This volume presents the latest research on the development and use of communal spaces and places across the Mogollon region, located in what is now the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. New data demonstrate that these spaces and places, though diverse in form and function, were essential to community development and cohesion, particularly during critical formative periods associated with increasing sedentism and farming, and during comparable periods of social change.
The authors ask questions crucial to understanding past communities: What is a communal space or place? How did villagers across the Mogollon region use such places? And how do modern archaeologists investigate the past to learn how ancient people thought about themselves and the world around them? Contributors use innovative approaches to explore the development patterns and properties of communal spaces and places, as well as how and why these places were incorporated into the daily lives of village residents. Buildings and other types of communal spaces are placed into broader cultural and social contexts, acknowledging the enduring importance of the kiva-type structure to many Native American societies of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.
A valuable addition to the literature. Many of the chapters describe important sites or structures or important processes such as the solstice or connections between sites and landscapes. It will be useful for decades to come.
Michelle Hegmon, Arizona State University
About the Author
Robert J. Stokes was assistant professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, from 2018 to 2022. He is now the Program Support Bureau Chief at New Mexico State Parks in Santa Fe.
Katherine A. Dungan is the assistant manager of the Archaeological Repository at the Arizona State Museum. Her work has been published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Antiquity, and American Antiquity.
Jakob W. Sedig is a postdoctoral research fellow and ethics and outreach officer at the Reich Laboratory of Medical and Population Genetics, Harvard University. His work has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Antiquity, and World Archaeology.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Rethinking Mogollon Communal Spaces and Places and Their Social Contexts: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective by Robert J. Stokes, Katherine A. Dungan, and Jakob W. Sedig
1. Early Communal Architecture: The Plaza at the Sanchez Cerro de Trincheras and Other Locations by Robert J. Hard, Gabriella Zaragosa, John R. Roney, A. C. MacWilliams, and Mary E. Whisenhunt
2. A Case Study of Early Mogollon Great Kivas from South Diamond Creek Pueblo by Fumiyasu Arakawa, Aimee Oliver-Bozeman, and Jorden Scott
3. Pipes, Palettes, and Projectile Points: Great Kiva Rituals and Ritual Paraphernalia at the Harris Site by Barbara J. Roth, Danielle Romero, and Ashley Lauzon
4. The Woodrow Site’s Central Ceremonial Precinct: What Three Oversized Communal Structures Reveal about Changing Communal Practices in the Upper Gila by Jakob W. Sedig
5. The Enduring Importance of Mimbres Great Kivas at the Swarts Site by Darrell Creel
6. A Mimbres Mogollon Sacred Landscape as Seen from an Early Classic Period Kiva Structure, Southwestern New Mexico by Robert J. Stokes and Joseph McConnell
7. New Perspectives on the Ritual and Communal Space Use at NAN Ranch, Grant County, New Mexico by Harry J. Shafer
8. The Creekside Village Great Kiva as a Celestial Observatory and the Role of Great Kivas within Mesilla Phase Irrigation Communities by David H. Greenwald and John Groh
9. Constructing Community: Intersite Variability of Communal Architecture at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo by Kristin Corl and Dylan Person
10. Beyond the Village Communal Structure: Social and Political Engagements with the Landscapes of the Southern Mogollon by Myles R. Miller
11. Changes in the Use of Communal Space in the Pine Lawn/Reserve Branch of the Mogollon 181
Tammy Stone
12. Marked Spaces, Marked Assemblages: The Interpretation of Patterns in Pueblo Period Great Kivas and Their Contents by Katherine A. Dungan
13. Animal Remains in Communal Spaces and Ritual Activities in the Reserve and Mimbres Mogollon Areas, AD200–1450 by Karen Gust Schollmeyer
14. A Regional Consideration of Mogollon Great Kivas by Roger Anyon
References
Contributors
Index
