David A. Phillips

Ritual drinks in the pre-Hispanic US Southwest and Mexican Northwest

Significance This article presents the results of a large-scale National Science Foundation-funded study of organic residues from archaeological sites in the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest. It reveals widespread use of two different caffeinated plants, cacao and holly, as the basis for drinks used in communal, ritual gatherings. This is the largest study of its kind, both in terms of numbers of samples and in terms of temporal/spatial scope. It is the first to argue for holly beverage consumption in the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest. The combined evidence for cacao and holly beverage consumption has implications for our understanding of distant resource acquisition and shared cultural practices in North America. Chemical analyses of organic residues in fragments of pottery from 18 sites in the US Southwest and Mexican Northwest reveal combinations of methylxanthines (caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline) indicative of stimulant drinks, probably concocted using either cacao or holly leaves and twigs. The results cover a time period from around A.D. 750–1400, and a spatial distribution from southern Colorado to northern Chihuahua. As with populations located throughout much of North and South America, groups in the US Southwest and Mexican Northwest likely consumed stimulant drinks in communal, ritual gatherings. The results have implications for economic and social relations among North American populations.

ADOPTION AND INTENSIFICATION OF AGRICULTURE IN THE NORTH AMERICAN SOUTHWEST: NOTES TOWARD A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

Qualitative models are unable to explain the known variability in the adoption and intensification of agriculture in the prehistoric North American Southwest. Adoption of a quantitative approach (specifically, a model based on marginal costs and benefits) better accounts for that variability.

VILLAGE GROWTH, EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASE, AND THE END OF THE NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION IN THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES AND NORTHWEST MEXICO

In the final centuries prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the southwest United States and northwest Mexico underwent two major sociodemographic changes: (1) many people coalesced into large villages, and (2) most of the villages were depopulated within two centuries. Basic epidemiological models indicate that village coalescence could have triggered epidemic diseases that caused the observed demographic decline. The models also link this decline to a global phenomenon, the Neolithic Demographic Transition. En los últimos siglos antes de la llegada de los españoles, el suroeste de los EE. UU. y el noroeste de México experimentaron dos transformaciones sociodemográficas: (1) una gran parte de la población se incorporó en aldeas grandes; y (2) la mayoría de las aldeas se despoblaron en menos de dos siglos. Modelos básicos de la epidemiología indican que la formación de aldeas grandes pudo haber provocado epidemias que causaron una disminución demográfica. Los modelos también proporcionan un enlace teórico entre los cambios regionales y un fenómeno global, la Transición Demográfica del Neolítico.

“CEREMONIAL ROOMS” AT POTTERY MOUND, NEW MEXICO

Abstract Excavations at Pottery Mound, a Pueblo IV site on the Rio Puerco south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, exposed three types of rooms: kivas, domestic rooms for both habitation and storage, and “ceremonial rooms.” One of the last was sealed and contained ceremonial artifacts. Others were rooms whose internal features (and possibly also artifacts) differed from those of kivas and domestic rooms. The presence of “ceremonial rooms” at Pottery Mound may have to do with its probable multi-ethnic composition, or perhaps with the transformation of lineage-based to sodality-based ritual and social organization in the Eastern Pueblo world.

Comment on Harry's Discussion of Ceramic Specialization and Agricultural Marginality in the Prehistoric U.S. Southwest

Karen Harrys study indicates that agricultural marginality is an unlikely explanation for ceramic specialization in the prehistoric U.S. Southwest. Economic theory provides an alternative model for the exchange of pottery for food.

Borrowed Concepts: Reply to Davy

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