Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin

Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin
Author: Harry J. Shafer
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780826322043

Following two decades of excavations and research at the NAN Ranch Ruin in southwestern New Mexico, Harry Shafer offers new information and interpretations of the rise and disappearance of the ancient Mimbres culture that thrived in the area from about A.D. 600 to 1140. The NAN Ranch site gives evidence of a fascinating restructuring of Mimbres culture and society, owing to the introduction of irrigation agriculture in the late ninth century. The social restructuring that accompanied this shift in technology resulted in changes that are visible in architecture, mortuary practices, and ceramic decoration. The NAN Ranch ruin has yielded the largest body of evidence ever gathered at a single Mimbres site and thus offers the clearest picture to date of who the ancient Mimbreños were in relation to their Anasazi and Hohokam neighbors to the north and east. Shafer introduces us to the Mimbres people, gives a history of archaeological research in the Mimbres Valley, and traces the occupation of the NAN Ranch site from pithouses to classic pueblo to abandonment. Social customs, subsistence, biological information, and the symbolism of the distinctive Mimbres designs in their ceramics, pottery, stone artifacts, textiles, and jewelry are all addressed in this comprehensive survey.

Mimbres During the Twelfth Century

Mimbres During the Twelfth Century
Author: Margaret Cecile Nelson
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1999
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816518685

During the mid twelfth century, villages that had been occupied by the Mimbres people in what is now southwestern New Mexico were depopulated and new settlements were formed. While most scholars view abandonment in terms of failed settlements, Margaret Nelson shows that, for the Mimbres, abandonment of individual communities did not necessarily imply abandonment of regions. By examining the economic and social reasons for change among the Mimbres, Nelson reconstructs a process of shifting residence as people spent more time in field camps and gradually transformed them into small hamlets while continuing to farm their old fields. Challenging current interpretations of abandonment of the Mimbres area through archaeological excavation and survey, she suggests that agricultural practices evolved toward the farming of multiple fields among which families moved, with small social groups traveling frequently between small pueblos rather than being aggregated in large villages. Mimbres during the Twelfth Century is the first book-length contribution on this topic for the Classic Mimbres period and also addresses current debates on the role of Casas Grandes in these changes. By rethinking abandonment, Nelson shows how movement by prehistoric cultivators maintained continuity of occupation within a region and invites us to reconsider the dynamic relationship between people and their land.

Mimbres Society

Mimbres Society
Author: Valli S. Powell-Marti
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2019-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816540888

The enchanting pottery created by the Mimbres people of southwestern New Mexico is considered by many scholars to be unique among all the ancient art traditions of North America. Distinguished by their elaborate hand-painted black-on-white designs, Mimbres vessels have inspired artists and collectors, and many insist that they are unrivaled in several millennia of pottery making. While the attention to the extraordinary Mimbres painted pottery is well merited, the focus on its artistry alone has obscured other equally remarkable achievements and compelling questions about this unique and sophisticated society. Was the society as truly egalitarian as it has often been suggested? Was the pottery produced by specialists? How did Mimbres architecture—among the first to break living spaces into apartment-style room blocks—reflect the relationships among individuals, families, and communities? Did aggregate housing units translate into social equality, or did subtle hierarchies exist? Tracing the way technology evolved in ceramic decoration, architecture, and mortuary practices, this collection of eight original contributions brings new insights into previously unexplored dimensions of Mimbres society. The contributors also provide vivid examples of how today’s archaeologists are linking field data to social theory.

Archaeology of the Mimbres Region, Southwestern New Mexico, USA

Archaeology of the Mimbres Region, Southwestern New Mexico, USA
Author: Stephen H. Lekson
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN:

Mimbres is the archaeological term for ancient Native American peoples who lived along the Rio Mimbres and several other valleys in the southwestern corner of the state of New Mexico. They flourished, artistically, from about A.D.

Correlative Archaeology

Correlative Archaeology
Author: Fumi Arakawa
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2022-06-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793643792

In Correlative Archaeology, Fumi Arakawa applies correlative thinking practices, which are derived from an East Asian view of the world that stresses connectivity, to archaeological interpretations. Arakawa, a Japanese scholar who was trained in Western archaeology, argues that a correlative paradigm can help archaeologists, as well as scholars and researchers from other disciplines, consider competing paradigms and integrate Native American voices and narratives into interpretations of prehistoric art and landscapes.

The Davis Ranch Site

The Davis Ranch Site
Author: Rex E. Gerald
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 825
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816539936

In this new volume, the results of Rex E. Gerald’s 1957 excavations at the Davis Ranch Site in southeastern Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley are reported in their entirety for the first time. Annotations to Gerald’s original manuscript in the archives of the Amerind Museum and newly written material place Gerald’s work in the context of what is currently known regarding the late thirteenth-century Kayenta diaspora and the relationship between Kayenta immigrants and the Salado phenomenon. Data presented by Gerald and other contributors identify the site as having been inhabited by people from the Kayenta region of northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah. The results of Gerald’s excavations and Archaeology Southwest’s San Pedro Preservation Project (1990–2001) indicate that the people of the Davis Ranch Site were part of a network of dispersed immigrant enclaves responsible for the origin and spread of Roosevelt Red Ware pottery, the key material marker of the Salado phenomenon. A companion volume to Charles Di Peso’s 1958 publication on the nearby Reeve Ruin, archaeologists working in the U.S. Southwest and other researchers interested in ancient population movements and their consequences will consider this work an essential case study.

New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology

New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology
Author: Barbara J. Roth
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-11-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816539073

In the early 1970s, understanding of the Mimbres region as a whole was in its infancy. In the following decades, thanks to dedicated work by enterprising archaeologists and nonprofit organizations, our understanding of the Mimbres region has become more complex, nuanced, and rich. New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology brings together these experts in a single volume for the first time. The contributors discuss current knowledge of the people who lived in the Mimbres region of the southwestern United States and how our knowledge has changed since the Mimbres Foundation, directed by Steven A. LeBlanc, began the first modern archaeological investigations in the region. Many of these authors have spent decades conducting the fieldwork that has allowed for a broader understanding of Mimbres society. Focusing on a variety of important research topics of interest to archaeologists—including the social contexts of people and communities, the role of ritual and ideology in Mimbres society, evidence of continuities and cultural change through time, and the varying impacts of external influences throughout the region—New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology presents recent data on and interpretations of the entire pre-Hispanic sequence of occupation. Additional contributions include a history of nonprofit archaeology by William H. Doelle and a concluding chapter by Steven A. LeBlanc reflecting on his decades-long work in Mimbres archaeology and outlining important areas for the next wave of research.