Evolutionary Change in Household Architecture, Settlement Patterns, and Subsistence Technology: A 4000 Year-Long Record from the Middle Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico

Summary

Evolution in domestic architecture, settlement patterns, and subsistence technology can be revealed by long-term stability followed by rapid change. Research in the middle Rio Grande valley of New Mexico documents a 4,000-year long record from 3000 BC to AD 900. Archaic period structures, dated 3000 BC to about AD 250, display little change in form, size, and construction details. Settlement pattern changes appear with the first midden deposits and increased numbers of dwellings with associated storage features. Constructed milling features for processing wild seed appear before the adoption of cultigens.

Long-term architectural and technological stability gave way to rapid change coinciding with the appearance of agricultural domesticates after AD 500. Multi-dwelling sites and architectural investments indicate decreased residential mobility. Simultaneously, distinctions in functionally specific domestic spaces appear with the separation of cooking areas from sleeping spaces. Sweeping changes occur in subsistence technology: groundstone reflects the shift from a seed-based diet to a corn-based diet. Cooking features changed from rock-lined pits to formalized hearths. Domesticated corn required ceramics for cooking; size, shape, and location of storage features also changed rapidly. Implications for cultural continuity and in-place population growth are discussed in light of these long-term trends.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20504