No abstract

The degree to which prehispanic societies in the northern upland Southwest were hierarchical or egalitarian is still debated and seems likely to have changed through time. This paper examines the plausibility of village-spanning polities in the northern Southwest by simulating the coevolution of hierarchy and warfare using extensions to the Village Ecodynamics Project's agent-based model. We additionally compile empirical data on the population size distribution of habitations and ritual spaces (kivas) and the social groups that used them in three large regions of the Pueblo Southwest and analyze these through time. All lines of evidence refute an “autonomous village” model during the Pueblo II period (A.D. 890–1145); rather, they support the existence of village-spanning polities during the Pueblo II and probably into the Pueblo III period (A.D. 1145–1285) in some areas. One or more polities connecting the northern Southwest, with tribute flowing to an apex in Chaco Canyon, appears plausible during Pueblo II for the areas we examine. During Pueblo III, more local organizations likely held sway until depopulation in the late thirteenth century.

No abstract

This study analyzes the spatial and temporal patterning of civic-ceremonial structures in the central Mesa Verde region of the northern Southwest to assess changing patterns of leadership in Pueblo society. Great kivas, as the most ubiquitous and persistent form of Pueblo public architecture in the area prior to A.D. 1280, provide a durable means of assessing community membership and for analyzing how the introduction of other civic-ceremonial buildings may reflect shifts in public space and leadership strategies over time. It is suggested here that great kivas represent a fundamental and enduring symbol of community group assembly that underwent changes over time, the most profound of which occurred in the final decades prior to migration from the area in the late A.D. 1200s. The overall constellation of civic-ceremonial structures over time indicates altering leadership strategies just prior to the depopulation of the region.

No abstract