Power Divergences Among Pre-contact Puebloan and Mogollon Societies: Conflict and Cooperation in the American Southwest

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores how two contemporary pre-contact (AD 800-1200) cultures in the American Southwest compared in power structures and leadership roles. We investigate the Ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco region and the Mimbres Mogollon people of southwestern New Mexico. As these societies reacted to changing subsistence and environmental demands, both relied on ritual as a means of acquiring and maintaining status and power. The social rules within each respective culture diverge in how this power was used in community interactions, however. Bioarchaeological and archaeological data show that Chacoan society used power to establish systems of inequality and social control. Occasional episodes of violence included massacres and captive-taking and some factions of society showed poor nutrition, suggesting a lack of resource access. In contrast, individuals in the Mimbres area were reasonably well-adapted to their environment, showing fewer pathological conditions and less frequent violence. The corporate lineage social structures in Mimbres society may have served to reduce competition for resources while the hierarchical model in the Chaco region only buffered select high-power members of society. No photos of human remains will be included in this presentation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51391