Escaping the Confines of Normative Thought: A Reevaluation of Puebloan Prehistory

Abstract

Our recent efforts in preparing syntheses of Puebloan prehistory suggest that most of the standard, normative generalizations are empirically false and that the conceptual framework traditionally employed to organize the archaeological data is inadequate and inappropriate. We show that the patterned variability manifest in the archaeological record is obscured by normative treatment. An approach to southwestern prehistory that is at once more faithful to the data and to processual, evolutionary anthropology is provided by describing the variable strategies that prehistoric groups used to cope with the continually changing natural and social environments in which they lived. We argue that some aspects of demographic, productive, and social organizational strategies are appropriate for treatment in syntheses of broad scope. We trace these strategies as they seem to have occurred in the northern Southwest from about A.D. 1 to the protohistoric period. In so doing, we find that successful strategies were those that facilitated the articulation of diversity. At some times productive specialization, organized redistributive exchange, and status differentiation were among the more important strategies.

Craft economies in the north American Southwest

“…Recent methodological advances in the study of craft economies (Cordell and Plog, 1979;Upham, 1982) reflect a paradigmatic shift away from the once normative assumption (Hill, 1970;Longacre, 1970) that ancient Southwestern villages were economically autonomous, egalitarian social formations (Plog, 1993(Plog, , 1995a. Regional analyses of exchange (e.g., Douglass, 1994) and refined definitions ofmultisite "communities" (e.g., Adler, 1996a,b;Wills and Leonard, 1994) or "polities" (Wilcox, 1996a) offer potent challenges to this theoretical assumption.…”

The history of method and theory in the study of prehistoric puebloan pottery style in the American Southwest

“…In contrast to both the New Archaeology (Longacre, 1970a) and Culture History (Gifford, 1960), the New Processualists do not necessarily expect a one-to-one relationship between different levels of ceramic design systems and cultural organization (Cordell and Plog, 1979) as was the case with the earlier Southwestern ware series-type system. Moreover, most of the New Processual studies reject the assumption that geographic variation in ceramic design must follow a simple linear application of interaction intensity.…”

“…Larger social networks and increased ceramic exchange were also implicated by S. Plog (1980) in the symbolic use of ceramic decoration for social group identification. Others (Cordell and Plog, 1979;Upham, 1982;Upham et al, 1981) have argued for elite control over the distribution of the most highly decorated forms of pottery. The interpretation that puebloan groups employed ceramic stylistic traits as a basis for information transmission is a direct outgrowth of Wobst's (1977) model of material culture style as being meaningfully constituted and functional (i.e., cultural).…”

“…Plog, , 1980Schiffer, 1976Schiffer, , 1989Skibo et al, 1989;Stanislawski, 1969Stanislawski, , 1973Watson, 1977). Most have found the studies deficient in a number of respects (e.g., replication of classes, use of statistical methods, sample size problems, formation processes), and beginning in the mid-to late1970s, new approaches to the analysis and explanation of design variation in Southwestern puebloan ceramics were developed (Braun and S. Plog, 1982;Cordell and F. Plog, 1979;Crown, 1994Crown, , 1995Graves, 1978Graves, , 1982Graves, , 1984Graves, , 1994aHantman, 1983Hantman, , 1984Hegmon, 1986Hegmon, , 1995Hegmon et al, 1995;S. Plog, 1980S.…”

Communal spaces: aggregation and integration in the Mogollon Region of the United States Southwest

“…Martin's work at the SU site, located in southwestern New Mexico, revealed notable architectural 61 differences among pit structure sites in the Mogollon region, specifically in construction material, site structure organization, and the presence and absence of large communal structures (Martin and Rinaldo 1947). Haury (1936), Martin (1979), and other researchers (Cordell and Plog 1979;Di Peso 1979; have stated that there is enough variability within the Mogollon region to sub-divide it even further.…”