Anthropology Commons^™

Games People Played: The Social Role Of Gambling In The Prehispanic U.S. Southwest, Marilyn B. Riggs

Anthropology ETDs

This study examines the social role of gambling in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest. Many of the games recorded by ethnographers in the Southwest involved gambling, and game pieces resembling these examples have been found in archaeological sites. Settlement strategies in the Ancestral Puebloan Southwest changed through time, with periods of increasing aggregation and inter-cultural contact, two conditions that required mechanisms to facilitate successful interactions among multiple kin groups and between multiple culture groups.

Two Models explore the possibility that gambling served an integrative role in large, aggregated pueblos, and in pueblos located on the eastern frontier of the Pueblo region. …

Using Archaeological Remote Sensing To Evaluate Land Use And Constructed Space In Chaco Canyon, Jennie O. Sturm

Anthropology ETDs

Archaeological remote sensing includes a suite of non-invasive methods that can be used to study elements of the archaeological record that may not be achievable otherwise. Using primarily geophysical remote sensing, and especially ground-penetrating radar (GPR), three studies involving questions of “use” were conducted in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The first used GPR to study the built interior features of a single room in Pueblo Bonito to evaluate use and function of that room. Three categories of features were identified in the GPR data and confirmed with subsequent excavation. The second study used GPR to re-evaluate an enigmatic land use …

Sociocultural Diversity In The Prehispanic Southwest: Learning, Weaving, And Identity In The Chaco Regional System, A.D. 850-1140, Edward A. Jolie

Anthropology ETDs

Between about A.D. 850 and 1140, the archaeology of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico reveals the rapid construction of large communal structures where smaller settlements had existed previously and shows that the locality became the core of an extensive regional system in the Four Corners region of the northern Southwest integrated by formal trails, the circulation of nonlocal goods, and the sharing of ritual items. Researchers vigorously debate the role of increased sociopolitical complexity in this development, but less attention has been given to questions of sociocultural diversity and its impacts.

Guided by previous research suggesting the existence of …

Identity And Material Practice In The Chacoan World: Ornamentation And Utility Ware Pottery, Hannah Mattson

Anthropology ETDs

The papers that comprise this dissertation all explore the intersection of material culture and social identity. The central theme of these studies is that social identity is actively created and maintained through the production, consumption, and discard of material objects. In the first paper, I examine the distribution of ornament styles and practices of adornment across the prehispanic Southwest in relation to traditionally defined regional and culture-historical boundaries. Jewelry items of similar forms are widely distributed across cultures/groups; however, specific practices in the use and deposition of ornaments are not random within particular sociohistorical contexts. In the second paper, I …

New Paleoclimate Reconstruction Techniques In Archaeology: Applications In Greece, New Mexico, And Portugal, Brandon Lee Drake

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation develops new techniques of analysis that make existing archaeological data more useful for understanding past climate change. These techniques are introduced through three key case studies in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico, the Lower Alentejo of Portugal, and the Eastern Mediterranean. A 12,000 year record of pollen collected from packrat middens across Chaco Canyon were analyzed using a new normalization procedure to produce a Holocene record of piñon and ponderosa pine abundance. The normalization procedure, species occurrence, enabled statistical analysis of the data. Simple linear models indicated that piñon and ponderosa pollen were strongly correlated with …

Predictive Geospatial Modeling For Archaeological Research And Conservation: Case Studies From The Galisteo Basin, Vermont And Chaco Canyon, Wetherbee Bryan Dorshow

Anthropology ETDs

Geospatial modeling of ancient landscapes for predictive scientific research and hypothesis testing is an important emerging approach in contemporary archaeology. This doctoral dissertation is comprised of three published North American case studies that clearly demonstrate the value of predictive geospatial modeling to address explicit goals of contemporary archaeological research, conservation and cultural resource management. The case studies consist of a GIS-based prioritization analysis of natural and cultural resources conservation value in the Galisteo Basin of north-central New Mexico, an archaeological sensitivity analysis (site-discovery potential) for the state of Vermont, and a predictive model of agricultural potential during the Bonito Phase …

Erosion Control In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico For The Preservation Of Archaeological Sites, William Chauvenet

Anthropology ETDs

No accurate maps have been made of the whole region covered by this report. A very excellent aerial survey has been made of the Navajo Reservation, but this does not extend more than eight miles east of Wijiji, and does not show quite all of the Chaco canyon. No profile or cross-section of Chaco Canyon exists, except for the maps made by the National Parks Service. As these cover only about three-quarters of a mile, they are not of great assistance in matters concerned with the grade of the stream bed. They are a valuable start, however, and they have …