3 Historical and Analytical Perspectives on Architecture and Social Integration in the Prehistoric Pueblos William D. Lipe and Michelle Hegmon Archaeologists working in prehistoric Southwestern pueblos have frequently used architectural evidence as the basis for inferences about social organization and social integration. The history and basic logic of several major approaches are reviewed: ethnographic analogy,· assignment of functions or uses to architecturally defined spaces; and interpretation of community organization from analysis of differentia­ tion and spatial patterning among structures. Because artifactual and architectural data are generally employed together, the chapter closes with a review ofthe use ofartifacts in the study of social organization and integration in pueblo archaeology. elow, we review the history of some of the analytic cultural remains. Analogical interpretation in archaeol­ Bapproaches widely used in studying social integra­ ogy has frequently been uncritical and narrowly based, tion among the prehistoric pueblos. The emphasis is on however-in the Southwest and elsewhere. The similar­ architectural evidence, but since architecture is often ities between archaeological and historic Pueblo mate­ interpreted with the aid of associated artifacts, and vice rial culture and architecture were noted early, and they versa, it seems appropriate to include a section on ap­ served to establish what often has been a facile and proaches that emphasize how social integration can be uncritical reading of the present into the past. studied with artifactual data. The review that follows is Much of the early systematic archaeological work in designed to help provide a historical context for the the Southwest was based on the assumption that all the other papers in this volume. It is selectively biased prehistoric settlements there represented an undifferen­ toward work done in the northern part of the Pueblo tiated Pueblo culture much like that known from history Southwest, and especially in the San Juan drainage. It and ethnography. Taylor (1954) called this the "Cush­ does not pretend to be a comprehensive or complete ing-Fewkes" period. Subsequent research documented historical treatment of the several topics that it ad­ substantial temporal and geographic variability in the dresses. These topics include functional classification archaeological record, and led to the development of of architecturally defined spaces, community pattern cultural taxonomies (e.g., Colton 1939) that reflected analysis, inferences from properties of artifacts, and variation in the formal aspects of architecture and ma­ ethnographic analogy. Since ethnographic analogy is an terial culture. Behavioral interpretations of prehistoric issue in all the analytic approaches that are treated architecture and material culture did not begin to un­ below, we begin with a brief discussion of this topic. dergo explic:it reassessment until somewhat later (e.g., Hawley 1950; Anderson 1969; Hil11966, 1968, 1970a, Ethnogqtphic Analogy 1970b). Only in the last few years have questions been raised about some of the major tenets of the analogical Despite archaeologists' "chronic ambivalence" about model of prehistoric Pueblo life-in particular, there ethnographic analogy (Wylie 1985: 107), it remains a have been serious challenges to the assumption that major source of behavioral interpretation of prehistoric both the contact period and prehistoric Pueblos were 3: HISTORICALPERSPECTIVES 15 classic tribal, egalitarian societies (e.g., Wilcox 1981; and played the same functional roles in their prehistoric Upham 1982; Lightfoot 1984). communities as historic period kivas in historic pueblo As Lekson has recently argued (1985, 1988), the communities. In other words, the analogical question interpretation of prehistoric Pueblo kivas by genera­ was posed in either-or terms. Either a prehistoric pit tions of Southwestern archaeologists exemplifies the structure was a kiva in the same sense as a historic kiva, largely unexamined analogies on which many behav­ or it was interpreted as something else entirely-ordi­ ioral interpretations of prehistoric Pueblos have been narily as a domestic pit house, the primary residence of and often continue to be based. Indeed, the inference a household (Lekson 1988). Furthermore, the prevail­ that prehistoric kivas functioned in the same way as ing view of ethnographic kivas emphasized their role as historic ones was made by several influential early specialized ceremonial structures (e.g., Kidder observers even without the aid of excavations. For ex­ 1927:490) despite considerable ethnographic evidence ample, in 1849, Lieutenant James H. Simpson wrote of that at least Western Pueblo kivas often housed a variety Pueblo Pintado, the first Chacoan site he encountered: of activities only indirectly related to ceremonies. Al­ though there have been notable exceptions (e.g., Brew At different points about the premises were three circu­ lar apartments sunk in the ground, the walls being of 1946; Ambler and Olson 1977; Cater and Chenault masonry. These apartments the Pueblo Indians call es­ 1988), Southwestern archaeologists have tended to ac­ tuffas [sic], or places where the people held their polit­ cept the either-or form of the analogical question, and ical and religious meetings [Simpson 1964:37]. to assume that the prehistoric structures that they iden­ tify as kivas in fact functioned as specialized ceremo­ Simpson had, within the previous two weeks, visited the nial spaces. estufas (kivas) of both Santo Domingo and Jemez in the In an "attempt to be provocative rather than conclu­ company of Pueblo informants. sive," Lekson (1988) suggests an alternative either-or J. W. Powell also knew immediately what he was interpretation: that Anasazi pit structures functioned looking at when he viewed a depression adjacent to a primarily as domiciliary pit houses until the end of the small ruin in the Glen Canyon of the Colorado River, Pueblo III period at about A.D. 1300, and that "true" during his pioneering exploration of the Colorado River kivas displaying the ethnographic pattern of activities canyons in 1869. He remarks: and organizational functions emerged only in the In the space in the angle [formed by the masonry rooms], Pueblo IV period. His presentation of this view at the there is a deep excavation. From what we know of the 1985 Society for American Archaeology meetings (Lek­ people in the province of Tusayan, who are, doubtless, son 1985) was one of the stimuli for the 1988 SAA of the same race as the former inhabitants of these ruins, session that included the initial versions of most of the we conclude that this was a 'kiva' or underground cham­ papers in this volume. ber, in which their religious ceremonies were performed [Powell 1875 :68]. The functional interpretation of prehistoric kivas and protokivas is a theme that connects all the papers in the So far as we can determine, Powell was the first to volume. Collectively they represent a reassessment, use the Hopi word kiva in print, instead of the Spanish using various lines of evidence and argument, of the estufa, a term that had gained popularity on the mis­ analogical identification of prehistoric with historic taken presumption that these Pueblo structures were Pueblo kivas-that is, of the inference that prehistoric sweatbaths (Mindeleff 1891: 111). The ruin Powell vis­ kivas functioned in the same way that historic ones did. ited was partially excavated in 1958 and 1959 during In the pages that follow this chapter, Adler (Chapter 4) the Glen Canyon reservoir salvage project (Lipe surveys a cross-cultural sample to develop some gener­ 1960: 114-135). alizations about structures used for integrative ritual, The early uncritical supposition that prehistoric thus establishing a basis for general, rather than spe­ Pueblo kivas all functioned like historic ones became cific, analogies. Lipe (Chapter 5) and Adams (Chapter "fossilized" in the early twentieth century when South­ 11) examine changes in architectural form and site western archaeologists such as Edgar Hewett made the structure as bases for recognizing changes in the ways demonstration of continuities between historic and pre­ kivas and protokivas served community integrative historic Pueblos the cornerstone of a political battle to needs. Wilshusen (Chapter 7) traces continuities in fea­ establish Pueblo land claims (Lekson 1988). As a result, ture types and their contexts in pit structures from the if any formal similarities in architecture or features A.D. 600s to the ethnographic period. Varien and Light­ could be demonstrated between prehistoric structures foot (Chapter 6) employ a detailed intrasite distribu­ and historic kivas, the former were to be called kivas tional analysis of both features and artifacts to show also. Accompanying this kind of formal identification functional differences between protokivas and surface was the generally unstated implication that by analogy rooms in an early pueblo. Blinman, Hegmon, and Plog the prehistoric kivas housed the same kinds of activities (Chapters 8-10) all use distributional analyses of arti- 16 LIPE AND HEGMON fact types and attributes across a number of sites to test tectural characteristics may indicate the primary in­ the notion that socially integrative behaviors were dif­ tended use of a structure or space; features and import­ ferentially associated with Great Kivas, small kivas, or able artifacts may reflect its primary actual use during