Worlds Forever Changed: The Impact of Conflict and Colony in the "New World"

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

The first contact between non-native foreign colonizers and indigenous peoples of the "New World" unquestionably resulted in permanent and widespread impacts. These impacts varied widely depending on the structure of existing native social organizations, the make-up and motivation of the colonizing groups, and the type or extent of the contacts. This session will explore the effect of, and activities surrounding, some key examples of first contact in the New World. Case studies drawn from a broad geographic range from the American northeast, southeast, and southwest are offered in comparison to other studies from central America and the Andean region. This session will explore indigenous relations, colonizing strategies, and evidence of conflict and resistance. Independent lines of evidence range from changes in subsistence, architecture, various technologies, inter-societal relations, and settlement systems. This session will examine the ultimate outcomes that various regional contacts had on both the affected indigenous groups and their colonizers. Some studies will describe impacts upon less commonly discussed indigenous groups on the margins of contact areas. In particular, the long-lasting consequences of conflict and colonization resulted in profound cultural reorganization and produced effects that still resonate in present-day societies even after a span of nearly 500 years.

Other Keywords
Colonialism • andes • bioarchaeology • Historical Archaeology • Material Culture • Built Environment • Colonization • Mythology • Culture Contact • Spanish Conquest

Geographic Keywords
North America - Southwest • South America • Mesoamerica • North America - Northeast • North America - Southeast

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  1. A’tzi-em and Po-ya-o-na: archaeological and historical insights into the native-Spanish encounter in New Mexico’s Piro province, 1581-1681 (2015)
  2. The (beginning and) end of the world as we know it: The multiple makings and un-makings of the indigenous past in Huarochirí, Peru (2015)
  3. The Caxcans of Nueva Galicia, Nahua Warriors of the Northern Mesoamerican Frontier (2015)
  4. Conquistadores, Colonists, and Chiefdoms in Northern La Florida: Artifacts and Architecture at the Berry Site in Western North Carolina (2015)
  5. First Contact: Friend or Foe? (2015)
  6. The Geopolitics of Conquest: The Mixtón War and the Caxcan Diaspora (2015)
  7. In the Shadow of the Moor: An Archaeology of Pueblo Resistance in Colonial New Mexico (2015)
  8. Ordering Buildings, Building Order: Place Production in a Planned Colonial Town in Highland Peru (2015)
  9. Pre-Columbian Exchange Systems and the Colonization of Northern New Spain (2015)
  10. Seas of Change: Overfishing and Colonial Encounter in the Gulf of Maine (2015)
  11. Symbols of the Spanish Conquest: Early Colonial period figurines from the Basin of Mexico and the Michoacán (2015)
  12. "They Had So Many Stones to Hurl": Evidence of Inter-Indigenous Conflict on the Vázquez de Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542 (2015)