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A Millennium of Identity Formation and Maintenance in the Jornada Mogollon Region. In Life on the Boundaries: Constructing Identity in Edge Regions of the North American Southwest (Karen G. Harry and Sarah A Herr, eds.)
Abstract
Cover page, TOC, and introductory page of chapter. Chapter examines the origin and maintenance of social identity over multiple centuries in the Jornada region of southern New Mexico.
... There are some differences between these styles and the Red Linear, and one of these is that the styles in the Jornada area all include bighorn sheep while the ones in the Lower Pecos do not. Jornada Mogollon images often include: terrace or step-fret elements, "blanket designs," naturalistic human and animal figures, goggleeyed figures, and cloud terraces with "rainbow" arcs, faces or masks, horned serpents, and animal tracks (Miller 2018;Schaafsma 1980 and1992;Sutherland 1996). Date ranges proposed by Schaafsma (1980:235;1992:171) and (Brody 1991:71) are from AD 1000 to 1400. ...
... Sutherland suggests that some figures with large horns are a combination of hunting symbolism with Mesoamerican-derived masks (1996: 18). Rain making is central to the theories of much of the Jornada Mogollon interpretations (Miller, 2018). Keyser and Whitley assert that a sheep horn headdress is impractical and likely could not have been fashioned (2006:19). ...
The Jornada Mogollon region is known for its rich body of rock art. Researchers have suggested that elements such as cloud terraces, masks, goggle-eyed figures and horned serpents are associated with ceremony. Although hundreds of bighorn sheep images exist in the regional rock art these figures aren't usually mentioned except in a general inventory of frequently found motifs. None the less, there are some unusual anthropomorphs with bighorn sheep headdresses that suggest a possible ceremonial use. These images appear mostly in the eastern Jornada Mogollon as delineated by Lehmer (1948). Other highly stylized bighorn sheep images as well as artifacts and a few examples of bighorn sheep on Mimbres pottery contribute to the evidence that bighorn sheep also had ceremonial use.
Chaco Canyon (850–1130 CE) served as the regional center for Ancestral Puebloan communities in the northern U.S. Southwest. Pueblo ethnographic traditions and the archaeological record demonstrate the importance of cosmological beliefs with origins at Chaco. We suggest archaeologists can develop more dynamic interpretations of how ancient peoples manifested conceptions of the cosmos by focusing greater attention to the temporality and semiotic properties of material culture. To illustrate this point, we argue that marine fossil shells, concretions, and water-worn pebbles were seen to be indexical of a past watery world at Chaco Canyon and elsewhere in the Ancestral Pueblo World. Perceived as traces of a primordial time and place that existed before cosmic emergences into the world, this class of artifacts called “medicine stones” evokes the essential element needed to sustain life for all Ancestral Puebloan people – water. Through the analysis of museum collections, ethnohistorical data, and creation narratives from Pueblo and other Native descendant groups, we present evidence that these medicine stones were interpreted in the past as manifestations of a pre-Pueblo cosmovision. As such, these artifacts were incorporated into a wide array of cultural contexts and media, and may have in part been associated with psychosocial healing practices.
The discovery and detention of a hidden pot hunter near the border of Southwest New Mexico has led to a fascinating hill top site. Several episodes of unusual petroglyph production, and rock art features were documented. Tracings of photographs from the site reveal interesting details that are sometimes missed with just photography. Having explored a large portion of the Jornada Mogollon regions of Southern New Mexico, Texas and part of Northern Mexico it is inspiring to find a new piece of the puzzle. This documentation is part of a long term project to update the Southern New Mexico rock art site information for the Bureau of Land Management and the state.
The Western Puerco region of east-central Arizona figured prominently in foundational studies of the Early Pueblo period (AD 650–950) yet remains on the periphery of recent research. This article presents new survey and chronometric data from three communities located in a densely occupied portion of the Western Puerco, the Petrified Forest. These data suggest that the Petrified Forest hosted the earliest known aggregated settlement in the region, ca. AD 700–800, before residents transitioned to a dispersed settlement pattern that remained in place through the Chaco era. Neighboring portions of the Western Puerco, however, only hosted settlements of a similar size from AD 840 forward. Chaco great houses were founded in these communities during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Unlike better known examples of aggregation in the northern San Juan region that unfolded within only a few generations, similar developments in the Petrified Forest were likely the culmination of hundreds of years of local population growth, increasing sedentism, and use of prominent natural features on the landscape. The lack of fit between the causal factors proposed for village formation in the northern San Juan and eighth-century aggregation in the Petrified Forest suggests alternative models are needed to explain the formation of early population aggregates in the Western Puerco and across much of the western portion of the northern Southwest more broadly.
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La región oeste de Puerco, en el centro-este de Arizona, figura de manera prominente en los estudios fundacionales del periodo Pueblo Temprano (650–950 d.C.) pero permanece en la periferia de las investigaciones actuales. Este artículo presenta nuevos resultados de recorridos de superficie y datos cronométricos de tres comunidades localizadas en una porción densamente poblada del oeste de Puerco: el Bosque Petrificado. Dichos datos sugieren que el Bosque Petrificado albergó el asentamiento agregado más temprano de la región, ca. 700–800 d.C., el cual pasó en poco tiempo a un patrón de asentamiento disperso que se mantuvo como tal durante todo el periodo Chaco. Sin embargo, las zonas aledañas al oeste de Puerco albergaron únicamente asentamientos de tamaño similar a partir de 840 d. C. Las “great houses” de Chaco fueron fundadas en estas comunidades durante los siglos diez y once de nuestra era. A diferencia de ejemplos de agregación mejor conocidos, como aquellos observados en el norte de San Juan que ocurrieron en tan solo unas cuantas generaciones, los desarrollos similares vistos en el Bosque Petrificado probablemente fueron la culminación de cientos de años de crecimiento de la población local. Para poder situar el Bosque Petrificado en el contexto regional de una mejor manera, comparamos y contrastamos la arquitectura, la cultura material y los patrones de asentamiento de dicho sitio con aquellos presentes en sitios seminales del oeste de Puerco; asimismo, discutimos las implicaciones que el fenómeno de agregación temprana tuvo en la demografía regional y en las historias de los asentamientos a largo plazo.
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