Margaret E. Beck

Gendered time use at home: an ethnographic examination of leisure time in middle‐class families

Home is often conceived as a refuge for busy working parents, but new findings indicate that relatively little leisure takes place there. We describe the indoor home leisure activities of middle‐class, dual‐earner parents, using ethnographic data from 32 Los Angeles‐area families of many ethnicities and real income levels. In our analysis, we rely most heavily on systematic scan sampling data in which the locations and activities of each family member were documented by hand‐held computer every 10 minutes. Only about 15% of parents’ time at home appears to be dedicated to leisure activities. Of that leisure time, nearly all is experienced indoors, much of it in passive and often non‐interactive contexts like watching television. Both mothers and fathers often experience indoor free time in very short, fragmented episodes, although fathers are more likely to have some longer periods of leisure. There are also gender inequalities in how often, when during the day, and where in the house parents spend their leisure time, although these inequalities are more pronounced in some families than others.

Kansas and the Postrevolt Puebloan Diaspora: Ceramic Evidence from the Scott County Pueblo

Abstract Native American communities underwent significant upheaval, ethnic blending, and restructuring in the Spanish colonial period. One archaeological example is the appearance of a seven-room stone and adobe structure in western Kansas, known as the Scott County Pueblo (14SC1). Previous researchers used Spanish documents to attribute the site to Puebloan refugees from Taos or Picuris in the mid- to late 1600s. Here we examine the Smithsonian and Kansas Historical Society ceramic collections for evidence of Puebloan women at the site. We find a high proportion of bowls at 14SC1, suggesting the maintenance of Puebloan food-preparation and-serving patterns, as well as some vessels apparently made by Puebloan potters in western Kansas. We cannot falsify our null hypothesis that the Scott County Pueblo included people from one or more northern Rio Grande pueblos during the mid-1600s, or A.D. 1696–1706, or both.

MOBILE HORTICULTURALISTS IN THE WESTERN PAPAGUERÍA

Abstract Excavations at two sites in the western Papaguerían desert of southwestern Arizona contribute to our understanding of cultural chronology, subsistence strategies, population mobility, and land-use adaptations in one of the least investigated archaeological areas of the U.S. Southwest. The sites, Mobak and Rainy Day, are located in the northeastern corner of the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Maricopa County, Arizona, and were investigated in 1998. These localities reflect a 2,000-year history of seasonal resource procurement and processing, with evidence for at least occasional Ak-Chin-style cultivation of maize and squash. Our evidence suggests that prehistoric inhabitants practiced a flexible land-use strategy based on casual agriculture and movements between desert and riverine environments. Abstract Excavaciones en dos sitios de la Papaguería occidental del sudoeste de Arizona contribuyen a nuestro entendimiento de cronología cultural, estrategias de subsistencia, movilidades de población, y adaptaciones en el uso de la tierra en una de las áreas arqueológicas menos investigadas del sudoeste Americano. Los sitios de “Mobak” y “Rainy Day” estan ubicados en la esquina noreste de la base de la Fuerza Aerea Barry M. Goldwater, en el condado de Maricopa en Arizona y fueron estudiadas en 1998. Estas zonas reflejan una historia de 2000 anos de adquisición y procesamiento de recursos temporales, con evidencia, por lo menos ocasional, de cultivos Ak-Chin de maíz y calabaza. Nuestra evidencia sugiere que los habitantes prehistóricos practicaron estrategias flexibles de uso de la tierra basado en agricultura casual y migraciones entre zonas áridas y ríos.

Following A Glittering Trail: Geo-Chemical and Petrographic Characterization of Micaceous Sherds Recovered from Dismal River Sites

Abstract Protohistoric Ancestral Apache Dismal River groups (A.D. 1600–1750) participated in large exchange networks linking them to other peoples on the Plains and U.S. Southwest. Ceramic vessels made from micaceous materials appear at many Dismal River sites, and micaceous pottery recovered from the Central High Plains is typically seen as evidence for interaction with northern Rio Grande pueblos. However, few mineral or chemical characterization analyses have been conducted on these ceramics, and the term “micaceous” has been applied to a broad range of vessel types regardless of the form, size, or amount of mica in their pastes. Our recent analyses, including macroscopic evaluation combined with petrography and neutron activation analyses (NAA), indicate that only a small subset of Dismal River sherds are derived from New Mexico clays. The rest were likely manufactured using materials from Colorado and Wyoming. Seasonal mobility patterns may have given Dismal River potters the opportunity to collect mica raw materials as they traveled between the Central Plains and Front Range, and this has implications for the importance of internal Plains social networks during the Protohistoric and Historic periods.

Pottery production at the Mugler site (14CY1-A), a central plains tradition house in North-Central Kansas

Abstract Clay processing and resource use were investigated at the Mugler site, a late prehistoric site in north-central Kansas. Seven sherds from Mugler (14CYJ-A) were thin-sectioned for petrographic analysis and three were also submitted for x-ray diffraction. Two sherds from the Steed-Kisker type site (23PLJ 3) in western Missouri were included in the petrographic analysis for comparison. Data from these analyses were compared to published data to determine which clay accumulations or deposits were the most likely sources for prehistoric potters at Mugler. Montmorillonite-rich alluvial clays were probably used for most of the vessels sampled. The preservation and size of iron mottles in the paste suggests that clays were minimally processed before vessel manufacture.

Archaeological Signatures of Corn Preparation in the U.S. Southwest

ABSTRACT Food preparation techniques, while anthropologically significant, are often difficult to reconstruct from archaeological remains. However, two methods of corn preparation—alkali processing and tortillas—have archaeological signatures. Alkali processing with ashes may cause salt erosion on ceramic vessel interiors. Tortillas are prepared on comales made of pottery or stone. Alkali processing and tortilla preparation are described using ethnographic data and archaeological examples from the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. The distribution of comales in the Hohokam Classic Period (A.D. 1100–;1450) is also addressed.

A HARD TIME TO DATE: THE SCOTT COUNTY PUEBLO (14SC1) AND PUEBLOAN RESIDENTS OF THE HIGH PLAINS

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Puebloan women (if not entire families) were incorporated into Apache Dismal River communities in western Kansas. In at least one site (14SC1), Puebloan people lived in a small masonry pueblo. We evaluate the timing and nature of the Puebloan occupation at 14SC1 and its relationship to the Dismal River population at the site. We use a Bayesian analytical framework to evaluate different models of the pueblos use history, constraining 12 radiocarbon dates by their stratigraphic data and then comparing this framework with different temporal models based on the historical record. We conclude that Dismal River people lived at 14SC1 prior to the appearance of Pueblo migrants, sometime between cal AD 1490 and 1650. Construction and early use of the pueblo by migrants from the Rio Grande valley occurred between cal AD 1630 and 1660, and the pueblo was closed by burning sometime between cal AD 1640 and 1690. Site 14SC1 lacks Rio Grande Glaze Ware, and its residents seem rarely to have engaged with the groups in the Southern Plains Macroeconomy. Our results contribute to studies of indigenous community formation and Puebloan residential mobility during the Spanish colonial period. Durante los siglos XVII y XVIII, las mujeres Pueblo (o posiblemente familias enteras) fueron incorporadas a las comunidades Apaches de la cultura Dismal River en Kansas occidental. Por lo menos en un sitio (14SC1), los indígenas Pueblo vivieron en un pequeño poblado de mampostería. Evaluamos la cronología y la naturaleza de la ocupación Pueblo en 14SC1 y su relación con la ocupación Dismal River en el sitio. Usamos un marco analítico bayesiano para evaluar diferentes modelos de la cronología ocupacional del pueblo, delimitando los rangos de doce fechas de radiocarbono por sus posiciones estratigráficas y luego comparando este marco con diferentes modelos temporales basados en el registro histórico. Concluimos que los indígenas Dismal River vivieron en 14SC1 antes de la aparición de los migrantes Pueblo en algún momento entre 1490 y 1650 cal dC. La construcción y el uso inicial del pueblo por migrantes procedentes del valle del Río Grande ocurrió entre 1630 y 1660 cal dC, y el pueblo fue cerrado por un incendio entre 1640 y 1690 cal dC. El sitio 14SC1 carece de vajillas del estilo Río Grande con engobe, y sus residentes parecen haber tenidos interacciones limitadas con los grupos que participaron en la macroeconomía de las Planicies del Sur. Nuestros resultados contribuyen al estudio de la formación de comunidades indígenas y la movilidad residencial Pueblo durante el período colonial español.

Ceramics and Community Structure: A Reanalysis of Material from the Minneapolis Site (14OT5).

The Minneapolis site (14OT5), a late prehistoric Smoky Hill phase site, has been interpreted as a village since the first excavations there in 1934. This congregation of at least 24 mounds has figured prominently in discussions of Smoky Hill phase and Central Plains tradition social organization, and has been mentioned by several authors hoping to draw parallels between the ethnographic record of the Pawnee and the lifeways of Central Plains tradition groups. Other authors have proposed that some Central Plains tradition multi-house sites are not villages but collections of non contemporaneous houses. This notion is tested here through a reanalysis of ceramics from Houses 1-3 at the Minneapolis site. Results are suggestive rather than conclusive, but the study does reveal several reasons why house assemblages should be analyzed and reported individually.

Natural and Cultural Formation Processes

One of the best-known archaeological sites in the world is Pompeii, a Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in CE 79. The disaster stopped daily life in its tracks, felling residents who were unable to escape and covering everything with a thick layer of ash. Millions of modern tourists visit Pompeii each year, now able to walk its streets, inspect its art (and graffiti), and peer into shops and homes. The casual observer might therefore imagine that most places of past human activity remain as they were in use, perhaps simply buried under a thick layer of dirt or volcanic ash. In this view, an archaeological site – much like the abandoned home described by Philip Larkin in his poem “Home is So Sad” – “stays as it was left,/Shaped to the comfort of the last to go.”