Ritual Practice and Exchange in the Late Prehispanic Western Pueblo Region: Insights from the Distribution and Deposition of Turquoise at Homol'ovi I^†

† Winner of the 2016 Julian D. Hayden Paper Competition

Abstract

Archaeological and ethnographic evidence demonstrate the importance of turquoise among past and present Pueblo groups. In this paper, I examine the social uses of turquoise and other blue-green minerals at Homol'ovi I, a late prehispanic Hopi village and the most intensively excavated site within the Homol'ovi Settlement Cluster. I explore intrasite patterns of deposition (i.e., the content and context of turquoise deposits) and stylistic variation among objects in an effort to identify differential practices and material expressions within the pueblo. In addition, I assess the geologic provenance of turquoise from the site using high-precision measurements of lead and strontium isotopes. Recent studies indicate turquoise from at least two geologic locales—the Cerrillos Hills (New Mexico) and Canyon Creek (Arizona)—was acquired by Homol'ovi I inhabitants. These source investigations, coupled with those from other contemporaneous sites in the region, clarify the flow of turquoise across the late prehispanic Western Pueblo landscape and illuminate regional patterns of acquisition and exchange.

La evidencia arqueológica y etnográfica demuestra la importancia de la turquesa entre los grupos Pueblo en el pasado y el presente. En este artículo examino los usos sociales de la turquesa y otros minerales azul-verdes en Homol'ovi I, un pueblo Hopi prehispánico de la epoca tarde—que es el sitio excavado más intensamente dentro del grupo de habitaciones en Homol'ovi. Exploro patrones de deposición dentro del sitio (es decir, el contenido y el contexto de los depósitos de turquesa) y la variación estilística entre los objetos para poder identificar las prácticas diferenciales y expresiones materiales al interior de Homol'ovi. Además, evalúo la procedencia geológica de la turquesa de este sitio usando mediciones de alta precisión de los isótopos de plomo y estroncio. Otros estudios recientes indican que la turquesa, la cual que originaba en al menos de dos lugares geológicos—Cerrillos Hills (Nuevo México) y Canyon Creek (Arizona)—fue adquirida por los habitantes de Homol'ovi I. Estas investigaciones, junto con otros estudios hechos en otros sitios contemporáneos en la región, aclaran lost patrones del movimiento de la turquesa durante la epoca prehispánica tarde en la region Pueblo occidental, e iluminan los patrones regionales de adquisición e intercambio.

KEYWORDS:

• Turquoise
• Homol'ovi
• Western Pueblo
• Hopi

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society for the generous award and recognition of the paper in the Julian D. Hayden Student Paper Competition. This work was originally presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in a session entitled “Homol'ovi: a Gathering Place.” I thank Chuck Adams for organizing the session and inviting my submission. I also thank Dr. Adams for providing steady guidance throughout the ebbs and flows of my dissertation research. Patrick Lyons, Mike Schiffer, Bill Walker, and anonymous reviewers on the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society's Publications Committee provided helpful comments and suggestions that improved the article. Geochemical analyses were conducted by Dr. Alyson Thibodeau (Dickinson College) in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. Maren Hopkins assisted with the Spanish abstract. Research was supported by the William Self Associates Scholarship, NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant BCS-1440452, and the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.

Notes

† Winner of the 2016 Julian D. Hayden Paper Competition

1 The precise location of Palatkwapi remains a matter of discussion. Some view Palatkwapi as an era or epoch, rather than a specific geographic location (Ferguson and Lomaomvaya 1999). As Anyon (1999:31) explains, “It is most likely that Palatkwapi is an amalgam of sites that includes some time depth … Palatkwapi may best be regarded as a palimpsest of memories associated with lands far south of Hopi.”

2 Though, importantly, the “usability” of turquoise may have been equally conditioned by intangible factors not evident through physical examination of the items themselves.

3 Isotopic measurements of archaeological samples were made in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. Laboratory procedures for sample preparation and analysis followed those outlined in Thibodeau et al. (2015, see also Thibodeau et al. 2012). Pb isotopic ratios were collected on a GV-Instruments IsoProbe multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS). Sample solutions ranged in concentration between ∼10 and 50 ppb, but in all cases sample and standard concentrations were matched within 20 percent. Errors on Pb isotope ratios were calculated from the external reproducibility of the NIST-981 standard (National Institute of Standards and Technology) over the course of each measurement session. The precision of ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb ratios on the NIST 981 standard was typically 0.02–0.07 percent (2SD). In all cases, the external reproducibility of the NIST-981 was larger than the internal error on individual measurements and thus is the error reported here. Sr isotopic ratios were measured using a VG Sector 54 multicollector thermal ionization mass spectrometer (TIMS) in dynamic collection mode. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios were corrected for mass fractionation using ⁸⁶Sr/⁸⁸Sr = 0.1194. The NIST-987 standard was run at the beginning and end of each measurement session. The average value of the NIST-987 standard over all sample runs was 0.710260 ± 0.000012 (2SD, n = 7).