Macaws on Pots: Images, Symbolism, and Deposition at Homol’ovi

Summary

Widespread archaeological evidence—including egg shells and skeletal remains recovered from archaeological sites as well as imagery on pottery, kiva murals, and rock art—suggests that macaws, their feathers, and their imagery played important roles in ancient Puebloan society. Ethnographic accounts also indicate the importance of macaws to ancient Puebloan peoples and modern groups. Macaws have been interpreted as indicators of exchange, aspects of intricate ritual systems, and indexes of social complexity. This research attempts to further our understanding of the roles macaw imagery have played in Puebloan culture through an analysis of images on pottery and the depositional contexts of the vessels or vessel fragments bearing these representations at the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster, a 13th-14th century ancestral Hopi group of villages located in northeastern Arizona. Is macaw imagery tied to certain wares, types, or vessel forms? How are these birds depicted on ceramics? Are items adorned with macaw imagery and macaw skeletal remains deposited in similar contexts? Considering the contexts in which objects decorated with macaw imagery were deposited in reference to macaw and other bird burial practices may provide a more refined understanding of the functions these artifacts served and the symbolism they evoked in prehistoric Puebloan society.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18872