SFI Working Paper Abstract
1998
| Title: | Pueblo Political Organization in 1500: Tinkering with Diversity |
| Author(s): | Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer |
| Files: | [gzipped postscript] [postscript] [pdf] |
| Paper #: | 98-11-095 |
| Abstract: | By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Pueblo people of New Mexico and Arizona were all living in aggregated villages of several hundred to several thousand residents. Although outwardly similar in appearance and culture, there was (and still is) a remarkably diversity in the social and political organization of the individual pueblos and clusters of pueblos. This paper looks at the diversity of Pueblo political organization as an example of individual social units "tinkering" with different strategies for economic survival and for competing more effectively with their neighbors. Examples drawn from the archaeological and ethnohistoric record will be used to illustrate the communities experimenting with diverse patterns of village structure and organization. |