Ceremonial Depictions of Bighorn Sheep Anthropomorphs in the Jornada Mogollon Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Jornada Mogollon region is known for its rich body of rock art. Researchers have suggested that elements such as cloud terraces, masks, goggle-eyed figures, and horned serpents are associated with ceremony. Although hundreds of bighorn sheep images exist in the regional rock art these figures are not usually mentioned except in a general inventory of frequently found motifs. Nonetheless, there are some unusual anthropomorphs with bighorn sheep headdresses that suggest a possible ceremonial use. These images appear mostly in the eastern Jornada Mogollon as delineated by Lehmer in 1948. Other highly stylized bighorn sheep images as well as artifacts and a few examples of bighorn sheep on Mimbres pottery contribute to the evidence that bighorn sheep also had ceremonial use.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22997