Bodies of Evidence: Indications of Non-Western Ontologies at Paquimé, Chihuahua

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Individual Bodies to Bodies of Social Theory: Exploring Ontologies of the Americas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ethnographic descriptions of historic and contemporary peoples with clear connections to prehistoric cultural groups offer ready sources to explore non-Western views of reality. Researchers working in the American Southwest and much of Mesoamerica benefit from robust ethnographic accounts that can be fairly unambiguously connected to prehistoric cultures. However, in the absence of clear ethnographic analogs, the direct historical approach to elucidating indigenous ontological principles is difficult. The prehispanic community of Paquimé in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico represents just such a situation. While there are some existing native cultures that provide hints at possible Paquiméan ontology, no direct connection between the prehistoric past and existing cultures has been established. In this paper, we examine what ethnographic materials do exist along with archaeological evidence, especially evidence from human remains, to explore possible Paquiméan views of the body.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Individual Bodies to Bodies of Social Theory: Exploring Ontologies of the Americas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25561