid, nearly simultaneous occupation. Simultaneous occupation of these entire structures is also supported by the lack of trash-fill in rooms at excavated large room blocks in the Los Gigantes, Scribe S, and Tinaja groups. If these buildings reached their total size during their initial construction, this suggests at least a few residential groups composed of ten or even twenty house-



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Table 6.5.  Temporal Distribution of Sites by Site Size Small Sites Period

n

Early Early-Middle Early-Middle-Late Middle Middle-Late Late Total

Large Sites

%

n

%

9 2 1 44 11 4

12.7 2.8 1.4 62.0 15.5 5.6

3 1 1 8 3 2

16.7 5.6 5.6 44.4 16.7 11.1

71

100.0

18

100.0

5 13 5

21.7 56.5 21.7

Sites Aggregated by Occupation Period Early Middle Late

12 58 15

Total

85

14.1 68.2 17.6 100

23

100

Notes: Chi-square = 1.21; probability = 0.546; degrees of freedom = 2.

holds (assuming roughly 4–5 rooms per household) settled the valley as intact social units. Social units of this scale may have had greater influence in networks of population circulation due to their sheer size, regardless of whether they were the first to settle the area.

Large Pueblos and Ritual Architecture Traditional leadership in Pueblo societies is closely linked to control over ritual knowledge and prominent roles in ceremony (Brandt 1994; Levy 1992; McGuire and Saitta 1996; Potter and Perry 2000; Whiteley 1988). Some researchers have used the association of ceremonial structures with particular residential sites or areas within sites to infer the presence of ancestral Pueblo leaders in the archaeological record (Ortman and Bradley 2002; Schachner 2001; Wilshusen 1989). Presumably residents of structures associated with communal ritual architecture would have been more likely to exert control or influence over the ceremonies conducted there (Brandt 1994; Schachner 2001). This influence likely extended to population circulation, as communal ceremonies are often venues for the transfer of information and creation of social networks that may have been drawn upon during residential and other moves (Hamnett 1977; Kopytoff 1987; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). In the analysis that follows, I focus my attention primarily on the largest ritual structures, which are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Prior to that, however,

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I briefly review some of the evidence for differences in the ritual importance of settlements based on the variation in the number and construction of small kivas, which are much more common in the archaeological record, although less visible during surface investigations. Pueblo III period small kivas in the Zuni region and wider Cibola area were typically semi- or fully subterranean, variably shaped (D-shaped, rectangular, circular) structures with benches, flagstone-lined floors, and in some cases lateral floor vaults similar to those found in Chacoan great kivas (McGimsey 1980; Roberts 1939; Zier 1976). As in other parts of the northern Southwest (Lekson 1988), these structures had multiple uses, including both domestic and ritual practices. Although there is some indication that small kivas were not as common in the Zuni region as in other parts of the northern Southwest (Kintigh et al. 2004:445; Saitta 1991), this observation has been based primarily on surface survey. The remains of Zuni region small kivas are difficult to identify from the surface and are often found only during excavation (Anyon 1984; Zier 1976). Thus, I place little confidence in the identification of differences in the ritual importance of pueblos based on the presence or absence of small kivas alone, particularly in the El Morro archaeological record, which is largely surface based. A few possible patterns deserve mention, however. Some researchers have been able to rank the ritual importance of pueblos based upon the presence of multiple classes of small kivas, some of which may have been more important than others due to variation in internal features. Wilshusen (1989) used extensive excavation data from the Dolores Archaeological Project to identify a tiered hierarchy of small pit structures during the Pueblo I period (AD 750–900) in the Mesa Verde area based upon variation in floor area and the presence or absence of features similar to those recorded in historic kivas. Although Wilshusen (1989:102–4) interpreted different classes of structures as associated with increasingly inclusive levels of ritual practice, an alternative explanation is that each class may have also been associated with people of greater ritual importance and social power (Schachner 2001). There are some tantalizing hints in the El Morro record that there may have been multiple classes of small kivas potentially linked to settlements of varying ritual importance. Large depressions, ranging from 8 to 10 meters across, which is nearly twice the diameter of most small kivas in the region, have been noted at some sites, including large pueblos such as CS195 and the Los Gigantes great house (fig. 6.5). Depressions of this size have also been noted at smaller pueblos, however, including a small room block in the Los Gigantes group and at LA109833 in Togeye Canyon. Test excavations in the large depression at the Los Gigantes great house revealed a deep subterranean kiva cut nearly 1.75 meters into bedrock with a perimeter bench and floor vault. The exact size and shape of



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this kiva remains unknown, but it appears to have been at least 6 meters in width and one-and-a-half times larger than the few Pueblo III kivas that have been excavated in the Zuni River drainage (Anyon 1984; Zier 1976). Thus, it is possible that multiple classes of small kivas existed, with some falling between the smallest, most common kivas and great kivas in ritual importance. Some of these may have been associated with important settlements in the Zuni region, such as great houses, a possibility originally raised by Fowler and colleagues (1987:87, 204) when exploring the landscapes of post-Chaco settlement groups. Systematic attempts at identifying these features may be a useful means of delineating the ritual importance of sites in the future, but this will require well-designed excavations, geophysical techniques, or detailed surface recording. The Los Gigantes evidence supports the pattern proposed by Fowler and colleagues, but without an adequate excavated sample the frequency of these features remains unknown. The largest ritual structures in the El Morro Valley, great kivas and unroofed great kivas, are almost exclusively associated with large pueblos and easy to identify without excavation. These structures are quite large (12–20 m for great kivas, 22–33 m for unroofed great kivas) and could easily have accommodated dozens, if not hundreds, of ritual participants and spectators. Subterranean great kivas are most often associated with Chaco period great houses in the Cibola area (Roberts 1939; Van Dyke 2002), while unroofed great kivas are usually found at post-Chaco great houses (Duff and Schachner 2007; Fowler et al. 1987; Kintigh et al. 1996; McGimsey 1980). Kintigh and others (1996:272) have suggested that because of their large floor area and ease of spectator access, the latter features would have been prime venues for hosting large-scale ritual events integrating multiple settlement groups. Only two great kivas are definitively associated with large pueblos in aggregated groups in the El Morro Valley. A subterranean great kiva is present at LZ1306 in the El Morro settlement group. This structure is 15 meters in diameter, which is much smaller than the few known unroofed great kivas in the valley, suggesting it may have been more similar to earlier, Chaco period great kivas, albeit at a thirteenth-century pueblo. An unroofed great kiva, 31 meters in diameter, is associated with the Los Gigantes great house (fig. 6.5). There is also a potential unroofed great kiva in association with two room blocks located roughly 150 meters west of CS142 (fig. 6.6). If present, this is the only great kiva potentially associated with small room blocks, albeit at a short distance from one of the largest pueblos in the valley. The two other known great kivas in the El Morro Valley are unroofed and associated with large nucleated pueblos, including one at Kluck-

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hohn, and another (CS189) located midway between Cienega and Mirabal, two large nucleated pueblos near the center of the valley. An unroofed great kiva is also located next to the Box S ruin, just northwest of the valley proper. A potential unroofed great kiva was also noted by Jesse Walter Fewkes (1891:113–14) in association with the Deracho Ruin, a late thirteenth-century, nucleated pueblo in the adjacent Ramah Valley (Kintigh 1985:30–31). These are the only unroofed great kivas in the Zuni region associated with nucleated pueblos (see fig. 3.5), and as I argue later, are another line of evidence that there was some temporal variation in the appearance of large nucleated pueblos and that some may have been contemporaries of aggregated groups. Large pueblos with communal architecture were likely loci of ritual events that drew participants from throughout the valley. Through their control of ceremony, residents of these settlements would have played an important role in facilitating the flow of information that is crucial for coordinating movement within small-scale agricultural societies. Herr (2001:93–94) has argued ceremonies in unroofed great kivas played a similar role in coordinating and facilitating population circulation during earlier periods along the Mogollon Rim in the western margins of the Cibola area. Some of the large room blocks in the El Morro Valley are associated with formal plazas, which were not common forms of ritual architecture in the Zuni region prior to the Pueblo IV period (fig. 6.5). Plazas are important loci for ritual events at modern pueblos, and some have argued their origins are closely associated with the development of nucleated villages in the Western Pueblo area during the late AD 1200s and 1300s (Adams 1991). Although large plazas are present at some earlier sites, such as the great houses of Chaco Canyon and a few outlying great houses, they are usually smaller and differently shaped than later examples. Chaco period great houses with plazas are absent in the Zuni region and rare within the wider Cibola area. The plazas at Pueblo III period El Morro sites were rectangular and partially enclosed by L- or C-shaped room blocks. Three of the El Morro plaza-associated sites are located on top and near the edge of mesas, and the mesa edge partially bounds the plaza. In all three of these cases it appears the plaza areas were cleared to bedrock as well. Although room blocks of these shapes existed during earlier periods in the Zuni region, they were not nearly as large as the plaza-associated room blocks in the El Morro Valley and thus not suited to use for large-scale rituals. The El Morro plaza pueblos were also likely loci of ritual events that involved people from a number of settlements throughout the valley, serving a similar function as large pueblos with great kivas. Intriguingly, great kivas



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and plazas do not co-occur in the same settlement group in the El Morro Valley, suggesting differing axes of ritual practice existed during the AD 1200s. This pattern needs to be verified through examination of the potential unroofed great kiva in the CS142 group, as CS142-1 contains a plaza, as well as determination of whether less defined open spaces between room blocks in some settlement groups, such as the central portion of Scribe S (see fig. 3.9), were used as plazas. I am not aware of similar Pueblo III period settlements in the central Zuni region, but similar late thirteenth-century plaza sites have been recorded at the western edges of the Cibola area (Hill 1970), on Cebolleta Mesa to the east (Roney 1996; Wozniak and Marshall 1991), and in the Rio Grande Valley (Crown, Orcutt, and Kohler 1996; Spielmann 1996). The use of these early plazas in the Zuni region is poorly understood, as none have been excavated. Plazas were clearly important loci of ritual events during later periods (Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Potter 2000; Watson et al. 1980), but it is unclear how they may have been used during this earlier interval. The adoption of settlements with these features, which represent a new type of architectural space in the Zuni region, if not the wider Cibola area, may have foreshadowed the proliferation, and near ubiquity, of these features after AD 1275. Residents of the large El Morro Valley room blocks associated with ritual structures probably exerted some control over the process of settlement of the valley and over the configuration of local social systems through their control of ritual performance and position as hosts of large social gatherings (Hamnett 1977, 1985; Kopytoff 1987; Wiessner and Tumu 1998). Although the association between ritual structures and large room blocks is what one might expect, the diversity of structural types— multiple great kiva types and plazas—has not been previously documented and illustrates that multiple expressions of communal ritual practice were present in the valley in the AD 1200s. This diversity of ritual structures contrasts sharply with long occupied zones of the Zuni region, where great kivas were the primary ritual structures. The possible origins of this diversity in the El Morro Valley and other newly settled areas are discussed in the concluding chapter.

Were Nucleated Pueblos and Aggregated Groups Contemporary? One of the most important problems facing archaeologists interested in El Morro Valley settlement patterns and the formation of new social systems during the thirteenth century concerns the timing of the construction of the earliest nucleated pueblos. If, as I argue later, some nucleated

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pueblos were first constructed during movement into the valley in the mid-AD 1200s, then their origins may lie in that process. In addition, if nucleated pueblos and aggregated groups were contemporary, then a much greater diversity of settlement forms existed for a period of time than current models suggest, raising questions about why and how that diversity arose when it did. In chapter 3, I briefly introduced two perspectives on the origins of nucleated pueblos in the El Morro area that have drawn upon largely the same body of evidence but have reached different conclusions depending on exactly which types of data have been prioritized. One posits that aggregated groups and nucleated pueblos appeared sequentially in time (LeBlanc 1978, 1999, 2001; Watson et al. 1980), while the other raises the possibility of a significant period of overlapping occupation (Duff and Schachner 2007; Kintigh 1985). In this section, I more closely explore the evidence and implications of these two perspectives and present some additional data that support the latter. The first perspective, which could be considered the standard model of the Pueblo III-IV transition, was first proposed by LeBlanc (1978) and Watson and others (1980). They suggested that the large nucleated villages in the El Morro Valley, and by extension the Cibola area as a whole, were founded at the beginning of the Pueblo IV period (the late AD 1270s) by residents of aggregated groups, such as Scribe S. The latter were then rapidly depopulated. This interpretation is based on the researchers’ identification of a break in the El Morro Valley tree-ring record at roughly AD 1275 (Watson et al. 1980:205–7). This depiction of change parallels traditional models of Southwest prehistory that portray the breaks between different periods as clear, rapid transitions in material culture and architectural styles. The CARP researchers (Watson et al. 1980), especially LeBlanc (1999, 2001), suggest that this change was driven by increasingly violent conflict within the region and that the construction of large nucleated pueblos was driven by defensive concerns. The second perspective, first proposed by Kintigh (1985) and argued for more recently by Duff and Schachner (2007), raises the possibility that this transition may not have been so rapid and that aggregated groups and nucleated pueblos were contemporary for a few decades in the late AD 1200s. Kintigh (1985:77–89) used ceramic seriation to estimate periods of occupation at large settlements in the Zuni region. In doing so, he noted that a number of large nucleated pueblos had ceramic assemblages identical to those of aggregated groups, such as Scribe S. Painted pottery assemblages at aggregated groups and potentially early nucleated pueblos are dominated by St. Johns types and Tularosa Black-on-white, the two most common types produced during the Pueblo III period. The painted



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pottery assemblages at these nucleated pueblos are unlike those at later nucleated villages where early Zuni Glaze Ware is more common (Huntley 2008; Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985). Ceramic data from Box S and Kluckhohn, two of the largest nucleated pueblos in the region, that were unavailable to Kintigh during his initial study were included in the seriation presented in chapter 4 and support the assignment of the construction and occupation of these sites to the pre–AD 1275 period. The evidence necessary to definitively determine which of these two models of settlement change is most accurate is as of yet insufficient. Although ceramic seriation suggests contemporaneity is quite likely, definitive answers will require more tree-ring data. Tree-ring dates are available from only one of the large nucleated pueblos potentially occupied prior to AD 1275 according to Kintigh (table 6.6). A single pre–AD 1275 cutting date was obtained from Mirabal, but this easily could represent a salvaged beam from an earlier pueblo. Intriguingly however, this date is the only pre–AD 1279 cutting date from any of the four nucleated pueblos in the El Morro Valley with tree-ring samples (Atsinna, Cienega, Mirabal, and Pueblo de los Muertos). Although tree-ring dates from the post–AD 1275 interval are also present at Mirabal and its occupation clearly continued into this period judging from ceramic evidence, it is quite possible Mirabal was initially constructed as a nucleated pueblo when most El Morro residents were living in aggregated groups. One of the aggregated groups, Tinaja, has tree-ring dates from the AD 1270s and 1280s that span the proposed break in settlement patterns at AD 1275, again suggesting a period of overlap. Neither instance provides particularly strong evidence, but each nonetheless provides some information consistent with a period of contemporaneity. One minor piece of evidence supporting the interpretation that some nucleated pueblos were contemporary with the latest aggregated groups is the lack of extensive stone robbing of pueblos near the Kluckhohn Ruin. Kluckhohn is located within 100 meters of a number of pueblos, including the Pettit site, which exhibit little evidence for extensive stone robbing (see Saitta 1994a:fig. 4.8). The lack of stone robbing contrasts sharply with the pattern seen at Scribe S and Pueblo de los Muertos, where extensive stone robbing of the earlier, aggregated group is a key piece of evidence attesting to sequential occupations (Watson et al. 1980:205). Pueblo de los Muertos was clearly built after the late AD 1270s, a fact attested to by both tree-ring dating and ceramic seriation (Huntley and Kintigh 2004; Kintigh 1985:50–51), but the timing of its construction may not necessarily be typical of all nucleated pueblos. Examination of room blocks in the vicinity of other potentially early nucleated pueblos may be useful for determining contemporaneity with aggregated groups.

Zuni Buttes SW of El Morro Pescado Basin Ramah Valley NW of El Morro Ramah Valley El Morro Valley Knife Hill Canyon Knife Hill Canyon SW of El Morro El Morro Valley El Morro Valley

Spier 61 Kay Chee Pescado Canyon Lower Deracho Box S Day Ranch Lookout Jack’s Lake Archeotekopa II Fort Site Kluckhohn Mirabal

122 255 723 609 473 574 300 245 1412 216 1142 743

Rooms

Ceramic Dates AD 1200–1250 AD 1225–1250 AD 1250–1275 AD 1250–1275 AD 1250–1275 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1300 AD 1250–1325

Note:  Temporal assignments based on ceramic seriation by Kintigh (1985).

Location

Site

Table 6.6.  Large Nucleated Pueblos That Were Potentially Built Prior to AD 1275

None None None None None None None None None None None 1270rB, 1279rB, 1283rB, 1296rB, (1141, 1153, 1176, 1184, 1190, 1205, 1228, 1229, 1239, 1247, 1255, 1258)vv

Tree-Ring Dates



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A final line of evidence possibly indicating some nucleated pueblos may have been occupied earlier than traditionally thought is the presence of unroofed great kivas at Kluckhohn, Box S, and possibly Mirabal. Every other known unroofed great kiva in the Cibola area is associated with aggregated groups that ceramically date to AD 1225–75, suggesting this type of ritual structure was used for a relatively short period of time. Given the short span of use of structures of this type, it seems likely unroofed great kivas at nucleated pueblos were used during the same interval. None of the ceramic evidence from these structures at nucleated pueblos precludes this interpretation. Reanalysis of surface evidence at Box S and Kluckhohn and examination of the CARP map of Mirabal also suggest that large plazas were not present at these sites, unlike later nucleated pueblos. Instead the interior portions of these massive room blocks were filled with single-story rooms, although a few small courtyard areas may have been present. Unroofed great kivas at these sites may have been used analogously to plazas at later pueblos. If some nucleated pueblos were contemporary with late aggregated groups, a reevaluation of Pueblo III period demography in the Zuni region is needed, as is a shift in our explanations for why nucleated settlements arose and then became the primary residential choice for residents of the area. If these two types of settlements were contemporary, social processes in the late AD 1200s were more dynamic than once thought, with social groups pursuing radically divergent settlement forms that express community solidarity in very different ways. The nucleated pueblos, unlike the poorly bounded aggregated groups, clearly define “insiders” and “outsiders” (Bernardini 1998; Potter 1998). Although movements among pueblos likely continued after the first large, nucleated settlements were constructed, these moves would have been channeled through particular nodes and may have been more easily monitored and controlled. Most of the early nucleated pueblos in the Zuni region were constructed in areas without continuous, long-term settlement histories, the far eastern part of the Zuni Indian Reservation and the El Morro Valley being the prime examples (Duff and Schachner 2007).2 The construction of early nucleated pueblos in these areas occurred where people were building new settlements, social systems, and literally new places in previously sparsely populated areas. The emergence of novel social forms is not unexpected in this situation, as these areas would have been socially ill defined compared to the dense, long-term settled areas nearby. The origins of nucleated pueblos, and their relationship to changes in intraregional and pan-regional patterns of movement, are further explored in the last chapter.

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Regional Comparisons The most striking contrast between El Morro Valley settlement patterns and that of most other parts of the Zuni region is the short occupation span of the area. In almost all other parts of the Zuni region with large full-coverage surveys, Pueblo III period settlements are found intermixed with earlier occupations dating back at least 500 years if not much further (Hunter-Anderson 1978; Kintigh 2007; Kintigh et al. 2004; Schutt 1997; Weaver 1978). At a minimum, these other areas have significant Chaco (AD 1000–1150) and early Pueblo III period (AD 1150–1225) occupations that directly precede the time during which the El Morro Valley was occupied. Direct comparisons of settlement processes, including assessments of settlement clustering and the distribution of room block sizes, are possible between the El Morro, Pescado Basin (Kintigh et al. 2004), and Jaralosa Draw (Eckert 1995; Kintigh 2007; Kintigh et al. 1996) areas. General comparison suggests settlement processes were quite different in the three areas, a fact that may be linked to the variable long-term settlement histories in each. Both the Pescado Basin and Jaralosa Draw areas were settled for much longer periods of time, with occupations extending back continually for hundreds of years prior to the settlement of the El Morro area in the AD 1200s (Kintigh et al. 2004; Kintigh 2007). Although strong settlement clustering is not present in the Pescado Basin (Kintigh et al. 2004:fig. 5) or El Morro Valley during the late Pueblo III periods, Jaralosa Draw settlements were very strongly clustered by this time (figs. 6.7 and 6.8). Although early Pueblo III period settlement was more diffuse in the latter area (Eckert 1995; Kintigh 2007), by AD 1225 or so, nearly all residents of the area resided at two dense multi-room block clusters, Jaralosa and Hinkson (Kintigh 2007; Kintigh et al. 1996) (fig. 6.7). These two settlements comprise ten and thirty-two room blocks (respectively) separated by tens of meters or less. The two clusters themselves were separated by nearly 4 kilometers of unoccupied land. The next nearest contemporary settlement groups were well over 10 kilometers away. This pattern is quite different from that of the upstream portions of the Zuni drainage, indicating variability in the development of bounded social groups and potentially mobility as well. The limited data presented here along with reconnaissance information from other areas suggest that late Pueblo III settlements in the western portions of the Zuni region, as typified by settlements along Jaralosa Draw, were strongly clustered, with large open spaces between groups. In the east, although some denser areas of settlement existed, these were located within a more continuous distribution of residential sites that



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AD 1225−75

figure 6.7.  Distribution of sites in the Jaralosa Draw area, AD 1225-75.

lacked clear spatial boundaries among potential settlement clusters. As discussed in the final chapter, these differences may have been related to the overall upstream shift of population during the Pueblo III period, variability in patterns of population circulation within the region, and resulting changes in local settlement organization. Differences in room block size also reveal a few additional lines of contrast and similarities among the areas. First, the largest Pueblo III period room blocks in the El Morro Valley were generally much larger than the largest sites in either the Jaralosa Draw or Pescado Basin areas (compare tables 6.3 and 6.7). The largest class of room blocks, defined here as having 35 rooms or more, were less common in both of these latter areas. Second, unlike in the El Morro Valley where these largest room blocks comprise nearly 50 percent of the total room count, in the Pescado Basin large sites account for only 22 percent of the total Pueblo III period room count and in the Jaralosa area only 19 percent. Despite these differences in the size of the largest pueblos and proportion of local population living in them, in all three areas room blocks twenty rooms or less in size account for roughly 80–90 percent of the total number of Pueblo III period room blocks, suggesting a similar system of residence and movement organized primarily around small social groups, most likely households. In terms of ritual architecture, a potential great kiva is present in the Pescado Basin at Spier 81 (Kintigh et al. 2004), while an unroofed great

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AD 950−1050

population circulation and zuni communities

AD 1050−1175

AD 1175−1275

figure 6.8.  Distribution of sites in the Heshot uła area during three different time periods.

kiva is present in the Hinkson group along the Jaralosa Draw (Kintigh et al. 1996). Neither area exhibits the diversity of communal ritual structures found in the El Morro Valley. In summary, comparison of patterns across the Zuni region suggests that the El Morro Valley settlements were unique along a few dimensions. First, large Pueblo III room blocks were more common in the El Morro Valley and housed a larger proportion of the local population than in other areas. Although pueblos began to be located more closely to one another throughout the Zuni region during this period, nucleation, or the concentration of population in single room blocks, was occurring earlier in the El Morro area. This pattern would be significantly stronger if the earliest large nucleated pueblos in the El Morro Valley were in fact contemporary with aggregated groups, which I argue is likely. Similar early, large nucleated pueblos were not present in either the Pescado Basin or along Jaralosa Draw. The trend toward early nucleation is important because nucleation became the exclusive form of settlement in the Zuni region by AD 1300 at the latest. Its early appearance in the El Morro Valley suggests that its adoption may have been linked to the Pueblo III population shift up the Zuni drainage into largely unoccupied areas and



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Table 6.7.  Pueblo III Room Block Sizes in the Heshot uła and Jaralosa Draw Areas Room Count

No. Percent of Room of Blocks Total

Cumulative Percent

Total No. of Rooms

Percent of Cumulative Total Percent

Heshot uła Area   1–5   6–10 11–15 16–20 21–25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 46–50

11 15 14 3 5 3 1 1 1 1

Total

55

20.0 27.3 25.5 5.5 9.1 5.5 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8

20.0 47.3 72.8 78.3 87.4 92.9 94.7 96.5 98.3 100.1

30 114 177 52 116 84 35 38 43 50

4.1 15.4 24.0 7.0 15.7 11.4 4.7 5.1 5.8 6.8

4.1 19.5 43.5 50.5 66.2 77.6 82.3 87.4 93.2 100.0

12.0 25.4 14.7 9.9 1.9 14.7 2.8 6.7 0 0 4.5 7.3

12.0 37.4 52.1 62.0 63.9 78.6 81.4 88.1 88.1 88.1 92.6 99.9

739 Jaralosa Area

  1–5   6–10 11–15 16–20 21–25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 46–50 51–55 81–85 Total

51 38 13 6 1 6 1 2 0 0 1 1 120

42.5 31.7 10.8 5.0 0.8 5.0 0.8 1.7 0 0 0.8 0.8

42.5 74.2 85.0 90.0 90.8 95.8 96.6 98.3 98.3 98.3 99.1 99.9

138 291 168 113 22 169 32 77 0 0 52 84 1146

Note:  Cumulative percents may not add to 100 due to rounding of individual rows.

the social and historical circumstances of that movement. Second, a more diverse suite of ritual structures was present in the El Morro Valley than other parts of the Zuni drainage during the AD 1200s, suggesting greater variability in social organization, ritual practice, and potentially the origins of social groups residing there. Third, the lack of significant earlier settlement in the El Morro Valley indicates that new residents were unconstrained by prior settlement decisions and local social net-

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works. Unlike most other parts of the Zuni region where earlier pueblos continued to be occupied or remained important parts of the landscape during the Pueblo III period, the El Morro Valley was nearly a blank canvas in the early to mid-1200s when settlement began. In the concluding chapter, I suggest the origins of many of the novel forms of local settlement organization in the El Morro Valley were the direct outgrowths of people’s responses to changes in population circulation in the El Morro Valley and surrounding areas during the AD 1200s.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Social Interaction Networks

The final piece of my investigation of population circulation and community organization in the thirteenth-century Zuni region is an examination of variability in social interaction networks. Movement and social organization are both fundamentally structured by a variety of interactions among individuals and diverse types of social groups. Studies of interaction also serve as an effective complement to the more traditional emphasis on settlement patterns in community studies because they enable a fuller examination of the social processes implicated in creating community- and intraregional-scale social organization (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:11). Examinations of pottery circulation as a proxy for intraregional interaction have been particularly effective for tracing the formation of both bounded community organization and crosscutting social groups in the Southwest (e.g., Abbott 2000; Huntley 2008; Kantner et al. 2000). These studies frequently document more complex social networks than might be hypothesized based on naturalized models of community organization. In this chapter I focus on intersite variation in patterns of interaction within the valley in order to investigate the potential role of social diversity and differences among the small-scale, room block– dwelling groups in the creation of new, larger scale social units. As in previous chapters, these analyses document a surprising amount of var­ iation in social interaction at multiple scales, much of which is only understandable in light of contextualizing El Morro Valley populations within a wider network of population circulation, fluid social bound­ aries, and social change encompassing much of the Zuni region and beyond.

157

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Ceramic Movement, Population Circulation, and Social Diversity Ceramic movement can be directly linked to population circulation through the transport of pottery by mobile groups (Beck 2009; Zedeño 1994, 1998, 2002) or indirectly through ceramic exchanges that follow key channels of material and information flows that often arise in contexts of migration (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Duff 2002; Lyons 2003). Pottery is likely to be transported during the settlement of new areas either to ensure that necessary tools are immediately available upon arrival or so that domestic activities can be performed en route (Zedeño 1998:465–66). Pots may have been commonly transported during short, intraregional moves that could have been completed relatively quickly or over multiple, back-and-forth trips. The analyses of chapter 5 suggest that moves of these sorts were the primary sources of settlers in the El Morro Valley, as most people likely arrived from nearby areas. The El Morro Valley INAA samples probably include pots that were moved into the valley through both residential movement and exchange, but it is nearly impossible to differentiate between the two processes. Either process of pottery transfer would have required the physical movement of people between the El Morro Valley and other areas and contributed to the overall network of population circulation in the region. Regardless of this problem, however, by tracking access to pottery from different areas among newly arrived groups, one can examine potential differences in social ties and, by extension, social origins and diversity. A number of Southwest studies have documented the formation of socially diverse communities composed of migrant groups with variable geographic origins and material culture traditions (Bernardini 2005; Clark 2001; Cordell 1995; Duff 2002; Eckert 2008; Hegmon, Nelson, and Ruth 1998; Hill et al. 2004; Lyons 2003; Neuzil 2008; Schwartz 1970; Zedeño 2002). Many of these studies address migration across long distances and in some cases across archaeological culture boundaries. It is often difficult to specify exactly what qualities marked group distinctiveness (i.e., whether migrants were perceived as different based on clan, ethnic, religious, or linguistic affiliation or other markers), but it is reasonable to assume that many of these movements resulted in the formation of new coalescent social groups comprised of people with few or weak preexisting social ties and a wide range of life histories. Similar differences, albeit at a smaller scale, were likely at play during the largely intraregional migration to the El Morro Valley, as settlers converged from nearby areas and a few more distant places. These small-scale differences—in life experience, histories of movement, religious participation, and so on—would have provided variability in the structure out of which new El Morro communities were formed.



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The coalescence of migrant peoples and resulting social diversity has been recognized as a context conducive to social change by Southwest archaeologists (Cordell 1995; Hegmon et al. 1998; Hill et al. 2004; Lyons 2003; Schwartz 1970) and others (Cobb and King 2005; Kowalewski 2006; Pauketat 2003). Due to the importance of social diversity in contexts of change, the following analyses concentrate on defining variation among social groups within the valley based on differences in access to pottery from multiple parts of the Cibola area. This investigation provides insights into how new potential communities were a product of the origins and social ties of their component groups, and it complements earlier analyses of variation in other parameters of movement and settlement.

Intersite Variation in Ceramic Assemblages Sampling As discussed in chapter 5, a hierarchical strategy was employed for selecting pottery for INAA that involved sampling four room blocks within each of four major settlement groups, yielding a total of sixteen lower order residential groups for comparison. In all four settlement groups, the largest room block in each was sampled (Los Gigantes great house, Pettit and CS195, CS12, and Tinaja Area 4). In addition, I sampled other room blocks that were located within 200 meters of large room blocks, such as LZ1209, Six Rocks, CS9, CS11–Upper, and CS40 (the latter two also qualify as large sites according to the criteria in chapter 6). Some sampled room blocks, such as LA149030, LA149033, and LA109857, were located farther from the largest settlements but still within their respective group (roughly 1 km from the nearest large settlement in each case). Although it is impossible to determine whether all of these room blocks were strictly contemporary, all have evidence for occupation from AD 1250 to 1275 during the main period of initial settlement of the valley.1 The intensive sampling of four different settlement groups enables the examination of intersite variation at multiple scales. First, I assess evidence of variation in social ties at a settlement group level. If the movement of pottery is related to the geography of people’s social ties and if people from different areas settled in distinct parts of the valley, there should be consistent differences between different settlement groups. On the other hand, if people did not necessarily settle near others from their home regions, I would expect no spatial patterning at a valley-wide level. Second, because multiple room blocks were sampled, I am able to compare evidence for variation within settlement groups. This achieves three goals: (1) of assessing whether groups from different areas settled near each other within settlement groups, (2) if residents of different site

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types (i.e., large vs. small) had different social networks, and (3) if residential groups with similar ties but located in different settlement groups were present (i.e., Was similarity in social networks independent of settlement group membership?).

Quantitative Methods for Evaluating Differences in Ceramic Assemblages Differences among ceramic assemblages from sites and settlement groups are evaluated in two ways. First, comparison of raw proportions from different sources highlights fairly obvious differences. This is useful for making broad-brush comparisons and illustrating overall variability. Second, a more critical quantitative assessment of intersite variation is possible through the calculation of Brainerd-Robinson (BR) similarity coefficients (Shennan 1997:233). These coefficients are calculated for pairs of assemblages by totaling the absolute differences between percentages of each pottery source and subtracting that total from 200. Two hundred represents the maximum similarity value (i.e., the sum total of the absolute differences between percentages of each type is 0). BR coefficients have proven particularly useful for comparing sites sampled for INAA due to the ability to assess the effects of sampling error through Monte Carlo resampling procedures (Bernardini 2005:151–58; Huntley 2008:38–40; see DeBoer, Kintigh, and Rostoker 1996; Kintigh 2002 for detailed description of methodology). Monte Carlo resampling enables a quantitative assessment of how often particular BR coefficient values (i.e., dissimilarity between assemblages) would arise simply by chance alone in small samples, rather than due to real differences in the population (i.e., social network) from which a pottery assemblage was drawn. This lends an important quantitative check to what is often a subjective assessment of how different or similar two assemblages are from one another. Toward the end of this chapter, I also present a small number of diversity measures in order to provide further insight into differences in assemblage diversity between sites and settlement groups. These measures allow for an examination of whether sites with more diverse assemblages are concentrated in the valley and if more diverse assemblages are associated with particular site types, such as the large pueblos discussed in chapter 6.

Assessing Pottery Assemblage Variation in the El Morro Valley Basic summary information for individual room blocks and settlement groups is presented in tables 5.1 and 7.1 and figures 7.1 and 7.2. As can



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Table 7.1.  Local and Nonlocal Pottery at Pueblo III Sites in the El Morro Valley Percent

Large Room Block

Local

Nonlocal

N

Los Gigantes Los Gigantes Great House LZ1209 LA149030 LA149033 Subtotal

50 61 52 39 51

50 39 48 61 49

22 28 27 23 100

X

Togeye Pettit CS195 Six Rocks LA109857 Subtotal

83 86 56 46 68

17 14 44 54 32

23 29 25 26 103

X X

Scribe S CS9 CS11 CS12 CS40 Subtotal

63 75 60 73 67

37 25 40 27 33

27 24 30 26 107

Tinaja Area 1 Area 2 Area 3 Area 4 Subtotal

85 81 86 93 86

15 19 14 7 14

26 26 28 28 108

Total

68

32

418

X X X

X

X

Note:  High nonlocal pottery group in bold; low nonlocal pottery group in italics.

be seen in the tables and graphs, pottery from local sources dominates nearly all El Morro Valley ceramic collections (39–93 percent). The proportions of specific local sources in each assemblage vary greatly, however. Two local source groups, El Morro Chinle and El Morro Dakota, make up the majority of assemblages at most sites. Sites in the Togeye Canyon and Los Gigantes groups generally have higher proportions of El Morro Dakota, while sites at Scribe S and Tinaja have higher proportions of El Morro Chinle. As discussed in chapter 5, this pattern is attributable to variation in local geology. The fact that nearly all El Morro sites have some pottery assigned to each source group suggests that either people had access to clays from each formation or that residential mobility or

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population circulation and zuni communities Nonlocal

figure 7.1. Stacked bar chart of ceramic compositional groups by settlement group.

exchange crosscutting settlement group membership occurred fairly frequently and widely within the valley. The proportions of nonlocal pottery sources vary significantly between settlement groups and sites as well. Three rough divisions of access to nonlocal pottery can be defined (table 7.1). The division with the highest proportions of nonlocal pottery includes three room blocks in the Los Gigantes group and two small pueblos in the Togeye Canyon group (44– 61 percent nonlocal). All of these sites are located in the western portion of the valley. The next division, with moderate amounts of nonlocal pottery, includes all of the Scribe S group and one pueblo in the Los Gigantes group (25–40 percent nonlocal). Finally, all of the Tinaja group and Pettit and CS195, the two largest sites in the Togeye Canyon group, have very low proportions of nonlocal pottery (7–17 percent). As discussed in chapter 5, the most common nonlocal pottery in the valley comes from the Pescado Basin and accounts for 22 percent of the entire sample. The proportion of Pescado Basin pottery varies considerably for different room blocks, however, suggesting there was a significant axis of social variation between residents who had strong ties to the Pescado Basin and those who did not. There are two rough classes of room blocks based upon the proportion of Pescado Basin pottery present (see fig. 7.2). The first class has fairly high proportions of Pescado Basin pot-



Social Interaction Networks

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figure 7.2.  Pie charts of ceramic compositional groups by room block.

tery (greater than 25 percent) and includes all of the room blocks in the Los Gigantes group, Six Rocks and LA109857 in the Togeye Canyon group, and CS9, CS11, and CS12 in the Scribe S group. Residents of these room blocks had strong ties to people in the Pescado Basin, likely migrated from that area, and probably continued to participate in networks of exchange and population circulation connected to the Pescado area. The second class of sites has lower proportions of nonlocal pottery in general, including pottery from the Pescado area. This class includes the two largest room blocks in the Togeye Canyon group (Pettit and CS195), CS40 in the Scribe S group, and all of the Tinaja group. In general, residents of these room blocks were probably less involved in the social networks that were circulating pots and people between the valley and elsewhere during the AD 1200s. Variation in nonlocal interaction is not simply a function of proximity to the Pescado area, as illustrated by the differences among sites in the Togeye Canyon group, which is the closest of the four to the Pescado Basin. The two largest pueblos in that group have among the lowest proportions of Pescado Basin pottery, while the two smallest have among the highest proportions. Not only does this variation contradict what would be expected based on a simple distance-

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population circulation and zuni communities

decay model, it is also a strong illustration of the fact that room blocks within the same settlement group do not necessarily share similar pottery assemblages. It is more difficult to identify patterning in the distribution of pottery from less common source groups (Zuni-North [Rio Puerco], Box S, Ojo Bonito Dakota [Jaralosa Draw], and Techado). These are present in such low proportions that their absence from some sites may simply be due to sampling error. A few potential patterns deserve mention, however. First, pottery assigned to the Zuni-North group, which was produced in the Manuelito Canyon/Rio Puerco area, is present in small proportions at nearly all sites in the valley (4–13 percent). No residents of the valley seem to have been more heavily involved than others in social networks tied to the Rio Puerco. Second, sherds assigned to the Ojo Bonito Dakota group were present at only two sites. I am somewhat skeptical of these assignments given the compositional similarity between the El Morro and Ojo Bonito Dakota groups, but this could be interpreted as evidence of limited, infrequent contacts between people from the El Morro Valley and Jaralosa Draw. Finally, a trace amount of pottery from the Techado area is present at two room blocks in the Los Gigantes group. Little can be made of this pattern, other than to note that sites in the Los Gigantes group have the highest proportions of nonlocal pottery in general (table 7.1). This fact, coupled with the high proportions of Pescado Basin pottery at room blocks in this group, suggests that residents of the Los Gigantes group may have had the most extensive social networks in the valley. The Los Gigantes group is the only settlement group among the four that contains an unroofed great kiva, which Kintigh and colleagues (1996) have argued may have been important for ritual events involving very large groups of people. The prevalence of nonlocal pottery in the Los Gigantes group suggests it may have acted as an important node in the system of population circulation that channeled people in and out of the valley. In contradiction to what I had expected based on ethnographic evidence that suggests large settlements are likely the domiciles of people of higher social standing with more diverse social ties, the average proportion of nonlocal pottery at the eight small room blocks sampled for INAA (mean = 40 percent) is higher than that from the eight large room blocks (mean = 24 percent) (table 7.1). These differences indicate residents of large room blocks did not necessarily participate more frequently than others in networks that would have facilitated the movement of nonlocal pottery and potentially people. While a few of the large room blocks had fairly high proportions of nonlocal pottery, suggesting frequent interaction with groups outside of the valley (Los Gigantes great house, CS12), four had especially low values (Pettit, CS195, Tinaja-Areas 1 and 4). In fact, these four pueblos, which are some of the largest Pueblo III room



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blocks in the entire valley, had some of the lowest proportions of nonlocal pottery in the current study. These contradictory findings indicate that participation in networks providing access to nonlocal pottery varied by individual pueblo or location in the valley more than by room block class. The fact that some room blocks, regardless of size, have very low proportions of nonlocal pottery suggests that residents of these pueblos may have been largely uninvolved in networks of population circulation that were fundamentally important to other people in the valley. All of the room blocks in the Tinaja group and the two large room blocks in the Togeye Canyon group conform to this pattern. If smaller residential groups were more mobile, which is often the case in the ethnographic record (Hamnett 1977; Watson 1985), then the high proportion of nonlocal pottery found at small pueblos may be indicative of more frequent participation in intraregional networks of population circulation. As discussed in chapter 4, the short occupation spans of small room blocks supports the interpretation that residents of these sites were more mobile than others during the settlement of the El Morro area. Thus, differences in the proportions of nonlocal pottery appear to have been driven primarily by variable frequencies or histories of movement, rather than social standing or group size. A second method for assessing variation in assemblage composition uses BR coefficients calculated for comparisons among all of the El Morro Pueblo III period INAA assemblages (tables 7.2 and 7.3). The BR coefficients were calculated using the eleven different source groups to which sherds from these sites were assigned. Although some of these source groups likely derive from the same or similar areas, such as the El Morro Chinle and El Morro Corrugated groups, they were kept separate in this analysis due to the potential that differences in the proportions of pottery from different source groups from the same area may have been socially important. It is possible that the minor compositional groups represent important differences in production recipes or minor differences in geology that were used by socially distinct groups. An analysis of source groups collapsed by geographic area of production produced similar results and is not presented here. Table 7.2.  Brainerd-Robinson Coefficients for Between-Group Comparisons

Togeye Scribe S Tinaja

Los Gigantes

Pettit

Scribe S

154 (.02) 140 (