The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna, 2016
The re-excavation of three trenches in front of Pueblo Bonito, two of which were placed directly ... more The re-excavation of three trenches in front of Pueblo Bonito, two of which were placed directly through the large mounds just south of the structure, produced over 97,000 gray ware ceramic sherds. This chapter presents the results of the analyses of these artifacts, focusing on the main issues outlined in the project research design—production, exchange, use, and discard. These general research topics encompass more specific and interrelated interpretive issues at Pueblo Bonito such as site function, population estimates, feasting, and trade. Discarded utilitarian ceramics, although typically not the focus of much scholarly attention, provide valuable information on the types and scales of activities in which people engaged—from everyday cooking for the household to communal feasting, from local production of ceramics to large-scale importation, and from occasional occupation to more permanent habitation. Utility wares are thus fundamental to archaeological interpretations of great house function. A significant portion of the debate surrounding this issue has centered on the ceramics recovered from the Pueblo Alto Trash Mound, the only great house midden excavated since 1931. The results of analyses presented in this chapter represent a comparative data set to that of Pueblo Alto, allowing for an expanded discussion of the role played by core canyon great houses.
The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna, 2016
The re-excavation of three large trenches through the two middens in front of Pueblo Bonito yield... more The re-excavation of three large trenches through the two middens in front of Pueblo Bonito yielded 320 ornaments and pieces of production debris, 36 mineral specimens, and 13 unmodified shell specimens. This includes items from the East, West, and Middle Trenches, as well as those recovered during fine-screening of material from ant hills located on the mounds. This chapter summarizes the results of the analysis of this assemblage; this encompasses comparisons of qualitative and quantitative attributes of ornaments and related items between the mounds, with ornaments recovered from intramural contexts within Pueblo Bonito, and with those recovered from Pueblo Alto and two small house jewelry workshop sites (29SJ629 and 29SJ1360). Compared to both other Chacoan sites and contemporaneous sites in the Southwest, Pueblo Bonito contains an enormous quantity of imported materials, primarily turquoise and marine shell in the form of ornaments and the debris from their manufacture. Based on the excavation of small house sites, ornament production appears to have been fairly diffuse in the canyon. Although a few sites contained household-level jewelry workshops, particularly 29SJ629, most small house sites have some evidence for low intensity and small-scale ornament production. Interestingly, however, these sites are associated with low percentages of finished ornaments, particularly compared to great houses. Considering this disparity, researchers propose that residents of small house sites may have produced ornaments for use or consumption at great houses, particularly for ceremonial and burial purposes, as part of a corporate political strategy (Earle 2001; Peregrine 2001; Toll 2006). The ornament assemblage from the Pueblo Bonito middens allows us to further examine the configuration of ornament production and consumption in the canyon with new data from a previously unexplored extramural depositional context.
Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity, 2021
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a stri... more Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate.-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1844 This book is about how people in the past used objects of adornment-particularly personal ornaments-to create, contest, and transform their identities. Jewellery has always fascinated students of history, both professional and casual. One only has to observe museum visitors poring over display cases of ancient ornaments to notice how these items capture the modern imagination. The traditional and widespread view that these artefacts are purely decorative and somehow supplementary to the basic functioning of human society has shaped our interpretations of their roles in the past. Most often, personal ornaments are relegated to markers of wealth and social status when found in archaeological contexts; after all, who but those with extra resources would possess such luxuries? However, these understandings are shifting as archaeologists increasingly consider how things and people are inextricably bound together. The recognition that the social and the material constitute one another, and that this can vary infinitely depending on context, influences how we think about identity construction. Individual and collective identities are not just reflected in objects such as ornaments-they are also actively shaped by them. We view our work as contributing to two main areas of contemporary study, the archaeology and anthropology of dress and bodily adornment and the broader dialogue surrounding embodied identity and material practice in social and archaeological theory. Dress has been a growing subject of interdisciplinary inquiry
ABSTRACT Using archaeological materials from the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, we explore how ... more ABSTRACT Using archaeological materials from the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, we explore how insights from both new materialism/posthumanism and Peircean semiotics enrich our understanding of object meanings. We highlight two artefact classes commonly found in contexts interpreted as ritual: avian osteological remains and red pigment. Drawing on archaeological evidence and a rich ethnographic record, we consider their diverse associations and uses with regard to their positions within relational assemblages and their qualities as material signs. Focusing specifically on the increase in avian remains in the Middle Rio Grande region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the association of red pigment with lapidary production in Chaco Canyon in the tenth to twelfth centuries, we identify how these materials are linked to disparate objects and contexts through iconicity and indexicality. We point to the relational constitution of object meaning as confounding analytical taxonomies that are traditionally applied to these materials.
Although the application of semiotics to the archaeological study of rock art is not new, Peircea... more Although the application of semiotics to the archaeological study of rock art is not new, Peircean perspectives are still uncommon, and those implementing the concepts of qualisigns and qualia are only rarely employed. Yet, an approach centered on sensuous properties can serve as a valuable complement to other materiality- and landscape-based frameworks popular in contemporary rock art research. Using Ancestral Pueblo rock art from the Middle and Northern Rio Grande region of the U.S. Southwest as an example, I offer an archaeological narrative of how social values may be attached to conventionalized qualia rooted in sensorial experiences. Specifically, I examine how diverse media—rock art, shields, objects of adornment, and feathers—were connected through luminosity and security, culturally conceptualized qualitative properties that became formalized and enregistered in the context of new social institutions and modes of group conduct appearing during the 14th century CE.
Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural con... more Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural contexts in the Ancestral Pueblo region of the American Southwest. These deposits are particularly numerous in the roof support pillars of circular ritual structures (kivas) at the site of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, which served as the ceremonial hub of the Chacoan regional system between the tenth and twelfth centuries ce. Based on the importance of directionality and colour in traditional Pueblo worldviews, archaeologists speculate that the contents of these radial offerings may likewise reference significant Chacoan cosmographic elements. In this paper, I explore this idea by examining the distribution of colours and materials in kiva pilaster repositories in relation to directional quadrants, prominent landscape features, and raw material sources. I discuss the results in the context of Pueblo cosmology and assemblage theory, arguing that particular colours were polyvalent and relatio...
This paper explores the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an e... more This paper explores the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an examination of the extent to which Chacoan identity and practice, as demonstrated by the social values attributed to ornaments at Pueblo Bonito during the cultural florescence at Chaco Canyon (A.D. 900–1130), were maintained or transformed by the post-Chaco period inhabitants of Aztec's West Ruin (A.D. 1140–1290s). The study includes the analysis of the large ornament assemblages from both of these sites, with an emphasis on identifying socially significant dimensions of physical variation through a contex-tual approach. Utilizing the concepts of value gradations, inalienability, and structured deposition, both similarities and differences in the social use and potential meaning of ornaments at the two sites are identified. Based on similarities in the attributes of ornaments associated with structured ritual deposits and high-status interments, it appears that the residents of Aztec Ruin continued to participate in at least some elements of the Chacoan ritual-ideological complex. I suggest that the depositional practices associated with these socially valuable goods served as citations or references to Chacoan cosmology and the powerful leaders and/or ancestors connected to Pueblo Bonito. Local leaders at Aztec Ruin may have used these references to legitimize their authority by affirming real or reconstructed historical links to Chaco Canyon.
Archaeologists debate the scale, degree of integration, and level of socio-political complexity o... more Archaeologists debate the scale, degree of integration, and level of socio-political complexity of the polity centered on Chaco Canyon. The economic organization of the Chacoan system is fundamental to these debates, yet relatively little research has been directed at investigating agricultural potential, a basic variable. To add to a small but growing body of relevant information, we evaluated the agricultural potential of the Pueblo Pintado Great House community using earth science techniques. Geomorphic observations, pedological (soil) studies, and archaeological data suggest that the inhabitants practiced multiple agricultural techniques and farmed several settings as a strategy for reducing risk. Farming on the floodplain of Chaco Wash probably was particularly productive. Continued research of this type, both in the canyon and at outlying communities, could further illuminate which models of the Chacoan system are most plausible.
The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna, 2016
The re-excavation of three trenches in front of Pueblo Bonito, two of which were placed directly ... more The re-excavation of three trenches in front of Pueblo Bonito, two of which were placed directly through the large mounds just south of the structure, produced over 97,000 gray ware ceramic sherds. This chapter presents the results of the analyses of these artifacts, focusing on the main issues outlined in the project research design—production, exchange, use, and discard. These general research topics encompass more specific and interrelated interpretive issues at Pueblo Bonito such as site function, population estimates, feasting, and trade. Discarded utilitarian ceramics, although typically not the focus of much scholarly attention, provide valuable information on the types and scales of activities in which people engaged—from everyday cooking for the household to communal feasting, from local production of ceramics to large-scale importation, and from occasional occupation to more permanent habitation. Utility wares are thus fundamental to archaeological interpretations of great house function. A significant portion of the debate surrounding this issue has centered on the ceramics recovered from the Pueblo Alto Trash Mound, the only great house midden excavated since 1931. The results of analyses presented in this chapter represent a comparative data set to that of Pueblo Alto, allowing for an expanded discussion of the role played by core canyon great houses.
The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna, 2016
The re-excavation of three large trenches through the two middens in front of Pueblo Bonito yield... more The re-excavation of three large trenches through the two middens in front of Pueblo Bonito yielded 320 ornaments and pieces of production debris, 36 mineral specimens, and 13 unmodified shell specimens. This includes items from the East, West, and Middle Trenches, as well as those recovered during fine-screening of material from ant hills located on the mounds. This chapter summarizes the results of the analysis of this assemblage; this encompasses comparisons of qualitative and quantitative attributes of ornaments and related items between the mounds, with ornaments recovered from intramural contexts within Pueblo Bonito, and with those recovered from Pueblo Alto and two small house jewelry workshop sites (29SJ629 and 29SJ1360). Compared to both other Chacoan sites and contemporaneous sites in the Southwest, Pueblo Bonito contains an enormous quantity of imported materials, primarily turquoise and marine shell in the form of ornaments and the debris from their manufacture. Based on the excavation of small house sites, ornament production appears to have been fairly diffuse in the canyon. Although a few sites contained household-level jewelry workshops, particularly 29SJ629, most small house sites have some evidence for low intensity and small-scale ornament production. Interestingly, however, these sites are associated with low percentages of finished ornaments, particularly compared to great houses. Considering this disparity, researchers propose that residents of small house sites may have produced ornaments for use or consumption at great houses, particularly for ceremonial and burial purposes, as part of a corporate political strategy (Earle 2001; Peregrine 2001; Toll 2006). The ornament assemblage from the Pueblo Bonito middens allows us to further examine the configuration of ornament production and consumption in the canyon with new data from a previously unexplored extramural depositional context.
Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity, 2021
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a stri... more Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate.-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1844 This book is about how people in the past used objects of adornment-particularly personal ornaments-to create, contest, and transform their identities. Jewellery has always fascinated students of history, both professional and casual. One only has to observe museum visitors poring over display cases of ancient ornaments to notice how these items capture the modern imagination. The traditional and widespread view that these artefacts are purely decorative and somehow supplementary to the basic functioning of human society has shaped our interpretations of their roles in the past. Most often, personal ornaments are relegated to markers of wealth and social status when found in archaeological contexts; after all, who but those with extra resources would possess such luxuries? However, these understandings are shifting as archaeologists increasingly consider how things and people are inextricably bound together. The recognition that the social and the material constitute one another, and that this can vary infinitely depending on context, influences how we think about identity construction. Individual and collective identities are not just reflected in objects such as ornaments-they are also actively shaped by them. We view our work as contributing to two main areas of contemporary study, the archaeology and anthropology of dress and bodily adornment and the broader dialogue surrounding embodied identity and material practice in social and archaeological theory. Dress has been a growing subject of interdisciplinary inquiry
ABSTRACT Using archaeological materials from the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, we explore how ... more ABSTRACT Using archaeological materials from the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, we explore how insights from both new materialism/posthumanism and Peircean semiotics enrich our understanding of object meanings. We highlight two artefact classes commonly found in contexts interpreted as ritual: avian osteological remains and red pigment. Drawing on archaeological evidence and a rich ethnographic record, we consider their diverse associations and uses with regard to their positions within relational assemblages and their qualities as material signs. Focusing specifically on the increase in avian remains in the Middle Rio Grande region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the association of red pigment with lapidary production in Chaco Canyon in the tenth to twelfth centuries, we identify how these materials are linked to disparate objects and contexts through iconicity and indexicality. We point to the relational constitution of object meaning as confounding analytical taxonomies that are traditionally applied to these materials.
Although the application of semiotics to the archaeological study of rock art is not new, Peircea... more Although the application of semiotics to the archaeological study of rock art is not new, Peircean perspectives are still uncommon, and those implementing the concepts of qualisigns and qualia are only rarely employed. Yet, an approach centered on sensuous properties can serve as a valuable complement to other materiality- and landscape-based frameworks popular in contemporary rock art research. Using Ancestral Pueblo rock art from the Middle and Northern Rio Grande region of the U.S. Southwest as an example, I offer an archaeological narrative of how social values may be attached to conventionalized qualia rooted in sensorial experiences. Specifically, I examine how diverse media—rock art, shields, objects of adornment, and feathers—were connected through luminosity and security, culturally conceptualized qualitative properties that became formalized and enregistered in the context of new social institutions and modes of group conduct appearing during the 14th century CE.
Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural con... more Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural contexts in the Ancestral Pueblo region of the American Southwest. These deposits are particularly numerous in the roof support pillars of circular ritual structures (kivas) at the site of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, which served as the ceremonial hub of the Chacoan regional system between the tenth and twelfth centuries ce. Based on the importance of directionality and colour in traditional Pueblo worldviews, archaeologists speculate that the contents of these radial offerings may likewise reference significant Chacoan cosmographic elements. In this paper, I explore this idea by examining the distribution of colours and materials in kiva pilaster repositories in relation to directional quadrants, prominent landscape features, and raw material sources. I discuss the results in the context of Pueblo cosmology and assemblage theory, arguing that particular colours were polyvalent and relatio...
This paper explores the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an e... more This paper explores the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an examination of the extent to which Chacoan identity and practice, as demonstrated by the social values attributed to ornaments at Pueblo Bonito during the cultural florescence at Chaco Canyon (A.D. 900–1130), were maintained or transformed by the post-Chaco period inhabitants of Aztec's West Ruin (A.D. 1140–1290s). The study includes the analysis of the large ornament assemblages from both of these sites, with an emphasis on identifying socially significant dimensions of physical variation through a contex-tual approach. Utilizing the concepts of value gradations, inalienability, and structured deposition, both similarities and differences in the social use and potential meaning of ornaments at the two sites are identified. Based on similarities in the attributes of ornaments associated with structured ritual deposits and high-status interments, it appears that the residents of Aztec Ruin continued to participate in at least some elements of the Chacoan ritual-ideological complex. I suggest that the depositional practices associated with these socially valuable goods served as citations or references to Chacoan cosmology and the powerful leaders and/or ancestors connected to Pueblo Bonito. Local leaders at Aztec Ruin may have used these references to legitimize their authority by affirming real or reconstructed historical links to Chaco Canyon.
Archaeologists debate the scale, degree of integration, and level of socio-political complexity o... more Archaeologists debate the scale, degree of integration, and level of socio-political complexity of the polity centered on Chaco Canyon. The economic organization of the Chacoan system is fundamental to these debates, yet relatively little research has been directed at investigating agricultural potential, a basic variable. To add to a small but growing body of relevant information, we evaluated the agricultural potential of the Pueblo Pintado Great House community using earth science techniques. Geomorphic observations, pedological (soil) studies, and archaeological data suggest that the inhabitants practiced multiple agricultural techniques and farmed several settings as a strategy for reducing risk. Farming on the floodplain of Chaco Wash probably was particularly productive. Continued research of this type, both in the canyon and at outlying communities, could further illuminate which models of the Chacoan system are most plausible.
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Papers by Hannah Mattson
Discarded utilitarian ceramics, although typically not the focus of much scholarly attention, provide valuable information on the types and scales of activities in which people engaged—from everyday cooking for the household to communal feasting, from local production of ceramics to large-scale importation, and from occasional occupation to more permanent habitation. Utility wares are thus fundamental to archaeological interpretations of great house function. A significant portion of the debate surrounding this issue has centered on the ceramics recovered from the Pueblo Alto Trash Mound, the only great house midden excavated since 1931. The results of analyses presented in this chapter represent a comparative data set to that of Pueblo Alto, allowing for an expanded discussion of the role played by core canyon great houses.
Compared to both other Chacoan sites and contemporaneous sites in the Southwest, Pueblo Bonito contains an enormous quantity of imported materials, primarily turquoise and marine shell in the form of ornaments and the debris from their manufacture. Based on the excavation of small house sites, ornament production appears to have been fairly diffuse in the canyon. Although a few sites contained household-level jewelry workshops, particularly 29SJ629, most small house sites have some evidence for low intensity and small-scale ornament production. Interestingly, however, these sites are associated with low percentages of finished ornaments, particularly compared to great houses. Considering this disparity, researchers propose that residents of small house sites may have produced ornaments for use or consumption at great houses, particularly for ceremonial and burial purposes, as part of a corporate political strategy (Earle 2001; Peregrine 2001; Toll 2006). The ornament assemblage from the Pueblo Bonito middens allows us to further examine the configuration of ornament production and consumption in the canyon with new data from a previously unexplored extramural depositional context.
Books by Hannah Mattson
Discarded utilitarian ceramics, although typically not the focus of much scholarly attention, provide valuable information on the types and scales of activities in which people engaged—from everyday cooking for the household to communal feasting, from local production of ceramics to large-scale importation, and from occasional occupation to more permanent habitation. Utility wares are thus fundamental to archaeological interpretations of great house function. A significant portion of the debate surrounding this issue has centered on the ceramics recovered from the Pueblo Alto Trash Mound, the only great house midden excavated since 1931. The results of analyses presented in this chapter represent a comparative data set to that of Pueblo Alto, allowing for an expanded discussion of the role played by core canyon great houses.
Compared to both other Chacoan sites and contemporaneous sites in the Southwest, Pueblo Bonito contains an enormous quantity of imported materials, primarily turquoise and marine shell in the form of ornaments and the debris from their manufacture. Based on the excavation of small house sites, ornament production appears to have been fairly diffuse in the canyon. Although a few sites contained household-level jewelry workshops, particularly 29SJ629, most small house sites have some evidence for low intensity and small-scale ornament production. Interestingly, however, these sites are associated with low percentages of finished ornaments, particularly compared to great houses. Considering this disparity, researchers propose that residents of small house sites may have produced ornaments for use or consumption at great houses, particularly for ceremonial and burial purposes, as part of a corporate political strategy (Earle 2001; Peregrine 2001; Toll 2006). The ornament assemblage from the Pueblo Bonito middens allows us to further examine the configuration of ornament production and consumption in the canyon with new data from a previously unexplored extramural depositional context.