Communities and Material Culture

Community studies have enjoyed a long history in the central Mesa Verde region (Adler 1996; Hurst 2011; Jalbert 1999; Jalbert and Cameron 2000; Kolb and Snead 1997; Lipe et al. 1999; Mahoney 2000; Ortman et al. 2007; Varien, Lipe et al. 1996; Varien, Van West et al. 2000) and are a major focus of the archaeological research presented in this volume (Adler and Hegmon, chapter 16, Glowacki et al., chapter 12, Potter et al., chapter 13, Schleher et al., chapter 10, and Throgmorton et al., chapter 11 in this volume). Here, we use the term community to indicate a group of people who live close together and interact regularly (Lipe 1992, 3; Murdock 1949). Many archaeologists infer that clusters of contemporary, or roughly contemporary, habitation sites represent communities (Coffey and Kuckelman 2014; Varien 1999a).

Communities exist on a landscape, and, thus, residents of a specific community will have similar access to local materials. Differences in materials chosen for material culture production across the community reflect changes in the production group (or groups) or social boundaries (Arakawa et al., chapter 15; Schleher et al., chapter 10 in this volume) in the community. Choices of materials by the production group reflect learning traditions tied to a particular location on the landscape. These choices reflect a community of practice in the production, distribution, and use of pottery, reflecting social networks at various scales (e.g., Cordell and Habicht-Mauche 2012). The range of variation in the pottery assemblage reflects a variety of factors, including changes in the composition of the potting group or a broadening, or restricting, of the learning network (e.g., Crown 2007; Schleher 2017a). Here we explore communities of practice as reflected in raw materials used to make pottery vessels and designs chosen to decorate them. Variation in these communities of practice reflect changes in the production group that can include the movement of people into the community (immigration) or the adoption of technologies or design ideas from external production groups.

The Goodman Point and Sand Canyon Communities

The Goodman Point community lies near the head of Goodman Canyon and includes both mesa top and canyon settings. Numerous sites and features are located within the Goodman Point Unit of Hovenweep National Monument (figure 14.2), located approximately 9.5 miles northwest of present-day Cortez, Colorado (Coffey 2018a; Connolly 1992; Kuckelman et al. 2009; Kuckelman 2017a). The Goodman Point community was the focus of a field project carried out from 2005 through 2011 by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center (Crow Canyon). The project included archaeological testing of fifteen habitations sites, including Goodman Point Pueblo. Shields Pueblo, located just outside of the Goodman Point Unit of Hovenweep National Monument, was also part of the ancient Goodman Point community. Excavations at Shields Pueblo were conducted by Crow Canyon from 1997 through 2000 (Ryan 2015). These two projects yielded much of the data used here, including information for more than 150,000 sherds. This assemblage includes artifacts recovered from contexts that can be exclusively assigned to either the Pueblo II or Pueblo III periods; mixed contexts with a temporal designation of Pueblo II/III are not included in this study (Schleher 2017b; Schleher and Coffey 2018; Till et al. 2015).

The Sand Canyon community is located near the head of Sand Canyon; many sites and features of this community are located within the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, approximately 3 mi. southwest of Goodman Point Pueblo, as shown in figure 14.2 (Kuckelman 2007). Sand Canyon Pueblo was the focus of the Sand Canyon Archaeological Project, which was conducted from 1984 through 1989 and 1991 through 1993 by Crow Canyon (Kuckelman 2007). This project included excavations at ten smaller habitation sites in the Sand Canyon community (Lipe 1992; Varien 1999b). Data from this project are also included in this study (Pierce et al. 1999; Till and Ortman 2007).

The Sand Canyon and Goodman Point communities were closely related. Not only were they located a few miles apart, but also an ancient road connected the two communities, and locations of public architecture within each community indicate close ties (Coffey 2016). Although the communities were closely connected, numerous differences are apparent in the structure and composition of the population in each community through time.

One difference between the Goodman Point and Sand Canyon communities was in their population histories. Scott Ortman and Mark Varien (2007) analyzed survey-based data and suggest that from late Pueblo II / early Pueblo III period times (AD 1150–1225) to late in the Pueblo III period (AD 1225–1280), the population of the Goodman Point community was larger and more stable than that of the Sand Canyon community—a result of more immigrants moving into Sand Canyon Pueblo than into Goodman Point Pueblo. However, more recent, excavation-based data presented by Kristin Kuckelman (2017b) and Grant Coffey (2015, 2018b) suggest that the population of the Goodman Point community was less stable than as characterized by Ortman and Varien (2007), with additional households migrating into the community after Goodman Point Pueblo was founded about AD 1260. Specifically, Coffey argues that there were approximately 85 households at sites in the Goodman Point Unit and at Shields Pueblo before Goodman Point Pueblo was founded (Coffey 2018b, 551), and Kuckelman documents approximately 114 households at Goodman Point Pueblo during the final decades of the community (Kuckelman et al. 2009). These data suggest that both Sand Canyon and Goodman Point communities incorporated immigrants but that more immigrants joined Sand Canyon Pueblo than Goodman Point Pueblo.

A second difference between the Goodman Point and Sand Canyon communities is the degree of population nucleation through time. As shown in figure 14.2, the Goodman Point community was more tightly nucleated, or residentially clustered, around Shields Pueblo and the Goodman Point Pueblo from the Pueblo II period through late Pueblo III period than the Sand Canyon community was clustered around Sand Canyon Pueblo during that same time. That is, during that same time, the Sand Canyon community was more dispersed and less centered on the canyon rim where Sand Canyon Pueblo was built. These demographic and spatial differences—immigration and nucleation—play a role in explanations of the patterns discussed in this chapter for the pottery communities of practice in the Sand Canyon and Goodman Point communities.

Pottery in the Goodman Point and Sand Canyon Communities: Temper and Design

We explore two attributes of painted white ware pottery in the sample: temper and design. We then compare these data to patterns recognized across the broader central Mesa Verde region to shed light on stability and variation in pottery production in the Goodman Point and Sand Canyon communities through time.

The pottery manufactured in both communities primarily consists of corrugated gray ware and white ware vessels, with little change in the percentage of each in the total assemblage for the Pueblo II period versus the Pueblo III period (Pierce et al. 1999; Schleher 2017b; Schleher and Coffey 2018; Till and Ortman 2007). Nonlocal pottery (defined as having a provenance outside of the central Mesa Verde region) composes less than 1 percent of the pottery assemblage for all sites in both communities and for both time periods, including the large, late PIII villages of Goodman Point Pueblo (Schleher 2017b; Schleher and Coffey 2018) and Sand Canyon Pueblo (Pierce et al. 1999; Till and Ortman 2007). This pattern is true for the broader region; few pots were imported from outside the northern San Juan region late in the Pueblo III period, even though intraregional trade was common during this time (Glowacki 2006).

Discussion

The temporal and spatial patterning in pottery materials and design differ for the Goodman Point and Sand Canyon communities, reflecting differences in the communities of practice for potters living in these distinct, yet closely connected, communities. We see differences in the designs used to decorate vessels, a highly visible production attribute. Potters at Sand Canyon Pueblo and Goodman Point Pueblo intentionally used different designs to signal their participation in the social life of their community. These may reflect different clans (Kuwanwisiwma and Bernardini, chapter 5 in this volume), moieties (Linford 2018), or other kinds of social groups. Temper selection reflects social learning frameworks occurring within a community of practice (e.g., Cordell and Habicht-Mauche 2012). Temper materials used in the Goodman Point community are remarkably consistent, especially compared to the variation and change through time in materials used by residents of many other communities in the central Mesa Verde region, including that of Sand Canyon. We argue that these different patterns of design and temper reflect differences in the social identities of those living in each community and that consistency in the use of pottery production materials in the Goodman Point community results from the relative stability of population in that community through time.

Earlier research suggests that the population of the Goodman Point community was larger and more stable than the Sand Canyon community from late Pueblo II / early Pueblo III period times to late Pueblo III period times (Coffey 2018b; Kuckelman 2017b; Ortman and Varien 2007). The greater stability of the population in the Goodman Point community, in terms of fewer immigrants and greater nucleation earlier in time, compared to the Sand Canyon community, suggests that residents of Goodman Point Pueblo had less need to signal identity than did residents of Sand Canyon Pueblo (e.g., Ortman and Varien 2007).

Because pottery production was more stable in the Goodman Point community than in the Sand Canyon community—and both communities incorporated immigrants—it is likely that social differences resulted in the observed patterns in pottery manufacture. Perhaps resident potters at Goodman Point Pueblo required immigrants to conform to the traditional pottery-making techniques of the village, which is indicative of a closed-learning framework (Crown 2007; Wallaert 2012). In other words, the community of practice was more stable in the Goodman Point community because existing social groups applied pressure on newcomers to conform. Another possibility is that if the overall population of the Goodman Point community was comparatively more stable than that of the Sand Canyon community, this could have resulted in greater continuity in pottery production methods through time. That is, the resident potting families of the Goodman Point community did not change dramatically and thus they continued to use traditional methods of producing pottery that had been utilized since the founding of the community (Schleher and Coffey 2018).

We argue that the general pattern of consistency in materials utilized in the manufacture of pottery and pottery designs reflects differences between the Sand Canyon and Goodman Point communities. The greater stability in communities of practice in the Goodman Point community correlates with more stability in population than that seen in other communities across the central Mesa Verde region, including the Sand Canyon community. Residents of the Goodman Point community, even after aggregating into the community center of Goodman Point Pueblo late in the Pueblo III period, continued making pottery using the same materials used during the Pueblo II period. Sherd-tempered white ware pottery did not become the most common white ware at Goodman Point Pueblo as it did across much of the Mesa Verde region during the Pueblo III period (Errickson 1998; Glowacki 2001; Ortman 2002; Till and Ortman 2007). Although potters produced a larger variety of white ware vessel forms (Schleher et al. 2014), the temper constituency of white ware bowls seems to have changed little through time. At Goodman Point Pueblo, pottery from one architectural block is more similar to the broader regional pattern of greater proportions of white ware sherds containing sherd temper than igneous rock temper. The temper in white ware bowl sherds from Architectural Block 200, one of the northernmost blocks at Goodman Point Pueblo, is 63 percent sherd and only 32 percent igneous (Schleher 2017b, table 5.14). The greater use of sherd temper is suggestive of a different production group residing in this area of the village, and Kuckelman (2017b) demonstrates that there were some immigrants at Goodman Point Pueblo. Pottery data thus support the inference of immigrants at Goodman Point Pueblo, with Architectural Block 200 as a likely residence of immigrants who resided in their own area of the village and brought different pottery-making traditions.

In conclusion, stability in the selection of materials used for pottery production through time within the Goodman Point community suggests that specific technological changes were not uniformly adopted across the central Mesa Verde region. Different decisions regarding the use of tempering materials hint at different production groups with diverse histories, and different choices in designs reflect social differences across the region. Patterns in pottery material and design help highlight differences between two of the largest and most closely connected villages in the central Mesa Verde region and illustrate the significance of differences and similarities between residents of these important places on the landscape. This chapter presents a nuanced view of social dynamics within two large communities in the central Mesa Verde region, research that was made possible through many of the large, multiyear research projects conducted since 1983 by Crow Canyon (Lightfoot and Lipe, chapter 2 in this volume; Kohler et al., chapter 3 in this volume).

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