Composition and interpretation of stratified deposits in ancestral Hopi villages at Homol’ovi

Abstract

During more than 20 years excavating in five of the seven ancestral Hopi villages comprising the Homol'ovi Settlement Cluster in northeastern Arizona, an incredible diversity of depositional practices has been noted within and outside structures. This paper focuses on one particular class of deposits unique in its use of ash either as part of the composition of deposits or as caps to deep, complex deposits. The association of ash with ritual structures, rare or unusual objects, and structural fires is explored and explained as likely tied to purification ritual and attempts to forget the past. Recognition of these deposits was possible through a systematic study of stratigraphic patterns among all excavation units.

Closure and Dedication Practices in the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster, Northeastern Arizona

“…The need to decommission and dedicate structures and plaza surfaces in the HSC during the fourteenth century was addressed with settlementwide practices involving material actors. Although the focus of this paper has been on structures used in ceremonies, closure practices are equally prevalent in non-ritual structures (Adams and Fladd 2014;Fladd 2012). Maize is an essential ingredient in dedicatory practices for features and plaza surfaces, its sacrifice an essential part of connecting living humans with their ancestors and with community spaces to support the ethos of community involvement.…”

“…Burial typically also involves the formal closing of features by filling with clean sand or covering with one or more objects. The floor is then covered by direct deposit of material, usually through the roof hatch, and includes whole or articulated animals, whole or miniature pots, ceramics of unusual form, fossils, crystals, and projectile pointsusually from earlier time periods, often with ash deposits either capping the enriched deposit or layered through it (Adams and Fladd 2014). The intent is to close the kiva with objects of reverence or ritual power, an ancient practice in the Pueblo Southwest described earlier (Cameron 1990;Lightfoot 1994:50-53;Walker 1995a).…”

Geoarchaeology of ritual behavior and sacred places: an introduction

“…Using micromorphology and stratigraphy of mound construction sequences, Kidder and Sherwood reconstruct the singularized life histories of mounds and construct a compelling argument that the construction of the mounds themselves constituted active, symbolically charged ritual behavior that created and maintained sacred spaces. Adams and Fladd (2017) similarly emphasize the information embedded in stratigraphic sequences that were purposely constructed. Using stratigraphic evidence for the particular use of ash deposits within the postuse stratigraphy of architectural spaces at the ancestral Hopi village of Chevelon, Adams and Fladd identify patterns consistent with use of the symbolically charged material described in Hopi ethnography.…”

Ritual Closure: Rites De Passage and Apotropaic Magic in an Animate World

“…Indeed, while floor contexts on average are relatively sparce and lack expected household assemblages, fill and other layers can contain unexplained materials such as projectile points, shell artifacts, minerals, and other objects. These enriched deposits (sensu Adams & Fladd, 2017 ) indicate that the filling of rooms after their initial use as habitations is not random trash but instead often part of larger as yet undefined ritual closure processes.…”