Games, Feasting, and Trade Fairs: Assessing the Relationship between Ballcourts and Exchange at the Ironwood Village Site

Summary

A significant amount of research in Hohokam archaeology has been dedicated to understanding the structure of interaction and exchange. One particular model that has gained recent momentum is that of a marketplace economy revolving around ballcourt events that served as gathering points for social and economic interaction. These markets, or trade fairs, would have provided a reliable mechanism for the exchange of goods to spatially and socially disparate populations. Feasting also may have been associated with the ballgames. Villages possessing a ballcourt may have achieved a socially and economically prominent status within their communities, and likely had greater access to non-local and other socially-significant goods. Recent excavations at the Ironwood Village Site in the northern Tucson Basin have revealed a previously unknown early ballcourt. In this study, we assess the relative proportions of local and non-local artifact classes, along with socially valuable goods, from deposits that immediately preceded and followed the construction of the ballcourt. Spatial relationships of features adjacent to the ballcourt are also examined. The results are then compared to other ballcourt and non-ballcourt villages in the vicinity to better understand the strength of association between ballcourts and exchange.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Discovery, Excavation, and Lessons of Ironwood Village, an Early Hohokam Ballcourt Settlement Near Tucson, Arizona   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage