New Mexico and the Pimería Alta

Winner of the 2017 Arizona Literary Award (Published Nonfiction) Finalist for the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award

"The volume offers an insightful pan-regional perspective on colonialism in the greater Southwest that cuts across common chronological and topical divisions."

—Lee Panich, Santa Clara University

"New Mexico and the Pimería Alta​ is a timely addition to the archaeology of colonialism in the Americas. Douglass and Graves have assembled a wide range of authors and perspectives to examine the complexity of the colonial encounter in the Southwest from its earliest beginnings to the advent of the American period. This book is a great example of the high-quality archaeological research being conducted on this crucial era."

—Greg Schachner, UCLA

"As a collective, the articles provide an understanding of divergent colonial processes, setting a foundation for further synthesis and critique of the Spanish borderlands. Highly recommended."

—CHOICE

"[This] work offers many insightful and surprisingly readable contributions. . . . Readers—both general and specialized—should find the investment of time and money well spent."

—The Journal of Arizona History

“The volume’s engaging and wide-ranging tenor should appeal to anyone interested in the colonial period in New Mexico and the Pimeria Alta.”

—Journal of Anthropological Research

“Chapters throughout the volume read easily, and given new insights that broaden the New Mexico context, this edited volume is a solid contribution to the growing literature on this period.”

—KIVA- Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History

“The chapters are engaging, they illustrate a range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the archaeology of colonialism, and they consider case studies often overlooked in discussions of Spanish colonization and colonialism. . . . The book will be of great interest to archaeologists interested in colonial encounters and entanglements in the Southwest and elsewhere.”

—American Antiquity

"A much-needed update on current research in colonial and postcolonial period archaeology in the American Southwest. . . . This collection’s particular strength lies in the diversity of approaches, data sets, and historical sources that are integrated into these various case studies."

—Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"The editors and contributing authors are to be congratulated for providing multiple and uniquely different perspectives on the Colonial Period. Each chapter is well written and enjoyable to read."

—Ethnoarchaeology

Focusing on the two major areas of the Southwest that witnessed the most intensive and sustained colonial encounters, New Mexico and the Pimería Alta compares how different forms of colonialism and indigenous political economies resulted in diverse outcomes for colonists and Native peoples. Taking a holistic approach and studying both colonist and indigenous perspectives through archaeological, ethnohistorical, historical, and landscape data, contributors examine how the processes of colonialism played out in the American Southwest.

Although these broad areas—New Mexico and southern Arizona/northern Sonora—share a similar early colonial history, the particular combination of players, sociohistorical trajectories, and social relations within each area led to, and were transformed by, markedly diverse colonial encounters. Understanding these different mixes of players, history, and social relations provides the foundation for conceptualizing the enormous changes wrought by colonialism throughout the region. The presentations of different cultural trajectories also offer important avenues for future thought and discussion on the strategies for missionization and colonialism.

The case studies tackle how cultures evolved in the light of radical transformations in cultural traits or traditions and how different groups reconciled to this change. A much needed up-to-date examination of the colonial era in the Southwest, New Mexico and the Pimería Alta demonstrates the intertwined relationships between cultural continuity and transformation during a time of immense change and highlights contemporary thought on the colonial experience.

Contributors: Joseph Aguilar, Jimmy Arterberry, Heather Atherton, Dale Brenneman, J. Andrew Darling, John G. Douglass, B. Sunday Eiselt, Severin Fowles, William M. Graves, Lauren Jelinek, Kelly L. Jenks, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Phillip O. Leckman, Matthew Liebmann, Kent G. Lightfoot, Lindsay Montgomery, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman, Robert Preucel, Matthew Schmader, Thomas E. Sheridan, Colleen Strawhacker, J. Homer Thiel, David Hurst Thomas, Laurie D. Webster