Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T04:25:33.274Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Architecture as Artifact: Pit Structures and Pueblos in the American Southwest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Patricia A. Gilman
Patricia A. Gilman*
Affiliation:
The Amerind Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 248, Dragoon, AZ 85609 and the Mimbres Foundation, Los Angeles, CA 90048
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of architecture as an artifact gives archaeologists a data set that we have rarely employed to examine cultural evolutionary questions. In this paper I consider the determinants of some architectural forms and propose some causes of architectural change, specifically in the American Southwest. Using ethnographic material from around the world, I demonstrate the relationship between structure seasonality and two of the most common southwestern architectural forms, pit structures and pueblos. The ethnographic record also suggests that the conditions surrounding the southwestern use of pit structures, and to a lesser degree of pueblos, are rather different from what many archaeologists have supposed. The differences in the conditions under which pueblos are used rather than pit structures form the basis for a theoretical framework that begins to explain the transition between the two kinds of structures in the prehistoric Southwest.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , July 1987 , pp. 538 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Adams, E. C. 1983 The Architectural Analogue to Hopi Social Organization and Room Use, and Implications for Prehistoric Northern Southwestern Culture. American Antiquity 48 : 44–61.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. B. 1982 Space Use and Site Structure. Haliksa'i 1 : 120–141. Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1953 Principles of Social Organization in Southern Kurdistan. Universitetets Ethnografiske Museum Bulletin No. 7. Oslo.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1956 Indus and Swat Kohistan : An Ethnographic Survey. Forenede Trykkerien, Oslo.Google Scholar
Belgrave, C. D. 1923 Siwa, the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. John Lane the Bodley Head, London.Google Scholar
Berry, M. S. 1982 Time, Space, and Transition in Anasazi Prehistory. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1977 For Theory Building in Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Braun, D. P. 1983 Pots as Tools. In The Hammer Theory of Archaeological Research, edited by Moore, J. A. and Keene, A. S., pp. 107–134. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, L. C. 1958 The Living Races of the Sahara Desert. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology No. 21. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Bushnell, D. I. Jr., 1922 Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 77. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Buskirk, W. 1949 Western Apache Subsistence Economy. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. A. 1979 Trade and Reciprocity among the River Bushmen of Northern Botswana. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. A. 1980 Egalitarianism Among Hunters and Gatherers. American Anthropologist 82 : 116–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciolek-Torrello, R. 1985 A Typology of Room Function at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona. Journal of Field Archaeology 12 : 41–63.Google Scholar
Cline, W. 1936 Notes on the People of Siwah and El Garah in the Libyan Desert. General Series in Anthropology No. 4. George Banta, Menasha, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 1978 A Redundancy of Actors. In Scale and Social Organization, edited by Barth, F., pp. 150–162. Universitets for laget, Oslo.Google Scholar
Cook, A. C. 1900 The Aborigines of the Canary Islands. American Anthropologist 2 : 451–493.Google Scholar
Cordell, L. S. 1979 Prehistory : Eastern Anasazi. In Southwest, edited by Ortiz, A., pp. 131–151. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 9, Sturtevant, W. G., general editor. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Dean, J. S. 1969 Chronological Analysis of Tsegi Phase Sites in Northeastern Arizona. Papers of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research No. 3. University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
DeGarmo, G. D. 1975 Coyote Creek, Site 01 : A Methodological Study of a Prehistoric Pueblo Population. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Denig, E. T. 1961 Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Dirks, R. 1980 Social Responses During Severe Food Shortages and Famine. Current Anthropology 21 : 21–44.Google Scholar
Dupree, L. 1970 Aq Kupuik : A Town in North Afghanistan. In Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, edited by Sweet, L. E., pp. 344–387. Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Eidheim, H. 1966 Lappish Guest Relationships Under Conditions of Cultural Change. American Anthropologist 68 : 427–437.Google Scholar
Espinosa, A. de 1907 The Guanches of Tenerife, edited by Markham, C. Hakluyt Society, London.Google Scholar
Farwell, R. Y. 1981 Pit Houses : Prehistoric Energy Conservation? El Palacio 87(3) : 43–47.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 1972 The Origins of the Village as a Settlement Type in Mesoamerica and the Near East : A Comparative Study. In Man, Settlement and Urbanism, edited by Ucko, P. J., Tringham, R., and Dimbleby, G. W., pp. 23–53. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Fosbrooke, H. A. 1954 The Defensive Measures of Certain Tribes in North-Eastern Tanganyika, Part II : Iraqw Housing as Affected by Intertribal Raiding. Tanganyika Notes and Records 36 : 50–57.Google Scholar
Gillespie, W. B. 1976 Culture Change at the Ute Canyon Site : A Study of the Pithouse-Kiva Transition in the Mesa Verde Region. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Gilman, P. A. 1980 The Pits or the Ritz : The Pithouse to Pueblo Transition in the Mogollon Region. Paper presented at the Mogollon Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Gilman, P. A. 1983 Changing Architectural Forms in the Prehistoric Southwest. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Gilman, P. A. 1986 Seasonality and Mobility in San Simon Pithouse Use. In Mogollon Variability, edited by Benson, C. and Upham, S., pp. 203–209. New Mexico State University Occasional Papers No. 15. Las Cruces.Google Scholar
Glennie, G. D., and Lipe, W. D. 1984 Replication of an Early Anasazi Pithouse. Paper presented at the 49th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Portland, Oregon.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, A. R. 1953 Concerning the Existence of the Pit House in South America. American Antiquity 18 : 271–272.Google Scholar
Gumerman, G. J. 1969 The Archaeology of the Hopi Buttes District, Arizona. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hallpike, C. R. 1972 The Konso of Ethiopia. Oxford University Press, London.Google Scholar
Hard, R. J. 1983 The Mesilla Phase Near El Paso, Texas, and Southwestern Agricultural Dependence. Ph. D. proposal, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hay, W. R. 1921 Two Years in Kurdistan : Experiences of a Political Officer, 1918-1920. Sidgwick and Jackson, London.Google Scholar
Hayes, A. C. 1964 The Archeological Survey of Wetherill Mesa, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Archeological Research Series No. 7-A. National Park Service, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Heschong, L. 1979 Thermal Delight in Architecture. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Hill, J. N. 1970 Broken K Pueblo : Prehistoric Social Organization in the American Southwest. Anthropological Papers No. 18. University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Holder, P. 1970 The Hoe and the Horse on the Plains. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Hooten, E. A. 1925 The Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Harvard African Studies No. 7. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. E., and Bacon, E. 1941 Social Control and the Individual in Eastern Hazara Culture. In Language, Culture, and Personality, edited by Spier, L., Hallowell, A. I., and Newman, S. S., pp. 239–258. Sapir Memorial Publication Fund, Menasha, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Huntingford, G. W. B. 1969 The Southern Nilo-Hamites. In Ethnographic Survey of Africa, East-Central Africa, part 8, edited by Forde, D.. International African Institute, London.Google Scholar
Jochelson, W. 1908 The Koryak. Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History 10(2). New York.Google Scholar
Jochelson, W. 1933 The Yakut. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 33(2). New York.Google Scholar
Kano, T., and Segawa, K. 1956 An Illustrative Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines, vol. 1 : The Yami. Maruzen, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Kasdan, L. 1961 Isfiya : Social Structure, Fission and Faction in a Druze Community. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Kluckhohn, R. 1962 The Konso Economy of Southern Ethiopia. In Markets in Africa, edited by Bohannan, P. and Dalton, G., pp. 409–428. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois.Google Scholar
Kohler, T. A., and Matthews, M. H. 1984 Unraveling Cause and Effect in Changing Wood Use in the Dolores Project Area. Paper presented at the 49th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Portland, Oregon.Google Scholar
Kovalevsky, M. 1888 The Customs of the Ossetes, and the Light They Throw on the Evolution of Law. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 20 : 364–412.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. 1979 An Archaeological View of a Contemporary Kurdish Village : Domestic Architecture, Household Size, and Wealth. In Ethnoarchaeology : Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology, edited by Kramer, C., pp. 139–163. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Laughlin, C. D. Jr., 1974 Deprivation and Reciprocity. Man 9 : 380–396.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. 1940 Social and Economic Organization of the Rowanduz Kurds. London School of Economics and Political Science Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 3.Google Scholar
Lekson, S. H. 1985 The Idea of the Kiva in Anasazi Archaeology. Paper presented at the 50th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Denver.Google Scholar
Leonard, R. D. 1985 Late Puebloan Subsistence Diversification : A Product of Sample Size Effects. Paper presented at the 50th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Denver.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, K. G. 1984 The Duncan Project : A Study of the Occupation Duration and Settlement Pattern of an Early Mogollon Pithouse Village. Anthropological Field Studies No. 6. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, K. G., and Feinman, G. M. 1982 Social Differentiation and Leadership Development in Early Pithouse Villages in the Mogollon Region of the American Southwest. American Antiquity 47 : 64–86.Google Scholar
Lipe, W. D., and Breternitz, C. D. 1980 Approachesto Analyzing Variability Among Dolores Area Structures, A. D. 600-950. Contract Abstracts and CRMArcheology 1(2) : 21–28.Google Scholar
Lowie, R. H. 1954 Indians of the Plains. The Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
McGuire, R. H., and Schiffer, M. B. 1983 A Theory of Architectural Design. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 3 : 277–303.Google Scholar
Martin, P. S. 1939 Modified Basket Maker Sites, Ackmen-Lowry Area, Southwestern Colorado, 1938. Anthropological Series 23(3). Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.Google Scholar
Martin, P. S., and Plog, F. 1973 The Archaeology of Arizona. Doubleday/Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Mauldin, R. P. 1983 An Inquiry into the Past : Basketmaker II Settlement on Northeastern Black Mesa, Arizona. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin.Google Scholar
Mindeleff, V. 1891 A Study of Pueblo Architecture in Tusayan and Cibola. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report No. 8. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Minnis, P. E. 1985 Social Adaptation to Food Stress : A Prehistoric Southwestern Example. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Minnis, P. E., and Wormser, A. J. 1984 Late Pithouse Period Occupation in the Deming Region : Preliminary Report of Excavations at the Florida Mountain Site (LA 18839). In Recent Research in Mogollon Archaeology, edited by Upham, S., Plog, F., Batcho, D. G., and Kauffman, B. E., pp. 229–249. New Mexico State University Occasional Papers No. 10. Las Cruces.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. 1967 Ethnographic Atlas. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Olgyay, V. 1963 Design With Climate : Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Plog, F. 1974 The Study of Prehistoric Change. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Plog, F. 1979 Prehistory : Western Anasazi. In Southwest, edited by Ortiz, A., pp. 108–130. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 9, Sturtevant, W. G., general editor. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Rice, G. E. 1980 An Analytic Overview of the Mogollon Tradition. In Studies in the Prehistory of the Forestdale Region, edited by Stafford, C. R. and Rice, G. E., pp. 9–40. Anthropological Field Studies No. 1. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Robertson, G. S. 1896 The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush. Lawrence and Bullen, London.Google Scholar
Rohn, A. H. 1971 Mug House, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Archeological Research Series No. 7-D. National Park Service, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Scalise, J. W. (editor) 1975 Earth Integrated Architecture : An Alternative Method for Creating Livable Environments with an Emphasis on Arid Regions. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Schiirmann, H. F. 1962 The Mongols of Afghanistan. Mouton, The Hague.Google Scholar
Smith, M. F. Jr.,, and Hargrave, M. L. 1984 Economic Inference from Container Facilities : Theory and Black Mesa Evidence. Paper presented at the 83rd annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Denver.Google Scholar
Stafford, C. R. 1980 A Consideration of Settlement-Subsistence Systems in the Forestdale Region. In Studies in the Prehistory of the Forestdale Region, edited by Stafford, C. R. and Rice, G. E., pp. 41–75. Anthropological Field Studies No. 1. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Stuart, D. E., and Farwell, R. E. 1983 Out of Phase : Late Pithouse Occupation in the Highlands of New Mexico. In High-Altitude Adaptations in the Southwest, edited by Winter, J. C., pp. 115–158. Cultural Resources Management Report No. 2. USDA Forest Service, Southwestern Region, Albuquerque, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Thornton, R. J. 1980 Space, Time and Culture Among the Iraqw of Tanzania. Academic Press, New York. Underground Space Center, University of Minnesota Google Scholar
Thornton, R. J. 1979 Earth Sheltered Housing Design : Guidelines, Examples, and References. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.Google Scholar
Varien, M. 1984 Honky House : The Replication of Three Anasazi Surface Structures. Paper presented at the 49th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Portland, Oregon.Google Scholar
Watson, P. J. 1979 Archaeological Ethnography in Western Iran. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology No. 57. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Whalen, M. E. 1981 Cultural-Ecological Aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo Transition in a Portion of the Southwest. A merican Antiquity 46 : 75–92.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. W. 1977 Hxaro : A Regional System of Reciprocity for Reducing Risk Among the IKung San. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Woodbury, R. B., and Zubrow, E. B. W. 1979 Agricultural Beginnings, 2000 B. C. -A. D. 500. In Southwest, edited by Ortiz, A., pp. 43–60. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 9, Sturtevant, W. G., general editor. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar