Dissertation
Lithic raw material procurement and the social landscape in the Central Mesa Verde Region, A.D. 600-1300
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
12/2006
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005596
Abstract
This dissertation explores social interactions by investigating procurement
patterns of lithic raw materials to make inferences concerning territoriality in the central
Mesa Verde region. It investigates a central question: What do lithic raw material
procurement patterns indicate about territoriality and interactions from A.D. 600 to
1280s?
In this research, the costs of traveling from each habitation to the nearest quarry to
obtain the several raw materials used are summed in order to understand how inhabitants
expended energy in procuring these raw materials across space and through time. I also
examine the way in which the proportions of each material used relates to cost-distances
for procurement, across space and through time. The results of these two analyses
suggest that the ancestral Mesa Verde Puebloans probably developed restricted territories
during the early Pueblo III period (A.D. 1140-1225).
The results of this analysis are also compared with expectations from three
models – Dyson-Hudson and Smith’s economic defensibility model; modified resource
predictability and productivity model, controlling for population size; and the naïvecultural
evolutionary model. None of the three models fully explains the development of
territoriality in this region over time seen in the lithic data. This research, however,
viii
suggests that considering socio-political organization is crucial for understanding
behaviors of the ancestral Puebloans.
The central Mesa Verde population began to emigrate from the region to Rio
Grande areas in New Mexico during the A.D. 1200s, possibly to reduce tensions in sociopolitical
organization. Since the ancestral Puebloans diffused competitive modes through
emigration, I claim that their emigration was not an indication of failure, but rather an
adaptive success in human history. This research suggests that we can learn from how
the ancestral Puebloans sustained and maintained their cultures and lifeways by
investigating their histories.
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Details
- Title
- Lithic raw material procurement and the social landscape in the Central Mesa Verde Region, A.D. 600-1300
- Creators
- Fumiyasu Arakawa
- Contributors
- Tim A. Kohler (Chair) - Washington State University, Department of AnthropologyWilliam Andrefsky (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Graduate SchoolAndrew I. Duff (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of Anthropology
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Anthropology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 386
- Identifiers
- 99901054737001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation