A model melting pot? Interrogating hybridity and ethnogenesis in colonial ceramic production at Comanche Springs, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Located in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains in southeastern New Mexico, the site of Comanche Springs has been an object of research and excavation spanning five decades. However, the social fabric of the people who once occupied this seventeenth-century colonial settlement remain unclear. Was this relatively isolated population an exemplary ‘hybrid’ community foreshadowing the unique melting pot of contemporary New Mexico? To answer this question, I conducted an in-depth analysis of the Comanche Springs ceramic assemblage according to type, form, temper, design, and firing process. This research elucidated the involvement and influences of both Spanish and Indigenous residents in the production processes and eventual use of ceramic vessels. Characteristics of hybridity and ethnogenesis present in the assemblage indicate that Spanish settlers at Comanche Springs were clearly intertwined with – and perhaps even dependent on – local Indigenous populations for knowledge and survival on the colonial frontier.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39129.0