Alison E. Rautman

Hierarchy and heterarchy in the American Southwest: A comment on McGuire and Saitta

McGuire and Saitta (1996) give voice to widespread dissatisfaction with artificial dichotomies that lead to the classification of historic and late Prehispanic puebloan societies as egalitarian or hierarchical in organization. They suggest a solution, a dialectical approach, that rejects processual archaeology in general, although not in its entirety. Another alternative approach, proposed here, relies on the concept of heterarchy (e.g., Crumley 1994), which, surprisingly, has not yet been used in southwestern archaeology. The proposed use of this concept does not involve rejection of a processual framework or represent a comprehensive critique of McGuire and Saittas proposed dialectical approach.

A case of historic cannibalism in the American west: Implications for southwestern archaeology

Discoveries of concentrated deposits of fragmentary human bone and their interpretation as evidence of cannibalism in the pre-Hispanic American Southwest have engaged archaeologists in a continuing debate. Forensic study of the victims in the historic Alferd [sic] Packer case from southern Colorado in the 1870s contributes to this discussion by providing detailed data regarding perimortem trauma, cut marks, and butchering patterns in a well-accepted case of mass murder and survival cannibalism. In particular, postmortem cut marks record a butchering strategy focused on filleting muscle tissue for immediate consumption; patterning of cut marks was structured by anatomy and also by cultural values. Contrasts between this historic case and the archaeological assemblages highlights the need for a more nuanced discussion of the cultural context and meaning of the archaeological cases. Interpretations of human skeletal remains arguably must begin with the view of “the body as artifact” and from a theoretical perspective defined largely by osteology and in comparison with zooarchaeological assemblages under various ecological conditions. At this point, however, the debate regarding Anasazi cannibalism would benefit from the addition of other anthropological perspectives, particularly those concerning the human body as a vehicle for the expression of cultural ideas and values.

Population Aggregation, Community Organization, and Plaza-Oriented Pueblos in the American Southwest

Abstract Throughout the northern American Southwest, the Pueblo III and early Pueblo IV periods (ca. A.C. 1150 to the mid-1300s) are characterized by regional population movements and aggregation into fewer and larger sites. In central New Mexico, these aggregated residential sites are characterized by their highly standardized organization, with linear roomblocks defining a square or rectangular central plaza. Excavations at a Pueblo III site (Kite Pueblo, LA-199) in the Salinas region of central New Mexico highlight the role of site layout, and of exterior space in particular, in the community re-organization that accompanied aggregation. Relatively widespread change in social strategies for group living and land use is expressed during this time by the standardization of site size and site layout. I suggest that the plaza-oriented pueblo was a strategy that was important in the process of group definition and self-identification. Aggregation in central New Mexico during Pueblo III appears to represent a period of re-organization among an extant population, without substantial population immigration. A second period of aggregation, during the 15th century (pueblo IV) may have involved a different process, with new groups arriving to join established pueblos.

‘Circling the wagons’ and community formation: interpreting circular villages in the archaeological record

Abstract In some respects, the circular village layout might appear to be the ultimate expression of an egalitarian and highly integrated communal society, one in which individual needs are clearly subsumed to the needs of the community as a whole. Cross-cultural studies in Amazonia and the eastern United States, however, suggest that this form of village organization may not be tied so closely to internal social organization as to regional context. The circular village layout may have been important in creating an uneasy but workable group identity vis-à-vis outsiders within a specific social context: that of regional demographic change, social uncertainty and violent inter-village conflict. Recent research in central New Mexico indicates that this regional context may also have been an important factor behind the construction of the little-known circular pueblo at Gran Quivira, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.

A Student's Guide to Critical Reading using APPS

The concept of smart phone apps forms a mnemonic device and checklist for students who are learning critical thinking and reading skills. “Use your apps” reminds students to consider the importance of Author, Audience, Assumptions, Point of View, Perspective, and Scale when reading any text. “APPS” also lends itself to class discussion and assessment, even in large class settings.

Barbara J. Mills (ed.). Alternative leadership strategies in the Prehispanic Southwest . 299 pages, 47 figures, 8 tables. 2000. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press; 0-8165-2028-3 hardback US

Cook was consistent, and unrepentant: the game of ‘reading’ ancient images for meanings and messages was so speculative as to be entirely worthless. Boardman’s response might be crudely summarized as: useful, and credible, when J. Boardman does it; lamentable when attempted by others especially those ‘from over the Channel’ (his phrase). As it happens, Boardman’s suggestions for why certain myths appear as they do in the repertoire of Athenian painted pottery are intelligent, ingenious and often persuasive. But what separates his interpretive endeavour from that of ‘the academic buffoon’ (his phrase, again)? He sets up no hermeneutic rules. He does not avail himself of important terms devised by art historians to assist the quest for meaiiing; the concepts of genre, decorum and intentionality are ignored in favour of a simple appeal to ‘common sense’. For some of us, it is a matter of ‘common sense’ that the spread of Homeric epic in the mid 8th century BC was a direct prompt for figured narratives to appear on Greek vases (a nexus strongly denied by Boardman); while it is far from ‘common sense’ to suppose that when a mid 6th-century Athenian vase-painter made an image of two Homeric heroes playing a board game, an allegorical comment was being made about one afternoon’s political coup d’etat in contemporary Athens (one of Boardman’s ingenious past proposals). That vase was excavated from an Etruscan tomb, but Etruria is not so much as a leading index entry here: from which we may deduce that this history of Greek vases is done very much from a Greek perspective. And so it is, although a valuable section is reserved for explaining the method for attributing painted vases to individual painters pioneered and deployed by J.D. Beazley. Boardman is concerned to define prices and procedures of trading the objects around the time of their production: issues of further reception are left aside. There is a crusading tone about his efforts here to combat the tangle of heresies regarding the artistic status and economic value of decorated pots in Greek society, with the sharpest thrusts by no means confined to footnotes. Does he triumph? Probably. But the non-partisan observer will wonder what victory achieves when these objects have had, most of them, such roaming, extended and diverse afterlives. NIGEL SPIVEY Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge