Ritual Deposition of Avifauna in the Northern Burial Cluster at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon

Summary

Birds are an important part of both modern and historic Puebloan ceremonialism: live birds, stuffed birds, and bird wings and feathers are used in prayers, in ceremonies, as sacrifices, and in the creation of ritual paraphernalia. Archaeological evidence suggests birds held a similar role in the past for some prehispanic Southwestern groups, including members of the Chaco phenomenon. Pueblo Bonito is one member of the Chaco system that might be expected to contain evidence of ritual use of birds, given other evidence for ritual activity at this site. Using a new avifaunal assemblage excavated from Room 28 in 2013, in this paper we assess evidence for ritual use of birds in Pueblo Bonito’s northern burial cluster rooms. Multiple quantitative analyses establish the dissimilarity of this assemblage to other Chacoan sites and demonstrate that an unusually wide variety of avian species were recovered here. Wing elements are particularly abundant and may indicate the deposition of wing fans in the northern burial rooms.

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): 20072