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The inextricable combination of color and raw material was the most fundamental characteristic of Ancestral Pueblo jewelry. For white and shell, blue-green and turquoise, and black and various types of stone, the color and the material each had diverse sets of sacred meanings that gave ornaments their value. Together, this symbolic content was abundant, repetitive, and more than representational. At the most profound level, a piece of jewelry was spiritually alive, whether it was worn or deposited intact, broken, or as production debris in ritual offerings. This paper examines the conjunction of Ancestral Pueblo jewelry colors, raw materials, symbolism, and animism from the perspective of artifact life history. Our purpose is to demonstrate that the sacred meanings and embodied spirits of different color/raw material combinations strengthened and expanded during each successive stage in an ornament’s life cycle. Recognizing that not all jewelry passed through all stages, we begin with raw materials, then continue through craft production and bodily adornment, and end with ritual deposition.
Kiva: Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History
A Sensory Approach to Exotica, Ritual Practice, and Cosmology at Chaco Canyon2015 •
The “Chaco Phenomenon” has been a major research focus within Ancestral Puebloan archaeology, yet while most scholars agree that some kind of shared ideology and ritual permitted the creation of this distinctive network of pueblo villages throughout a vast region of the American Southwest, few have attempted to explain the specifics of Chacoan ritual practice. This paper uses a phenomenological approach to examine exotic imports in Chaco Canyon including turquoise, shell, cacao, copper bells, and macaws and argues for the importance of these objects’ unique sensory characteristics in crafting Chaco’s compelling ritual environment. By skillfully employing striking new colors, sounds, and tastes in both “concealed” and “conspicuous” practices of ritual deposition and public performances, Chacoan religious personnel would have not only have demonstrated their spiritual prestige by having acquired such items, but also allowed ritual participants to hear, see, and taste a paradisiacal realm akin to the shared Mesoamerican-Southwestern Flower World. Ultimately, this paper argues that sensory-based archaeological approaches can greatly enrich investigations of ritual practice, cosmology, and human experience at Chaco Canyon.
Master's Thesis
Referencing People and Places: Multivocality and the Materiality of Memory in Archaeological Landscapes2018 •
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Ornaments as socially valuable objects: Jewelry and identity in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds2016 •
This paper explores 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 cultural florescence at Chaco Canyon (A.D. 900–1130), were maintained or transformed by the post-Chaco period inhabitants of Aztec's West Ruin (A.D. 1140–1290s). The study includes the analysis of the large ornament assemblages from both of these sites, with an emphasis on identifying socially significant dimensions of physical variation through a contex-tual approach. Utilizing the concepts of value gradations, inalienability, and structured deposition, both similarities and differences in the social use and potential meaning of ornaments at the two sites are identified. Based on similarities in the attributes of ornaments associated with structured ritual deposits and high-status interments, it appears that the residents of Aztec Ruin continued to participate in at least some elements of the Chacoan ritual-ideological complex. I suggest that the depositional practices associated with these socially valuable goods served as citations or references to Chacoan cosmology and the powerful leaders and/or ancestors connected to Pueblo Bonito. Local leaders at Aztec Ruin may have used these references to legitimize their authority by affirming real or reconstructed historical links to Chaco Canyon.
Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, pp 15-47
'Catching the light': Technologies of power and enchantment in Pre-Columbian goldworking.2003 •
2008 •
This brief study illustrates how turquoise occupies such an integral part in the lives of Zuni Indians. The magical mysterious blue stone of religious significance is used extensively in ceremonies, for adornment, and investment. It has played an important role in the everyday and ceremonial life of these people from historic times to the present. In today's world Pueblo Indians consider turquoise to be sacred. There are many references to turquoise in Zuni folklore and myths. At present, turquoise is used extensively as the main decorative element in silverwork.
2012 •
People often imbue their surroundings, including tools, with a “life essence” that makes them active objects. A growing number of archaeologists are beginning to study how such “living” beings impact human behavior. These archaeologists use the term “object agency,” but employ many different ontologicai approaches. We explore this variation, and present a framework comparing different ontologicai models archaeologists use. We adopt an animistic perspective, and evaluate its applicability to the Southwest using ethnographic and archaeological data. We further propose that it is applicable throughout the New World. Puebloan potters consider pots living beings with a spiritual essence that is affected by and that impacts humans. Pottery manufacture is a mutual negotiation between the potter and the clay to create a “Made Being” with its own spiritual and material aspects. We conclude that a similar ontology is reflected in effigy pots and globular jars from the Casas Grandes region. Ul...
Soil, Stones and Symbols: Cultural Perceptions of the Mineral World, pp 123-141, (eds.) N. Boivin and M.A. Owoc
The Cosmic Earth: Materiality and Mineralogy in the Americas2004 •
Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America (Heather Orr & Matthew Looper, eds.) Boulder: University Press of Colorado, pp. 447-477.
Conclusion: Undressing the Formative (2014)2015 •
2020 •
Revista de Arqueología Americana
A Comparison of Musical Instruments from the Prehispanic American Southwest and Paquimé, ChihuahuaSociety of Bead Researchers website
Researching the World’s Beads: An Annotated Bibliography. South and Central America, Mexico, Caribbean -- Updated 7/7/242024 •
2020 •
RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 33 (1): 225-52.
Stealers of light, traders in brilliance: Amerindian metaphysics in the mirror of conquest.1998 •
2015 •
"Trends and Traditions in Southeastern Zooarchaeology," pp. 161-185. Edited by T. M. Peres.
Embedded: 5,000 Years of Shell Symbolism in the Southeast2014 •
Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands: Gods, Ancestors, and Human Beings
Costumes and Puppets among Cholula’s Early Classic Figurines and the Formation of Social Worlds2020 •
2015 •
Society of Bead Researchers website
Researching the World’s Beads: An Annotated Bibliography. North America -- Updated 7/7/242024 •
The Construction of Value in the Ancient World
The Construction of Values during the Peruvian Formative2012 •
Agam Kala Prakaahan
Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult Magic Symbols2019 •
Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology
Spectacles to Behold: Colours in Algonquian Landscapes2011 •
Anth.106: Introduction to Archaeology (G. Mumford ppt. lecture at UAB)
Anth.106 Ppt. lecture-19: Summary power point coverage of chapters 8-14 (technology; trade & exchange; thoughts, art & religion; bioarchaeology; change & explanation) in Renfrew & Bahn textbook (by G. Mumford; April 2021)2021 •
chapter from "Obsidian Reflections"
Conclusion of Obsidian Reflections : Symbolic Dimensions of Obsidian in Mesoamerica2014 •
Journal of archaeological method and theory
Objects of memory: the ethnography and archaeology of heirlooms (1999)1999 •
2016 •
Anthropology of Religion
Anthropology of Religion-chp 4 Religious Myths and Symbols2019 •
Society of Bead Researchers website
Researching the World’s Beads: An Annotated Bibliography. Middle East -- Updated 7/7/242024 •