Ash Matters: The Ritual Closing of Domestic Structures in the Mimbres Mogollon Region

Summary

Throughout much of the Southwestern U.S., ash was an important component of ritual deposition and has ethnographically been closely associated with processes of cleansing and renewal. The presence of ash in ritual contexts is well documented, but it also appears to have played an important role in the closing of domestic structures. In this paper, I present cases of ritual closure of domestic structures and examine the role that ash played in these closures using data from pithouse sites in the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico. These data show that ash was an important component of the abandonment and closure of domestic structures throughout the Pithouse period. I explore the reasons for the use of ash in these contexts and the relationship between domestic and ritual closure during the Pithouse period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18703