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Evidence for Population Aggregation and Dispersal during the Basketmaker III Period in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

W. H. Wills  and
Thomas C. Windes
W. H. Wills
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Thomas C. Windes
Affiliation:
Branch of Cultural Research, National Park Service, Santa Fe, NM 87504
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Abstract

The appearance of pithouse settlements in the American Southwest that have multihabitation structures has been considered evidence for the emergence of "village" social organization. The interpretation that village systems are reflected in pithouse architecture rests in great part on the assumption that large sites correspond to large, temporally stable social groups. In this article we examine one of the best known pithouse settlements in the Southwest—Shabik’eschee Village in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico—and argue that the site may represent episodic aggregation of local groups rather than a sedentary occupation by a single coherent social unit.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , April 1989 , pp. 347 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1989

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