Publication Date

Summer 8-1-2023

Abstract

The historical record of Indigenous North America at the time of European colonization attests to the presence of borderlands between competing culture cores. Yet, the oftentimes inability of the archaeological record to speak to the presence of such dynamics in the past remains a hinderance to understanding how past peoples engaged with one another in noncolonial settings as well as how these interactions resulted in ethnogenesis or the establishment of new culture cores. This dissertation uses a comparative analysis of settlement layout, architecture traits, ceramic artifacts, and mortuary practices to examine how individuals who resided in the space between two late prehispanic entities, Salado and Casas Grandes, engaged with and modified both. Results demonstrate that sites in the International Four Corners area diverge in many ways from existing interpretations, and I interpret them to indicate the presence of a likely multi-ethnic borderlands. Consequently, this dissertation sets a new baseline for archaeological research in this area, yet also enables more profound understandings of late prehispanic dynamics in the southern American Southwest/Mexican Northwest region.

Keywords

Southwest archaeology, ceramic analysis, borderlands, architectural analysis, mortuary practices

Project Sponsors

National Science Foundation

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Anthropology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Anthropology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Emily Lena Jones

Second Committee Member

Frances M. Hayashida

Third Committee Member

Hannah V. Mattson

Fourth Committee Member

Samuel Truett

Fifth Committee Member

Patricia A. Gilman

Sixth Committee Member

Paul E. Minnis

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