6 What the Old Ones Can Teach Us

Scott Ortman

There are two important trends in US Southwest archaeology today. The first is a recognition, stimulated by passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, that archaeologists work with the cultural heritage of colonized and marginalized citizens. Archaeology in the US originated in the context of settler colonialism and the simple curiosity of non-Natives about ancestral sites, but in light of critiques by Native people it is now clear that doing archaeology for its own sake—solving mysteries of the past as an intellectual exercise—is not an adequate justification for the field (Atalay 2012; Deloria 1988; Liebmann and Rizvi 2008). As Joseph Suina explains in chapter 7 in this volume, the stakes are higher, in that archaeology carries with it the potential for harm to living descendants of the people who created the archaeological record. Indeed, the entire framing of the archaeological record as nonrenewable cultural resources that are consumed through the archaeological process conflicts with Native values; perhaps more important, Native people often have difficulty seeing themselves in the narratives archaeologists write. These realizations make it clear that for archaeology to transcend its settler colonialist roots, practitioners need to view their audience as Native as well as professional and public, view it as part of their job to work in partnership with Tribal members as coinvestigators, and bring the science of the archaeological record into dialog with Indigenous knowledge (Bernstein and Ortman 2020; Colwell-Chanthaponh and Ferguson 2008).

The second important trend is an urge to make archaeology more relevant for contemporary issues in society. In the decades since passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, archaeology in the United States has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that documents the archaeological record at a previously unimaginable scale (Altschul 2016; Schlanger et al. 2015), and advances in remote sensing and aerial survey are rapidly expanding our ability to document and measure archaeological remains systematically across broad areas (Canuto et al. 2018; Evans et al. 2007; Friedman et al. 2017; Rassmann et al. 2014). Yet, the field is still struggling to figure out how to take advantage of all these data to benefit society. There are many reasons for this, including inadequate infrastructure for synthesizing the information collected by different projects, shortcomings in the technical skills and training of archaeologists, a devaluing of work with existing collections and data, and the ongoing expense of creating and maintaining cyberinfrastructure (Altschul et al. 2017). But I think the most important reason is an imagination gap between the traditional goals of archaeology and the potential of this rapidly accumulating information base. The archaeological record is the most extensive compendium of human experience there is, but for the most part archaeologists continue to focus on reconstructing the histories of specific groups and regions in ever greater detail and rarely harness archaeological evidence to address more fundamental questions that transcend the past and present (Altschul et al. 2020; Kintigh et al. 2014; Ortman 2019).

One might conclude from the recent literature that these two trends are pulling archaeology in different directions, with Native concerns encouraging archaeologists to focus on the details of lived experience in specific places and the push for contemporary relevance driving them to focus on broad and abstract generalization. In this chapter I argue, on the contrary, that these two trends have the potential to bring the field together and give it a more coherent orientation. The key observation that brings Native interests and contemporary relevance into alignment is that Native people view ancestral sites not as places of the past but as living places that communicate knowledge regarding how to live today. Given this perspective, I suggest the key to an archaeology that resonates with Native people and also plays a larger role in contemporary society is for archaeologists to think about the archaeological record as Native people do. To make this argument, I will first share my experiences and sense of the ways Native people learn from ancestral sites. Then, I will discuss a few ways that a deeper engagement with these views might help the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s research in the Mesa Verde region have an even greater impact than it currently enjoys. This chapter is not meant as a critique, as Crow Canyon has been at the forefront of integrating Native voices into archaeological interpretations, educational products, and experimental research for many decades. Rather, I hope it may help guide the Center’s mission activities in the next forty years.

Native Perspectives on Ancestral Sites

In my career, I have been privileged to spend time visiting, observing, and discussing ancestral sites with many different Native people, initially as a member of the Crow Canyon staff, and today through partnerships with the Pueblos of Pojoaque and Ohkay Owingeh. I would never claim to know the full significance of ancestral sites for Native people, as there is no such thing as a singular or canonical Native perspective on this or any other topic (see Suina, chapter 7 in this volume). Still, I have noticed a few commonalities in the ways Native people think about and interact with ancestral sites that point toward the larger argument I wish to make.

The first commonality is an understanding that ancestral sites are not finished places of the past but are living places in the present. The brochure “Protect Bears Ears” (Bears Ears Coalition n.d.), created by the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition to advocate for creation of the Bears Ears National Monument, makes this point directly (Bears Ears Coalition n.d., 9):

For thousands of years, our ancestors lived within the Bears Ears landscape, hunting, foraging, and farming it by hand. They knew every plant and animal, every stream and mountain, every change of season, and every lesson important enough to be passed down through the centuries. We understood this place and cared for it, relating to the earth literally as our mother who provides for us and the plants and animals to which we are related. The Bears Ears landscape is alive in our view and must be nourished and cared for if life is to be sustained.

Many Native people I have worked with further explain that these places are alive, not only in general terms but also in the sense that the people who created them are still there. The spirit of the people who created ancestral sites continues to exist in these locations, just as the physical remains of the site continue to exist, and it is possible for one to communicate with these people, or connect with this spirit, if one’s heart, mind, and senses are open to it. So, when Native people approach ancestral sites, they typically announce themselves, give respect to the people who are there, offer some food in the form of cornmeal, and ask permission to enter. In some cases, visitors will even sing traditional songs to the old ones, recognizing that the ancestors may not have heard their language in a very long time. The overall attitude is one of being a guest in someone else’s home. Stones and artifacts that have been touched by the ancestors’ hands are especially significant in that they provide opportunities for present-day people to make direct contact with the old ones and share breath with them, in the same way living people greet each other traditionally today. Ancestral sites also function like kivas in the sense that both are places of connection with a simultaneous and consubstantial spirit world. Ancestral sites are not “finished” in a very deep way—they continue to have life, can be communicated with, and establish relationships with the people of the present (also see Ferguson and Colwell-Chanthaponh 2006).

The second commonality is that ancestral sites are not just old homes but are places where the entire world and experiences of the old ones are revealed. When non-Native archaeologists visit an ancestral site, they tend look down at the ground for artifacts that yield evidence of its age and of the activities that took place there. Native people, in contrast, typically look up to take in the local environment and the relationships of that location with important landforms and their associated stories and songs. They give equal attention to cultural and natural features of the site, including the plants, the animals, the water sources, the viewsheds, the horizons, and other natural features, perceiving the ancestors’ values from the fact that they chose to dwell in locations where these features and relationships occur. They also pay close attention to the ancestors’ efforts to care for the local environment and are especially inspired by water control features that still work today, in the sense that they continue to stimulate plant growth, which provides food for the animals, and so forth. In their introduction to Hopi Katsina Songs, Emory Sekaquaptewa, Kenneth Hill, and Dorothy Washburn (2015) explain that the ancestral rain spirits come as moisture, causing plant growth, to signal their approval of the people’s behaviors and intentions. Water control features at ancestral sites send the same message in that the ancestors who created these features are demonstrating desired behavior—caring for, and sharing with, the plants, the animals, and the people—and its enduring beneficial effects for the world as a whole (Ford and Swentzell 2015; also see Ermigiotti et al., chapter 4 in this volume).

The third commonality is that ancestral sites are memory aids. On a surface level this is apparent in the common association of stories and fables with ancestral sites. Keith Basso (1996) has written eloquently on the ways features of the landscape call to mind specific stories that instruct Western Apache people on proper ways to live. This same phenomenon occurs with ancestral sites, whose features are metonymic reminders of stories that convey important values and lessons. A good example is the Tewa story associated with Old San Juan Pueblo, Áyïbú’oke’ówînge (Harrington 1916, 207–208). The site sits on an eroded bank of the Rio Grande River north of present-day Ohkay Owingeh and is associated with a story of destruction by flood. According to the story, in the old days there were certain ceremonies that required a man to go without food or water for twelve days. One time, a man was shut up in a room to perform this ceremony, with a man and woman appointed to ensure that he neither drank nor ate. On the eleventh day, he broke his fast and ran down to the Rio Grande, drinking so much water that he burst, causing the flood that washed away the Pueblo. The woman fled toward the north and was turned into a stone that can still be seen in the place where she sat down to rest. This story conveys important lessons regarding the consequences of evading responsibility and of the perils of overindulgence, and it is recalled whenever community members visit the traces of the washed-out village or walk along the trail where the stone lies.

This example illustrates the explicit mnemonic qualities of ancestral sites, but there is also a deeper level on which ancestral sites are reservoirs of information that can be brought to consciousness, reremembered perhaps through observation of, and reflection on, the remains. In the “Protect Bears Ears” brochure, Ute Mountain Ute elder Malcolm Lehi elaborates on the way ancestral sites convey such information: “Native People relate to rock art with our hearts. I regularly visit one rock art site that is a holy site. It provides us knowledge of our past and future. We do not view these panels as just art, but almost like a coded message that exists to help us understand. This knowledge informs our life and reality as humans” (Bears Ears Coalition n.d., 9). Statements like this one demonstrate that in addition to serving as memory aids, ancestral sites directly provide information that influence present and future behavior. They also show that the perspectives on ancestral sites that I am discussing are widely shared in Indigenous cultures and are not limited to the Pueblo cultures with which I have the most experience. Over time, Native people learn new things from observation and contemplation of ancestral sites. Again, ancestral sites are not finished places of the past but living places that influence the present and future.

Finally, the fourth commonality I’ve observed is that ancestral sites are viewed as places that benefit the entire world, not just living descendants. Many traditional activities, which Pueblo people refer to as “doings,” take place at ancestral sites (Fowles 2013). Often these focus on blessing features created on the tops of old residences or in other auspicious locations, and the prayers that are uttered are intended not merely for the speaker but for all people, the plants, the animals, and the world at large. Ancestral sites are thus key places from which the living seek to benefit all the world. Diné elder Willie Greyeyes expresses a similar sentiment in the “Protect Bears Ears” brochure: “Protecting Bears Ears is not just about healing for the land and Native people. It’s for our adversaries to be healed, too. I truly believe we can all come out dancing together” (Bears Coalition n.d., 13). Statements like these emphasize that, for Native people, the archaeological record has always had contemporary relevance; this relevance is not merely with respect to Tribal heritage but to the information and guidance ancestral sites provide regarding beneficial ways both Native and non-Native people can live today and tomorrow.

What I Think Native People Are Trying to Tell Archaeologists

My experiences with Native people at ancestral sites suggest that archaeological sites are living places where it is possible to connect with the collected wisdom and experience of past people for the benefit of all. Given this, it is quite ironic that most social scientists, and many archaeologists, do not see similar potential. For example, the role of archaeology in Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has, for the most part, been limited to the effects of climate change on the archaeological record itself, and, despite an extensive literature on human-environment relationships in archaeology, this work has played little role in discussions of adaptation to climate change (Jackson et al. 2018; Kohler and Rockman 2020; Rockman and Hritz 2020; Simpson et al. 2022).

In addition, archaeology is practically nonexistent in discussions of sustainable development, which typically begin from the twin notions of the great escape and the great acceleration (Clark and Harley 2020, 333). The former states that the material conditions of life for human beings were invariant and unchanging from earliest times to the onset of the Industrial Revolution but since that time human societies have been fundamentally and qualitatively different; and the latter states that for most of history human impacts on the environment were entirely local but since the industrial revolution these impacts have accelerated and have been driven by new processes. These perceptions lead to the conclusion that archaeological evidence is irrelevant for defining development strategies that meet the needs of the present “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (333).

Archaeological studies demonstrate that these perceptions are inaccurate, in that there is strong evidence for substantial changes in the material conditions of life over time even in preindustrial societies (Jongman et al. 2019; Ober 2010; Ortman and Lobo 2020), there is equally strong evidence for extensive environmental impacts at a variety of scales (Liebmann et al. 2016; Rick and Sandweiss 2020; Stephens et al. 2019), and there is emerging evidence that a wide range of empirical patterns in data for contemporary societies—including demographic, rank-size, gravity, growth, distance-decay, inequality, and scaling relationships—are also found in preindustrial societies of the past (Bettencourt 2021; Kohler and Reese 2014; Kohler et al. 2017). Nevertheless, relatively few archaeologists are comfortable bringing such results to bear on discussions of contemporary issues. This reticence may be a legacy of our training. Most archaeologists of my generation entered graduate school in the era of postprocessualism, in which a central argument was that although there is great potential for a science of the archaeological record, archaeologists and the archaeological record itself are so biased that it is inappropriate to use the results of archaeology to inform discussions of the present and future. Another common argument has been that the evolution of human societies is driven by so many interactions among so many different variables that it is foolish to make any sort of predictions regarding what could happen in the future based on things that have happened in the past. On top of this, an aversion to engagement with the present, beyond legitimate concerns regarding cultural heritage and social justice, continues to characterize the perspectives of leading proponents of postprocessualism today. For example, according to Ian Hodder (2018, 43), “Archaeologists have always wanted to be comparative and to seek general trends . . . the construction of an abstract historical and anthropological knowledge from which all can benefit. Important as this generalizing process is, it has proved prone to influence by contemporary concerns. That’s a nice way of putting it. A less nice way is that much of archaeology uses the past to play out the contemporary preoccupations of dominant groups and to regurgitate the present in their interests.”

While I agree with Hodder that the work archaeologists do is influenced by their subjective experiences and perceptions, this is true for social scientists in every field. And despite this inclination, society still needs social scientists to engage with the world through their various vantage points to help find solutions to present-day problems. Just wanting the world to be better and pointing out all the ways in which we currently fail to make it better are not enough. We also need to collectively learn how to make it better. The whole point of economics is to figure out what causes material prosperity so that societies can encourage more of it; the whole point of sociology is to understand why outcomes vary with respect to various subgroups so that societies can encourage greater inclusiveness and equality of opportunity; the whole point of anthropology is to understand human diversity so that we can incorporate a broader range of ideas and experiences into our ways of doing things; and the whole point of sustainability science is to understand how the human and nonhuman worlds impact each other so that we can do a better job of balancing human needs with those of the earth. The accumulation of human knowledge has always been marred by false starts, errors, failures, and injustice; yet despite all of this, the accumulation of practical knowledge has provided net benefits for humanity (Roser 2020). In this larger context, the reticence of archaeologists to contribute to this process seems puzzling and ultimately self-defeating.

In my experience, Native people encounter the archaeological record from a vantage that seeks to take advantage of the wisdom and experience embedded in the physical remains to chart a positive course into the future. There is no reason why archaeologists cannot do the same, and, in a larger sense, I think Native people are suggesting this would be a good thing for archaeologists to do. Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons Native scholars have often objected to the idea of archaeology as a social science (Deloria 1988; Nicholas and Hollowell 2007) is because many archaeologists continue to view their work as a purely intellectual exercise, driven by curiosity and the detective’s urge to solve mysteries. In general, archaeologists still shy away from imagining that the knowledge gained through archaeology is relevant for improving the human condition, for Native people or for anyone else. Archaeologists are not wholly to blame for this, but it is important to acknowledge that these are choices that are inconsistent with Native perceptions and values, at least as I understand them.

Based on my experience, then, I believe the goals and interests of archaeologists who seek to use archaeological evidence to address contemporary issues are more closely aligned with the perceptions and interests of Native people, despite the fact that archaeologists and Native people have traditionally used very different approaches to learn from ancestral sites (see Cajete 2000). Regardless of epistemological differences, both groups recognize that ancestral sites embody and summarize human experience and accumulated human knowledge; both recognize that ancestral sites convey new information to observers as their needs and questions change; and both recognize the unity of human societies of the past and present, such that the things we learn from ancestral sites, whether through traditional or scientific means, are relevant for the present and future. Given this alignment, I believe there are great opportunities for archaeologists and Native people to work together to bring the knowledge and wisdom embedded in ancestral sites to bear on discussions of contemporary issues. In this process, archaeologists can contribute methods of systematic observation and analysis of material remains, and Native people can articulate links between behavior, ideas, and values, to investigate questions that are of mutual interest, and answers that benefit everyone (see Ortman 2016 for some initial, tentative steps in this direction).

Native Perspectives and Contemporary Relevance

In the second half of this chapter, I use the discussion above as a jumping-off point for developing a few examples of directions in which Crow Canyon and Native people could work together to expand the contemporary relevance of US Southwest archaeology. I do not mean to suggest that integrating archaeology and traditional knowledge is the only way to enhance contemporary relevance, or that the examples that follow are necessarily the best ways to do it. In fact, I would say that the only essential ingredients of an archaeology with contemporary relevance are a commitment to the idea that human societies possess a fundamental unity—that they are complex networks of elements, processes, and relationships that have nontrivial and somewhat predictable effects—and a willingness to generalize. However, some of these properties, especially those that deal with the realms of culture, ideas, values, and institutions, are more readily apparent in the traditional knowledge systems of descendant communities than they are in the archaeological record. Thus, in keeping with the theme of this chapter, my examples will focus specifically on some areas where it seems to me that deeper integration of archaeology and traditional knowledge can contribute to such discussions.

Material Behavior and Sociopolitical Realities

My first example involves combining archaeology and oral history to deepen understandings of the interrelationships between politics, discourse, and social behavior. In every society there is ongoing conversation, and competition, regarding alternative ways of framing current events. Anyone who follows contemporary politics cannot help but be aware of how differently various factions label, frame, and talk about the issues of the day. Jerome Bruner (1991, 1) has labeled the process through which these distinct sociopolitical realities are created “the narrative construction of reality.” It is obvious from recent experience that these constructions play an important role in sociopolitical dynamics. But how exactly?

Archaeologists and Native people can work together to address this question by integrating archaeology and oral history. Traditional approaches to oral history have focused on the question of whether such stories are “true” in the sense that they provide factually based accounts of past events (Lowie 1915; Vansina 1961). However, I think a better way to view oral histories is as politically situated discourses that preserve attempts by past peoples to make sense of important events and make them meaningful in their own terms (Hodges 2011). From this perspective, the interesting question to ask is not whether an oral history is true but what the narrative reveals about the discursive practices of the people who constructed it. In other words, it is in precisely those areas where oral histories and archaeology do not correspond that the greatest potential for interpretation of past sociopolitical processes lies (Schmidt 2006).

A clear opportunity for this sort of integration involves oral histories surrounding the Chaco world. Archaeologists have learned a tremendous amount about the emergence, growth, and decline of the Chaco world, and it is clear from these studies that Chaco represents an ambitious, but also fragile, attempt to forge a regional society that transcended local communities and kin groups (Lekson 2006; Stuart 2014). The regional system centered on Chaco Canyon, in which people of the Mesa Verde region participated (Lipe 2006; Reed 2008), involved an unprecedented scale of ritual integration (Kantner and Vaughn 2012; Sofaer 2007; Van Dyke 2007) but more modest economic integration and substantial levels of inequality (Kennett et al. 2017; Plog and Heitman 2010). Indeed, Chaco Canyon appears to be a place where resources were concentrated (Benson et al. 2003; Guiterman et al. 2016), with subsequent redistribution being limited to prestige goods (Watson et al. 2015; Windes 1992).

Descendant communities maintain rich oral histories surrounding Chaco Canyon. Traditions from several Pueblo communities refer to Chaco as White House, a place where ancestral rain spirits lived with the people in harmony, and all spoke a common language, until the people became greedy and disrespectful, leading to drought, conflict, and migration (Ortiz 1992). The traditions of several Navajo clans, in contrast, discuss Chaco Canyon as a place of many vices, where a person from the distant south known as the Great Gambler enslaved the people and forced them to build the monumental structures before being overthrown by an alliance of the people and their spirit helpers (Begay 2004). These stories, from different descendant communities, discuss Chaco from different social and perhaps also spatial vantage points. There is important information embedded in these differences.

All historical narratives are subjective, post hoc construals of events that enshrine the privileged discourses of the communities from which they emanate. Thus, when one encounters oral histories that offer different interpretations of past events, or which emphasize different details, the right question to ask is not whether they match the archaeological record but what the differences between the stories, and between the stories and the archaeology, reveal about the sociopolitical context in which the narratives were constructed (Ortman 2020). In the process, one can gain insight into the political dynamics of the Chaco World in a way that would otherwise be inaccessible, and one gains the opportunity to learn how discursive practices relate to other aspects of long-term social dynamics that are more readily observable through archaeology. It seems to me that archaeologists and Native people have an opportunity to forge new generalizations concerning how societies come together, and how they come apart, by working to connect the rich corpus of multivocal oral histories surrounding ancestral sites with the rapidly expanding archaeological evidence.

Processes of Institutional Change

A second area of opportunity connects with economics and involves a deeper engagement with the processes of institutional change. I vividly remember Tito Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo) commenting during a visit to Lowry Pueblo many years ago that places like Lowry preserve the efforts of the ancestors to build the institutions that govern Pueblo communities today. There is a general awareness that human societies provide for basic human needs to differing degrees and that the provision of these basic needs ultimately derives from such institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012; North et al. 2009; Ostrom 1999). Archaeologists affiliated with Crow Canyon have a long history of investigating the evolution of social institutions under the rubric of community organization (Coffey 2016; Glowacki 2015; Lipe and Hegmon 1989; Varien and Wilshusen 2002), and this work has been successful in charting histories of institutional change (also see Glowacki et al., chapter 12, and Potter et al., chapter 13 in this volume). To carry this work further, a good first step is to recognize that new institutional forms are not created from whole cloth but instead involve rearrangements of existing ideas in new ways, a process that Claude Lévi-Strauss famously labeled bricolage (1966). It is also useful to distinguish between invention, which is the appearance of something new, versus innovation, the widespread adoption of this new thing (Schiffer 2011). Is it possible to generalize regarding these processes? Are there patterns in the ways new institutions are invented? What factors govern the spread, or not, of these new ideas? To find out, one needs to not just identify sequences of change but also identify the transformations involved with each invention and consider the innovation process in the context of an ongoing cultural conversation. This is where combining archaeology with historical analyses of present-day Pueblo languages and cultures can really help.

A good example of what is possible using this approach is research on the history of dual organization in ancestral Pueblo communities. Archaeologists associated with Crow Canyon have noted that ancestral Pueblo communities in the Mesa Verde region are often spatially divided into two roughly equal parts, often by a drainage, and have interpreted this as evidence for a form of dual organization (Lipe and Ortman 2000; Kuckelman, chapter 19 in this volume; Ortman and Bradley 2002; Ware 2014) that is especially prominent in Tewa communities today. In historic Tewa culture, these moieties, which are more properly referred to as dual Tribal sodalities (Ware 2014), are part of an alternating pattern of community leadership, where the leader of each group oversees the community during the summer and winter, respectively. These moieties do not regulate marriage, but they do organize life-cycle rituals; and although membership runs through the father’s line, people can switch allegiances for a variety of reasons over the course of their lifetimes (Ortiz 1969).

The divided villages of the Mesa Verde region do suggest some sort of dual division, but I think a better argument can be made that they reflect an earlier form of kin-based community organization from which historic Tewa non-kin-based moieties evolved. There are two lines of evidence that support this interpretation. First, Tewa oral histories indicate that Tewa-style moieties derive from village-level institutions, and the archaeological record expresses the stages in this process directly. According to these narratives, the ancestors migrated from their ancestral homeland to northern New Mexico as winter people and summer people, with the winter people coming down first and each group establishing a separate village before the two groups eventually merged into a single village containing both winter people and summer people (Ortiz 1969; Parsons [1926] 1994).

These episodes are physically manifested in the archaeology of at least two ancestral Tewa communities. The first is Cuyamunge, near present-day Pojoaque (Bernstein and Ortman 2020). This community began around AD 1150 as a series of small kin-based residences. During the late AD 1200s these residences coalesced into a small village of about 100 people, and a second village of about 200 people was constructed on an adjacent terrace to the north. The southern village appears to correspond to the winter people, who had deeper ancestry in the area, and the northern village reflects the arrival of a second, larger group corresponding to the summer people. By about AD 1400, these paired villages had coalesced into a single village of about 400 people on the southern terrace, with the summer plaza to the west and the winter plaza to the east. The second community is Tsama, in the Chama River valley (Davis and Ortman 2021). This community initially formed in the middle AD 1200s, when two villages of about 100 people each were established at either end of a terrace above the Rio Chama. The painted pottery of these villages exhibits strong continuities with Mesa Verde Black-on-white. The western, upstream village has an opening in its plaza that faces the midsummer sunrise and thus represents the summer people; and the eastern, downstream village had a strong southeast view toward the midwinter sunrise behind the Truchas Peaks, and thus represents the winter people. By the mid-AD 1400s, these two villages had coalesced into a single village of about 1,000 people around a single, massive plaza at the east end of the terrace, with each moiety maintaining a separate kiva on the western periphery of the new, larger village.

This combined evidence from archaeology and oral history suggests historic Tewa community organization derives from paired village communities that were established as Tewa ancestors entered the northern Rio Grande region. However, the origin narratives also state that Tewa ancestors migrated as winter people and summer people, so it seems possible that the idea of the paired village community was first invented in the ancestral homeland of the migrants. Grant Coffey (2016) has recently found evidence of this in the Sand Canyon locality, where the Sand Canyon and Goodman Point communities were linked by a formalized road as early as the twelfth century AD (also see Schleher et al., chapter 14 in this volume). Coffey’s findings raise the possibility Naranjo suggested, that these new governing institutions were first invented in the Mesa Verde homeland of many Tewa people and that they became more widely adopted as part of the migration process.

The second line of evidence, from historical analysis of Tanoan kin terms, suggests the divided villages of the Mesa Verde region reflect a kin-based precursor of paired-village organization. In a recent study, Patrick Cruz and I compiled kin terms across Tanoan languages and used the comparative method to reconstruct the evolution of these terms as the languages diversified over time (Cruz and Ortman 2021). The analysis revealed several cases where a single kin term in proto-Tanoan has evolved to refer to different relationships in descendant languages: as examples, a term that refers to mother in one language is cognate with a term that refers to mother’s sister in another; and a term that refers to mother’s brother in one language is cognate with a term for mother’s brother’s son in another. These patterns imply that ancestral Tanoan communities followed an Iroquoian-type kinship system with exogamous matrilineal moieties (Trautman and Whiteley 2012). Basically, each person belonged to the moiety of their mother; father’s brother was an additional father and mother’s sister an additional mother; parallel cousins (father’s brother’s children and mother’s sister’s children) were additional siblings that were off-limits as marriage partners; and cross-cousins (father’s sister’s children and mother’s brother’s children) were appropriate as marriage partners. This type of social organization is consistent with both unit pueblos representing matrilineal kin groups and with divided villages representing exogamous matrilineal moieties (Ortman 2018). In addition to adding an additional line of evidence that the Tanoan linguistic homeland was in the San Juan drainage, these findings suggest the idea of the paired village community was abstracted from older, kin-based institutions that regulated marriage.

The point here is that kin-based institutions appear to have played an important role in older, and generally smaller, Mesa Verde region communities but that more inclusive, non-kin-based institutions were typical of the more recent, generally larger, and generally more secure ancestral Tewa communities in the northern Rio Grande (Ortman 2016). To go from one to the other, people had to invent new, non-kin-based institutions; and at least in this case, the new institutions appear to have been abstracted and reformulated from existing institutions. This is just one example of how combining studies of Pueblo languages, cultures, and ancestral sites can lead to new insights regarding processes of institutional change, but it seems to me that additional studies of this process, leading to generalizations regarding the characteristics of successful versus unsuccessful efforts, would be quite valuable as data points to a deeper understanding how societies solve problems effectively, or not.

Native Philosophy and Sustainability Science

My final example is broader and involves investigating the effects of Native values for sustainable development. One of the most important philosophical tenets of Native cultures is that humans and their communities are not separate from nature but are a part of it. Humans do not merely have responsibilities to their families and communities but also to the plants, the animals, and the landscape. As Ute Mountain Ute elder Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk explains, “We are of the land, we don’t quite own it but we’re here as caretakers” (Bears Ears Coalition n.d., 10). In the Western tradition, in contrast, humans are separate from nature, and this affects everything from concepts of wilderness (the absence of people) to the production of knowledge (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) to notions of rationality (costs and benefits for the individual). This basic division leads people to believe that the nonhuman world generally does better in the absence of human action and to relegate the environmental impacts of economic decisions to “externalities” (Kimmerer 2013).

The broad patterns of development in the world today, and the threats to sustainability that have come with it, have occurred largely in the context of Western patterns of thought. New World societies developed independently of this until about five centuries ago and achieved similar scale and complexity to those of the Old World despite technological limitations (metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, sailing ships) and a narrower range of domestic animals for traction, transport, and food (Sachs 2020). Were New World societies more sustainable than their Old World counterparts, relative to their scale? If so, did the distinct conceptualizations of humans and nature play a role in these differences? Would broader adoption of similar views improve the sustainability of human societies today? More fundamentally, how does a conceptualization of humans as a part of nature structure emergent patterns of behavior? Does accounting for this behavior require different models of the human individual? Of human rationality? And how does it change the analytical approaches of archaeologists? Archaeologists affiliated with Crow Canyon have been investigating sustainable development under the rubric of human-environment relationships for decades (Badenhorst et al., chapter 20 in this volume; Bocinsky et al. 2016; Kohler 2012; Kuckelman 2000, 2007; Schollmeyer and Driver 2013, and chapter 21 in this volume; Van West 1994), and studies that consider humans, plants and animals in a single analysis, including studies of food webs (Crabtree et al. 2017), traditional ecological knowledge (Langdon 2007), and convergent behavioral evolution (Barsbai et al. 2021) are beginning to break down the conceptual barrier between humans and nature. Crow Canyon has also contributed to this trend by encouraging specialists in environmental archaeology, architecture, osteology, ceramics, and lithics to integrate their results in synthetic studies (Lipe 1992; Varien and Wilshusen 2002). I have no idea what answers to the questions above will be, but I think the answers will be important for all of us to consider and that partnerships between archaeologists and Native people will be one of the best ways to find them.

Prospect

I hope these examples are sufficient to make my main point, which is that framing the archaeological record the way Native people do and working with Native people as coinvestigators to address questions that all of us care about offer an exciting and productive solution to trends that might otherwise pull archaeology in different directions and create distinct research silos. The fact that Native people have traditionally learned from ancestral sites in different ways from archaeologists is not a barrier or challenge but a potential strength of an integrated approach that combines systematic observation and analysis of past behavior with a concern for wholeness, unity, spirit, and the future. In my view, scholars have put much more effort into making distinctions between archaeological and Indigenous approaches to ancestral sites than they have in finding connections. I hope this chapter will encourage archaeologists to recognize that if we wish to honor both approaches, a good direction in which to move is toward an archaeology that focuses on what the old ones can teach us. Crow Canyon is in a great position to play a leading role in this over its next forty years.

Acknowledgments. This chapter is dedicated to the Native American Advisory Group at Crow Canyon, and especially the members who inspired me during my years as an employee, including Eric and Jane Polingyouma, Peter and Stella Pino, Herman Agoyo, Ernest Vallo, Rebecca Hammond, Tito Naranjo, Tessie Naranjo, Marie Reyna, Chris Toya, and Harry Walters. I hope this chapter adequately honors them, especially those who have since passed. I also thank the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, for fellowship support, and the 2020–2021 resident scholar community there for helpful feedback on the initial draft.

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