Ornamentation and Utility Ware Pottery Hannah Mattson
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Anthropology ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-1-2015 Identity and Material Practice in the Chacoan World: Ornamentation and Utility Ware Pottery Hannah Mattson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Mattson, Hannah. "Identity and Material Practice in the Chacoan World: Ornamentation and Utility Ware Pottery." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds/45 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hannah V. Mattson_______________________________________________________ Candidate Anthropology___________________________________________________________ Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Patricia L. Crown, Chairperson_____________________________________________________ Dr. Wirt H. Wills_________________________________________________________ Dr. James L. Boone_______________________________________________________ Dr. Barbara J. Mills_______________________________________________________ i IDENTITY AND MATERIAL PRACTICE IN THE CHACOAN WORLD: ORNAMENTATION AND UTILITY WARE POTTERY BY HANNAH VICTORIA MATTSON B.A., Anthropology, Oregon State University, 2000 M.A., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2002 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2015 ii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my grandfather, Dr. Bruce D. Mattson. With his lifelong passion for education, critical thinking, family, and music, by example he taught me to strive for both excellence and balance. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I’d like to thank Dr. Patricia Crown and Dr. Chip Wills for their years of support and excellent mentorship. They both have served as examples of how exceptional scholarship and parenting can go hand in hand. I also want to express my appreciation to Dr. Barbara Mills and Dr. James Boone for their expeditious review of this manuscript and give a special thanks to Dr. Mills for her insightful comments. I would also like to acknowledge Tom Windes, a fantastic teacher and dear friend, who provided me with my first experiences in Chaco archaeology. Funding for the analysis of ornaments from Pueblo Bonito and Aztec Ruin was provided by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (Award BCS-0968853), the Hibben Trust, and the UNM Graduate Research Development Fund. Funding for the analysis of ceramics from the Pueblo Bonito mounds came from a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Patricia L. Crown (Award BCS-0710733). This research was conducted as part of the Pueblo Bonito Mounds Project, directed by Patricia L. Crown. The material analyzed during the course of that project was excavated as part of the Chaco Stratigraphy Project, directed by Wirt (Chip) H. Wills. Thank you to David Hurst Thomas and Anibal Rodriguez from AMNH, Bruce Smith and David Rosenthal from NMNH, Patricia Neitfeld from NMAI, and both Gary Brown and Lori Reed from Aztec Ruins National Monument, all of whom accommodated me during repeated visits to their collections. I’d also like to thank Laurie Webster and Ed Jolie for generously sharing their knowledge of the Pueblo Bonito and Aztec Ruins collections during overlaps in our research visits to AMNH. I want to extend a special thanks to iv Theresa Sterner and Tracy Steffgen for volunteering their time to help photograph the collections and to Darryl DelFrate for drafting several figures for this manuscript. I also want to acknowledge the support and encouragement of several dear friends—Jess Coulson, Marcus Hamilton, Roberto Herrera, Kari Schleher, and Tracy Steffgen. You guys are the best! I would like to thank my father, Daniel Mattson, for giving me a childhood filled with archaeology, outdoor adventures, and a respect for other cultures, past and present. It’s been a long journey from sorting FCR next to the Pend Orielle River! And thanks to my mother, Brenda Sterner, who taught me so many valuable lessons about perseverance and strength of character. Last, but not least, I want to thank my sons, Jack and Luca. My apologies for the times I turned down assembling Lego spaceships, watching movies, and dressing up the cat because I was too busy. I hope we can finally go on all those fishing trips and vacations we’ve talked about. I love you two with all my heart. v IDENTITY AND MATERIAL PRACTICE IN THE CHACOAN WORLD: ORNAMENTATION AND UTILITY WARE POTTERY BY HANNAH VICTORIA MATTSON B.A., Anthropology, Oregon State University, 2000 M.A., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2002 Ph.D., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2015 ABSTRACT 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 explore the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an examination of the extent to which Chacoan identity and practice, as demonstrated by the social values attributed to ornaments at Pueblo Bonito during the Chaco florescence, were maintained or transformed by the post-Chaco period inhabitants of Aztec’s West Ruin. I argue that at Pueblo Bonito, ornaments were vi necessary in renewing the existing ritual-ceremonial order through the assembling of essential components of the natural and cultural worlds. It is proposed that these social values attributed to ornaments were directly cited at Aztec Ruin after the decline of Chaco Canyon as a central place in the San Juan Basin. The third study, published in The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna , edited by Patricia L. Crown, focuses on practices of production, use, and discard of utilitarian gray ware ceramics from Pueblo Bonito. The attributes of the culinary ware pottery assemblage from the large middens at the site are consistent with household-level cooking activities. However, there is also evidence for suprahousehold feasting using large imported Chuska cooking vessels, which may have held special meaning through their associations with an important place on the landscape. This dissertation demonstrates that the materiality of social existence extends to all types of practice; people continually define their identities through activities and performances involving both commonplace and rare objects /materials. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... xii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ xv Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Social Identity and Material Culture: A Background...................................................... 5 Material Style .............................................................................................................. 7 Group Identity and Style.............................................................................................. 9 Individual Identity and Embodiment ......................................................................... 12 Study Areas: Chaco Canyon and the Totah Area .......................................................... 15 San Juan Basin ........................................................................................................... 16 Chaco Canyon............................................................................................................ 18 The Totah Area .......................................................................................................... 25 Organization of the Dissertation ................................................................................... 28 Chapter 2 Ornaments and Personal Identity in the Prehispanic Southwest: The Practice of Adornment .................................................................................................................... 30 Personal or “Individual” Identity .................................................................................. 31 Ornamentation Across the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest, A.D. 900 to 1450.................. 33 San Juan Basin and Rio Grande Valley ..................................................................... 35 Mimbres Valley and Mogollon Highlands ................................................................ 43 Coconino Plateau and Verde River Valley ...............................................................