Chaco and Hopewell: Rethinking "Interaction Spheres" Through Multiscalar Network Analyses
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)
Chaco and Hopewell are two of the most well studied archaeological regions in North America. Although Chaco is often compared to Cahokia, comparison to Hopewell brings out important ways in which extensive regional connectivities were formed through the intersection of religious, political, and economic networks. Both societies show evidence of periodic, eventful monumental construction; spatial connectivity through roads/causeways; long-distance procurement of materials; production and deposition of large quantities of inalienable objects; spatially distinctive collective burials; and the replication of architectural units and spatial communities across large areas. Although they differ in many ways, the term "interaction sphere" has been applied to both regions but this term is amorphous and sidesteps the ways in which materials and practices were embedded within multiple kinds of networks and their historical relationships. Current relational approaches in archaeology, including formal network analyses, offer alternative ways of looking at social and spatial connectivities, especially when combined with theoretical approaches that foreground how religious ritual, ideology, territoriality, social diversity, and inequality intersect. The participants in this session address these connections to provide multiscalar interpretations of the Chaco and Hopewell worlds, their origins, and their transformations.
Other Keywords
Hopewell •
social network analysis •
Chaco Canyon •
Chaco •
Social Networks •
Geographic Information Science •
Path of Souls •
Adena •
Monuments •
Ceramic Provenance
Geographic Keywords
North America - Southwest •
North America - Midwest •
North America - Southeast
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)
- Documents (9)
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Chaco and Hopewell: Redefining Interaction Spheres through Multiscalar Network Approaches (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Chaco and Hopewell are two of the most well studied archaeological regions in North America. Although Chaco is often compared to Cahokia, comparison to Hopewell brings out important ways in which extensive regional connectivities were formed through the intersection of religious, political, and economic networks. Both societies show evidence of periodic, eventful monumental construction; spatial connectivity through roads/causeways; long-distance procurement of materials; production and...
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Gateways and Gatherings: Economic, Ideological, and Social Networks of Southeastern Hopewell (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The existence of the Hopewell Core – the concentration of remarkable ceremonial assemblages and geometric earthworks in the Ohio River Valley – presupposes the existence of a Hopewell Periphery, a social space that includes large swaths of the American Southeast. Often, archaeologists have attributed Hopewellian material culture at southeastern sites to their role as gateway centers facilitating the exchange and transfer of special raw materials through the Hopewell Interaction Sphere....
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Interaction Spheres or Networks of Participation? Organizing Institutional Complexity in Adena-Hopewell societies of Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Since the 1960’s Joseph Caldwell’s notion of the interaction sphere has endured as a global framework through which archaeologists interpret regional systems of trade and exchange. However, a tension exists in this framework between the homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of exchanges within overlapping territories. Implied in the Interaction Sphere approach is that, through their interactions, autonomous social groups engage in homogeneous religious, economic, and sociopolitical institutional...
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The Milky Way Path of Souls and Adena-Hopewell Earthworks (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In this presentation I consider Adena-Hopewell earthworks from a relational perspective. For decades, archaeologists have focused on individual sites. But what if it was found that the significance of certain sites unfolded in their relationships to other earthworks as well as other dimensions? In this presentation I use LiDAR imagery, archaeoastronomic analyses, and ethnohistoric data to explore the idea the Newark Earthworks, Great Hopewell Road, Mound City, Serpent Mound, and others were part...
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Pueblo Bonito as a Material and Spatial Network (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
While formal network analyses (and traditional statistical analyses) can be used to understand the network relationships between archaeological sites they can also be geared towards understanding relationships within sites, both between architectural units and between different classes of artifacts. Using these techniques on a network of general material categories (like turquoise or shell) from different room contexts within Pueblo Bonito potentially reveals different "sets" of material classes...
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Reading between the Lines: A Contextual and Processual Approach to Social Interactions in the Woodland Period of the American Southeast through Integrated Analyses of Complicated Stamped Pottery (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Archaeologists have turned increasingly to Social Network Analysis (SNA) to visualize and understand the structure of regional social networks, but their analyses frequently sacrifice context and process for synchronic, macro-scale patterning. We compare SNA with a more contextual and processual network approach to the case of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, a ubiquitous class of material culture In the Deep South of the American Southeast during the Middle and Late Woodland periods...
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Social Networks and the Scale of the Chaco World (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico has long been recognized as an important regional center characterized by impressive architecture and wide-spread influence across the Ancestral Puebloan region (ca. A.D. 800-1150+). Although few researchers dispute the strong similarities in construction styles and techniques most often used to track Chacoan influence, there is little agreement on what such similarities mean in terms of social, political, or economic relationships. In this paper, we...
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Travel Corridors and Economic Integration in the Chacoan Regional System (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
It is well known that a variety of goods flowed into the center of the Chaco regional system between 980-1140 CE. Previous research demonstrated that these goods were generally consumed within the canyon instead of redistributed to outlying settlements. Yet, a variety of indicators from peripheral areas indicate robust economic expansion during this same period and contraction in the immediate post-Chacoan period (1140-1180 CE). This suggests greater levels of exchange and interaction among...
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Two Houses, Both Alike in Dignity: Visibility, Material Culture, and Contrasting Histories at Two Chaco Halo Communities (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The communities that surround the neighboring great houses of Kin Bineola and Kin Klizhin contain broadly similar kinds of sites—including the great houses themselves, small habitation sites, and shrines—and are both located in the "Chaco Halo," the region immediately surrounding Chaco Canyon itself. Nevertheless, the two communities differ in their composition, spatial structure, and histories. Intervisibility between habitations and public or religious architecture provides one possible...