Marking and Making Differences: Representational Diversity in the U.S. Southwest

Abstract

Diversity is generally valued, although it sometimes contributes to difficult social situations, as is recognized in recent social science literature. Archaeology can provide insights into how diverse social situations play out over the long term. There are many kinds of diversities, and we propose representational diversity as a distinct category. Representational diversity specifically concerns how and whether differences are marked or masked materially. We investigate several archaeological sequences in the U.S. Southwest. Each began with the coming together of populations that created situations of unprecedented social diversity; some resulted in conflict, others in long-term stability. We trace how representational diversity changed through these sequences. Specifically, we review the transregional Kayenta migration to the southern Southwest and focus empirical analyses on regional processes in the Cibola region and on painted ceramics. Results show that, initially, representational diversity increased above and beyond that caused by the combination of previously separate traditions as people marked their differences. Subsequently, in some instances, the diversity was replaced by widespread homogeneity as the differences were masked and mitigated. Although the social causes and effects of diversity are many and varied, long-term stability and persistence is associated with tolerance of a range of diversities.

Diversity-Disturbance Relationships in the Late Archaic Southwest: Implications for Farmer-Forager Foodways

“…Diversity, here defined as the abundance of individuals distributed across a number of different observed categories (Maurer and McGill 2011), is often invoked in archaeological research that examines large-scale social and environmental change (Hegmon et al 2016; Nelson et al 2011). Despite increasing attention to the role of diversity in these processes, archaeologists have not overtly investigated how the scale and scope of disturbance events, which are critical components of creating and maintaining diversity (Folke et al 2004:571), impacted the resilience of socioenvironmental systems.…”

“…Ecologists (Miller and Chesson 2009) and archaeologists (Hegmon et al 2008; Hegmon et al 2016) view such diversity as a primary factor influencing the resilience of biological and socioecological systems, and so the identification of disturbance events via a DDR framework is critical to archaeological studies of human-environment relationships. However, in addition to nonanthropogenic environmental variables, anthropologists must also consider the dynamic relationship between disturbance, productivity, and diversity within the context of landscapes that are constructed, managed, and manipulated by people for generations.…”

Reading between the Lines: The Social Value of Dogoszhi Style in the Chaco World

“…Organizations such as sodalities can cross-cut other social boundaries, serving an integrative function in situations of increased interaction across these boundaries (Ware 2014:35) or a competitive function when they are different factions (Plog and Solometo 1997). Likewise, broadly shared styles can serve a similar integrative function across distinct social boundaries (Hegmon 1995:41–43), but in other cases, a variety of styles may be expected in situations such as migration in what Hegmon and colleagues (2016) call “representational diversity.” If the expansion of the Chaco World in the early eleventh century created a larger system of interaction within the greater San Juan Basin, sodalities and other cross-cutting social structures such as alliances built through intermarriage and cooperative building programs may have been increasingly necessary to maintain a system of cross-regional interactions. In this scenario, Dogoszhi-style ceramics may have been a stylistic marker of just one or a subset of these cross-cutting associations within a system of representational diversity.…”

Geometric morphometric analysis of projectile points from the Southwest United States

“…The U.S. Southwest has a long history of regional ceramic typologies (e.g., Colton, 1956;W Gladwin and HS Gladwin, 1930;Hargrave, 1932;Kidder, 1915;Martin and Willis, 1940), but there are still disagreements, challenges, and competing definitions (Duff, 1996). Regional analyses in the Southwest, based in large part on pottery, have produced many useful insights (e.g., Bernardini, 2005;Clark et al, 2019;Hegmon et al, 2016;Mills et al, 2013;Peeples, 2018). However, one type of material culture that has received little attention-in the Southwest at least-is lithics (i.e., chipped stone).…”