Community Identity in the Jornada: Untangling Patterns of Aggregation and Abandonment at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175), an El Paso Phase Village

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research at Jornada Mogollon Sites in South-Central New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ongoing excavations at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) suggest population aggregation within the El Paso Phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Jornada Cultural Region may have consisted of distinct self-identified groups integrated into one multi-ethnic community. Comparing the excavations at Area A, a large plaza orientated pueblo, and Area E, a series of linear pueblo room blocks, a number of significant differences in construction, use, and abandonment activities have become apparent using room comparisons. I explore these identifying differences through the case study of Room 3 Area A and Room 1 Area E at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo. Many differences seen within Cottonwood Spring Pueblo such as layout, wall and room construction, frequencies of ceramic types, depositional artifacts associated with room closure and structural abandonment can be seen on a larger scale between El Paso Phase Pueblos located on either side of the San Andres/Organ Mountain divide. Cottonwood Spring Pueblos’ location, straddling a cultural boundary between the Jornada and Mimbres branches of the Mogollon, indicates differences within this multi-ethnic aggregated community will be important to understanding population aggregation and social identity during this late Pueblo period across the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Research at Jornada Mogollon Sites in South-Central New Mexico   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26056