Adobe Typology and Site Chronology: A Case Study from Pecos National Historical Park

White, Courtney

doi:10.1080/00231940.1996.11758314

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…More recent archaeological evidence suggests a more plausible alternative. Courtney White's (1996) reanalaysis of the bricks and adobe mortar sequence at Pecos makes it clear that the "convento kiva" was constructed during the interval 1630-40-squarely during the height of the Franciscan involvement at Pecos. As at Awat'ovi, it seems highly unlikely that anti-Catholic factions could have built such an outlaw convento kiva with the pro-Franciscan factions still in place (Ivey 1998:125-26, 133).…”

Section: Reverse Superpositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: A Brief Introduction to the Colonial Period in the American Southwest

Douglass¹,

Graves²

2017

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: The Colonial Period in the American Southwest

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With the Columbian Quincentenary just a few years off, the Society of American Archaeology (SAA) puzzled its role in anticipating the inevitable events that would surround the 500th anniversary of European-Native American interactions. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the SAA at the time, and the president asked me spearhead the society's efforts for observing the Columbian Quincentenary.Thanks to the support and encouragement of key SAA officers Don Fowler, Prudence Rice, Bruce Smith, and Jerry Sabloff, we were able to develop a plan. After exploring a number of options with the board, we settled upon a series of topical seminars that we dubbed Columbian Consequences.These nine public seminars, to be held over a three-year span, were designed to generate an accurate and factual assessment of what did-and what did not-transpire as a result of the Columbian encounter. We specifically tasked ourselves to probe the social, demographic, ecological, ideological, and human repercussions of European-Native American encounters across the Spanish Borderlands, spreading the word among both the scholarly community and the greater public at large.Although sponsored by the SAA, the Columbian Consequences enterprise rapidly transcended the traditional scope of archaeological inquiry, drawing together a diverse assortment of personalities and perspectives. We invited leading scholars of the day to synthesize current thinking about specific geographical settings across the Spanish Borderlands, which extend from St. Augustine (Florida) to San Francisco (California). Each overview was designed to provide a Native American context, a history of European involvement, and a summary of scholarly research.The structure was fairly simple. Each of three consecutive SAA annual meetings (in 1988, 1989, and 1990) hosted three Columbian Consequences seminars. The resulting three volumes were published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, which remarkably published each volume less than a year after the seminar papers were presented.The initial book, entitled Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West (Thomas 1989), tackled the European-Native American interface from the Pacific Slope across the southwestern heartland to East Texas, from Russian Fort Ross to southern Baja California. The archaeologists involved addressed material culture evidence regarding contact period sociopolitics, economics, iconography, and physical environment. Other authors attempted to provide a critical balance from the perspectives of American history, Native American studies, art history, ethnohistory, and geography.In the intermediate volume-Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East (Thomas 1990)-nearly three dozen scholars pursued a similar agenda across La Florida, the greater Southeast, and the Caribbean.

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Section: Reverse Superpositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: A Brief Introduction to the Colonial Period in the American Southwest

Douglass¹,

Graves²

2017

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: The Colonial Period in the American Southwest

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“…Mudbrick studies in archaeology tend to focus on architectural construction techniques (Shaffer, ), design innovation (Oates, ), occupational phasing (Saile, ; Rosen, ; Morgenstein & Redmount, ; Balsam, Deaton, & Adler, ), or contributing to environmental reconstructions (O'Rourke, ; Ayyad, Krzywinski, & Pierce, ; Wilcox & Fornite, ). Mudbrick size has been used to develop typology, where the results concluded that mudbricks were chronologically sensitive (Mellaart, ; Gann, ; White ; Kanan, ). An example from ancient Egypt used differences in mudbrick sizes to identify different manufacture origins, multiple workshops, and where and when blocks were re‐used (Kemp, ; Emery & Morgenstein, ).…”

Section: Previous Mudbrick Studies In Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Geoarchaeology of Mudbricks in Architecture: A Methodological Study fromÇatalhöyük,Turkey

Love

2012

Geoarchaeology

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This article provides a methodology for extracting social information through an analysis of mudbrick compositions, using a case study from Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Particle size analysis, loss on ignition, and magnetic susceptibility were used to examine variability in mudbrick recipe. The analysis revealed that neither magnetic susceptibility nor calcium carbonate were significantly altered through tempering. The results suggest that the greatest degree of compositional variability was a result of the manufacture process and not raw materials used in production. Mudbricks are products of deliberate human actions, similar to any other artifact assemblage, but have been long overlooked. Examining the technology involved with mudbrick manufacture highlights aspects of Neolithic social life through shared resources, production choices, and organization of labor. The analysis of mudbrick compositions considers how raw materials were used within and between groups of houses, represented in 1000 years of uninterrupted occupation at Çatalhöyük.

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“…A much more comprehensive study of adobe composition and site chronology was undertaken by White (1996) at Pecos Pueblo in New Mexico. White's (1996) characterization of differences in adobe wall color in surface architecture at Pecos Pueblo relied primarily on adobe color and botanical inclusions to better delineate historic and prehistoric site construction episodes. This research included only a limited geochemical and X-ray diffraction test of fourteen adobe samples from Pecos Pueblo in the study.…”

Section: Previous Research On Adobe Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research included only a limited geochemical and X-ray diffraction test of fourteen adobe samples from Pecos Pueblo in the study. Not surprisingly, White (1996) concluded that geochemical fingerprinting of adobe samples showed significant promise for future studies assessing a full typology of construction materials and technologies. To date, adobe composition studies have not produced quantifiable, comparative data, a primary strength of DRS analysis.…”

Section: Previous Research On Adobe Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of adobe wall composition at the Chaves‐Hummingbird Site, New Mexico, by diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry

2007

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This article investigates adobe wall construction materials utilized by prehistoric inhabitants of Chaves-Hummingbird Pueblo, an ancestral Pueblo village located ~20 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The walls were constructed with native clay-rich soils some time between approximately 1275-1450 A.D. Samples were analyzed with a diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer from the near ultraviolet (NUV) through the visible (VIS) and into the near infrared (NIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Cluster analysis of samples from 275 adobe walls and 36 soil locations surrounding the pueblo room blocks indicates four clusters. Comparison of typical samples from the four clusters indicates that they are very similar and are distinguished by minor variations in the three primary spectrally determined components, Na-Ca montmorillonite, bentonite, and goethite. In general, clusters correspond with room construction episodes that are discernible through patterns of wall bonding and abutment recorded during the archaeological investigation of the site. This suggests that during different phases of construction the source of the wall adobe changed. Many of the soil samples are included in wall clusters and therefore reveal a potential source of material used for adobe, adjacent soils. However, not all the soil surrounding the pueblo grouped with wall clusters indicating a preference for certain soil types and that some soils were probably unsuitable for making adobe. Therefore, diversity in spectrally identified construction materials provides insights into source locations and possible construction preferences of the site inhabitants.

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Adobe Typology and Site Chronology: A Case Study from Pecos National Historical Park

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: A Brief Introduction to the Colonial Period in the American Southwest

New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: A Brief Introduction to the Colonial Period in the American Southwest

The Geoarchaeology of Mudbricks in Architecture: A Methodological Study fromÇatalhöyük,Turkey

Analysis of adobe wall composition at the Chaves‐Hummingbird Site, New Mexico, by diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry

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