A Study of Southwestern Archeology
A Study of Southwestern Archeology
Stephen Lekson
Lekson takes on the mystique, politics and internecine battles of what he calls American Anthropological Archeology, using the study and interpretation of Chaco Canyon to illustrate his arguments. He briefly touched on these themes in one of my favorite SW books, The Chaco Meridian.
Some of the things of I found most interesting in the book were:
1) The invention of Pueblo Space: This revolves around successful early 20th C efforts by local boosters, including ethnologists, archeologists, anthropologists and commercial interests (especially railroad and hotel magnates) to keep the capital of New Mexico in Santa Fe (vs moving it to Albuquerque) and develop the Southwest as a tourist destination. This resulted in the early capture of American Anthropological Archeology in a paradigm that it has never quite been able to break out of, to wit: a portrait of Pueblo Indians as democratic, peaceful communal farmers whose lifeways are timeless and unchanging. Interpretations of southwestern pre-history became backward extrapolations of the Pueblo present.
2) The way that preserving the mystique of Chaco in the context of “Pueblo Space” has trumped more cogent explanations of its origin, development and fall that are based on archeology and analogy with neighboring Mexico, for example.
a. Basically, Lekson argues that Chaco was a secondary state, an altepetl, strongly influenced by contemporaneous polities in Central Mexico. Macaws and their feathers, chocolate and copper bells all evidence links with the south.
b. He argues that the Great Houses at Chaco and in its orbit, were homes to lordly families in a stratified society amongst whom leadership of the polity rotated, as in Mexico, very unlike modern-day pueblos.
c. He further posits that Chaco’s nobility migrated wholesale to Aztec Ruins, near the present Colorado border, possibly after a revolt by subject peoples, who later dispersed and were among the ancestors of today’s Pueblos. He further proposes that the latter’s lifeways, governance, etc were developed as a rejection of the hierarchical, even “feudal”, Chaco polity.
3) The roughly contemporaneous Hohokam, in the Phoenix Basin, showed massive Mesoamerican influence, while Cahokia, in the Mississippi Valley, was larger, more powerful and probably less influenced by Mexico.
4) The impact of the law on archeology, specifically NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) and ARPA (Archeological Resources Protection Act).
5) How academic fashions have buffeted SW archeology through the 20th and early 21st C. I found his exposition of post-modernism French “Theorie” particulary interesting, in the light of the epidemic of “Wokeness” currently sweeping American Academia.
6) History versus Heritage: The former being a narrative of the past based on documentary (if any) and archeological sources versus the latter a narrative based on traditions teachings, stories, etc. Lekson argues that both are important, both have their place, but that neither should be relied on too heavily to inform the other.
