Visiting a "Villagescape": The Early Classic Period Marana Mound Site

Summary

We explore Early Classic Period Hohokam society through the medium of inhabitants’ lives in the center with a platform mound and over 40 residential compounds in the northern Tucson Basin. We approach the topic as a retrospective based on 30 years of intermittent mapping and excavation at the Marana Mound Site, coupled with insights from advancing Hohokam studies. We ask how the spatial and architectural configuration or "villagescape" of this center reflected and embodied the principles of communal and regional organization at this time and place. Envisioning the experiential backdrop of the Early Classic Period reveals the partitioned nature of domestic and public space in which pervasive compound walls segmented both societal domains with physical and symbolic barriers. How did compound dwellers come together and establish collective identities as new social entities? We identify patterns of differentiation within and between compounds and in mound precincts, especially considering evidence that might pertain to the identity and whereabouts of the elusive emergent elites long attributed to the Classic Period. We discuss the developmental trajectory of the center from initial settlement to the cessation of residential occupation and subsequent re-visitation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Walls, Mounds, and Pots: Examining the Classic Period Hohokam

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14648