Examining Variable Funerary Practices at Pottery Mound, New Mexico

Summary

Pottery Mound (LA 416) is a Pueblo IV village site located on the Rio Puerco in central New Mexico southwest of the modern city of Albuquerque and was occupied from the mid-14th to mid-15th centuries. This site is most notable for its abundance of local and non-local ceramic types and elaborate kiva murals (Schaafsma 2007). Excavations at Pottery Mound took place during several University of New Mexico (UNM) field schools under direction of Frank Hibben and later Linda Cordell between the 1950s and 1970s. The recovered skeletal sample, curated at the Laboratory of Human Osteology (Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, UNM) comprises about 175 individuals of all ages, which exhibit evidence of a variety of different funerary practices which remain poorly understood.

This study examines the Pottery Mound osteological collection for biological information (including age, sex and pathology) and taphonomic evidence of mortuary practice. These data are then compared to the archaeological context the burials were discovered in such as provenience, orientation, position, and affiliated funerary objects. Then both archaeological and osteological data are analyzed for patterns to address potential biological and/or cultural factors that may explain the variability in funerary practices in Pottery Mound.

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): 17410