Dogoszhi-Style Ceramics as Markers of Elite Status within the Chacoan Regional System

Summary

Dogoszhi-style ceramics are prevalent throughout the Ancestral Puebloan world during the 11th-13th centuries, and have been suggested as a marker of elite status within the Chacoan World. The replication of the style across different wares and media, occurrence on special forms, and in some cases highly skilled painting, suggests a shared social significance at the regional scale. We investigate this proposition by examining the distribution of the style across the Chacoan World using the Southwest Social Networks database. Included are ceramic and architectural data on Chacoan Great Houses, great kivas, and other monumental architecture dating from A.D. 800 to 1200, as well as small house data from several Chaco outliers. Using 50-year periods we investigate (1) the timing and occurrence of Dogoszhi-style at some 300 sites with Chacoan monumental architecture, comparing Chaco Canyon, the "Chaco Halo," and further outliers; (2) the distribution of Dogoszhi-style ceramics within Chacoan communities comparing great houses to surrounding small houses, in terms of both network centrality and Dogoszhi-style occurrence. These analyses define the transformation of Dogoszhi-style from highly localized to a wide-spread, and help evaluate whether it was a marker of elite status associated with the Chaco World.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16089