Prehistoric burial practices provide an unparalleled opportunity for understanding and reconstructing ancient civilizations and for identifying the influences that helped shape them.

Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices chronicles the modal patterns, diversity, and change of ancient mortuary practices from across the US Southwest and northwest Mexico over four thousand years of Prehispanic occupation. The volume summarizes new methodological approaches and theoretical issues concerning the meaning and importance of burial practices to different peoples at different times throughout the ancient Greater Southwest. Chapters focus on normative mortuary patterns, the range of variability of mortuary patterns, how the contexts of burials reflect temporal shifts in ideology, and the ways in which mortuary rituals, behaviors, and funerary treatments fulfill specific societal needs and reflect societal beliefs. Contributors analyze extensive datasets—archived and accessible on the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR)—from various subregions, structurally standardized and integrated with respect to biological and cultural data. Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices, together with the full datasets preserved in tDAR, is a rich resource for comparative research on mortuary ritual for indigenous descendant groups, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists and bioarchaeologists in the Greater Southwest and other regions. Contributors: Nancy J. Akins, Jessica I. Cerezo-Román, Mona C. Charles, Patricia A. Gilman, Lynne Goldstein, Alison K. Livesay, Dawn Mulhern, Ann Stodder, M. Scott Thompson, Sharon Wester, Catrina Banks Whitley

A fascinating exploration of the rich artistic heritage and beauty of Casas Grandes ceramics

Spontaneous acts of violence born of human emotions like anger or greed are probably universal, but social violence—violence resulting from social relationships within and between groups of people—is a much more complex issue with implications beyond archaeology. Recent research has generated multiple interpretations about the forms, intensity, and underlying causes of social violence in the ancient Southwest. Deborah L. Nichols and Patricia L. Crown have gathered nine contributions from a variety of disciplines to examine social violence in the prehispanic American Southwest. Not only offering specific case studies but also delving into theoretical aspects, this volume looks at archaeological interpretations, multidisciplinary approaches, and the implications of archaeological research for Native peoples and how they are impacted by what archaeologists say about their past. Specific chapters address the impacts of raiding and warfare, the possible origins of ritual violence, the evidence for social violence manifested in human skeletal remains, the implications of witchcraft persecution, and an examination of the reasons behind apparent anthropophagy. There is little question that social violence occurred in the American Southwest. These contributions support the need for further discussion and investigation into its causes and the broader implications for archaeology and anthropology. CONTENTS 1. Introduction Patricia Crown and Deborah Nichols 2. Dismembering the Trope: Imagining Cannibalism in the Ancient Pueblo World Randall H. McGuire and Ruth Van Dyke 3. An Outbreak of Violence and Raiding in the Central Mesa Verde Region in the 12th Century AD Brian R. Billman 4. Chaco Horrificus? Wendy Bustard 5. Inscribed in the Body, Written in Bones: The Consequences of Social Violence at La Plata Debra L. Martin, Nancy Akins, Bradley Crenshaw, and Pamela K. Stone 6. Veneration or Violence: A Study of Variations in Patterns of Human Bone Modification at La Quemada Ventura R. Pérez, Ben A. Nelson, and Debra L. Martin 7. Witches, Practice, and the Context of Pueblo Cannibalism William H. Walker 8. Explanation vs. Sensation: The Discourse of Cannibalism at Awat’ovi Peter Whiteley 9. Devouring Ourselves George J. Armelagos References Cited About the Contributors Index

An introduction to the history of the Puebloan Southwest from the AD 1000s to the sixteenth century, first published in 2004.

This volume of proceedings from the fifteenth biennial Southwest Symposium makes the case for engaged archaeology, an approach that considers scientific data and traditional Indigenous knowledge alongside archaeological theories and methodologies. Focusing on the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, the contributors show what can be gained when archaeologists engage with Indigenous communities and natural scientists: improved contemporary archaeological practice through better understandings of heritage and identity, anthropogenic landscapes, and societal potential for resilience. Organized around the theme of interdisciplinary perspectives, the book highlights collaborations with those who have other ways of knowing the past, from the traditional and proprietary knowledge of communities to new scientific methods, and considers the social context of archaeological practice and the modern relationships that inform interpretations of the past. Chapters show how cutting-edge practices lead to new archaeological understandings when archaeologists work in partnership with descendant and stakeholder communities and across international and disciplinary borders. Authors work across anthropological subfields and with the sciences, demonstrating that anthropological archaeology’s methods are starting points for investigation that allow for the expansion of understanding by incorporating long-remembered histories with innovative analytic methods. Engaged Archaeology in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico identifies current and near-future trends in archaeological practice in the US Southwest and northwestern Mexico, including repatriation, community engagement, and cross-disciplinary approaches, and focuses on Native American archaeologists and their communities, research, collaborations, and interests. It will be of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists working in the Southwest and to any researchers interested in interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology, heritage studies, and the natural sciences. Contributors: Christopher Caseldine, Chip Colwell, Guillermo Córdova Tello, Patrick Cruz, T. J. Ferguson, Cécile R. Ganteaume, Vernelda Grant, Neysa Grider-Potter, Christopher Grivas, Michael Heilen, Jane H. Hill, Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, Teresita Majewski, Debra L. Martin, Estela Martínez Mora, John A. McClelland, Emiliano Ricardo Melgar Tísoc, Darsita R. North, Scott Ortman, Peter J. Pilles Jr., Susan Sekaquaptewa, Arleyn W. Simon, Kimberly Spurr, Sarah Striker, Kerry F. Thompson, John A. Ware, Peter M. Whiteley, Lisa C. Young

Abnormal burial practices have long been a source of fascination and debate within the fields of mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology. The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange investigates an unparalleled geographic and temporal range of burials that differ from the usual customs of their broader societies, emphasizing the importance of a holistic, context-driven approach to these intriguing cases. From an Andean burial dating to 3500 BC to mummified bodies interred in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, during the twentieth century, the studies in this volume cross the globe and span millennia. The unusual cases explored here include Native American cemeteries in Illinois, “vampire” burials in medieval Poland, and a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient China. Moving away from the simplistic assumption that these burials represent people who were considered deviant in society, contributors demonstrate the importance of an integrated biocultural approach in determining why an individual was buried in an unusual way. Drawing on historical, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, this volume critically evaluates the binary of “typical” versus “atypical” burials. It expands our understanding of the continuum of variation within mortuary practices, helping researchers better interpret burial evidence to learn about the people and cultures of the past. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Taking a bioarchaeological approach, this book examines the Ancestral Pueblo culture living in the Four Corners region of the United States during the late Pueblo I through the end of the Pueblo III period (AD 850-1300). During this time, a vast system of pueblo villages spread throughout the region creating what has been called the Chaco Phenomenon, named after the large great houses in Chaco Canyon that are thought to have been centers of control. Through a bioarchaeological analysis of the human skeletal remains, this volume provides evidence that key individuals within the hierarchical social structure used a variety of methods of social control, including structural violence, to maintain their power over the interconnected communities.

It is little wonder that relationships between things and humans are front-and-center in the contemporary social sciences, given the presence of technologies in every conceivable aspect of our lives. From Bruno Latour to Ian Hodder, anthropologists and archaeologists are embracing “thing theory” and the “ontological turn.” In Practicing Materiality, Ruth M. Van Dyke cautions that as anthropologists turn toward animals and things, they run the risk of turning away from people and intentional actions. Practicing Materiality focuses on the practical job of applying materiality to anthropological investigations, but with the firm retention of anthropocentrism. The philosophical discussions that run through the nine chapters develop practical applications for material studies, including Heideggerian phenomenology, Gellian secondary agency, object life histories, and bundling. Seven case studies are flanked by an introduction and a discussion chapter. The case studies represent a wide range of archaeological and anthropological contexts, from contemporary New York City and Turkey to fifteenth-century Portugal, the ancient southwest United States, and the ancient Andes. Authors in every chapter argue for the rejection of subject/object dualism, regarding material things as actively involved in the negotiation of power within human social relationships. Practicing Materiality demonstrates that it is possible to focus on the entangled lives of things without losing sight of their political and social implications.

Religion mattered to the prehistoric Southwestern people, just as it matters to their descendents today. Examining the role of religion can help to explain architecture, pottery, agriculture, even commerce. But archaeologists have only recently developed the theoretical and methodological tools with which to study this topic. Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest marks the first book-length study of prehistoric religion in the region. Drawing on a rich array of empirical approaches, the contributors show the importance of understanding beliefs and ritual for a range of time periods and southwestern societies. For professional and avocational archaeologists, for religion scholars and students, Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest represents an important contribution.