Ritual Deposition of Avifauna in the Northern Burial Cluster at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon

Abstract

Birds play an important role in modern and historic Puebloan ceremonialism, with feathers, wings, stuffed birds, and live birds used for ceremonies, sacrifices, and creation of ritual paraphernalia. Archaeological evidence suggests birds played an ideological and ritual role for some prehispanic Southwestern groups as well. Here, we explore the use of avian remains for ritual purposes at Pueblo Bonito by presenting new evidence from the northern burial cluster. Drawing on multiple quantitative measures, we establish the dissimilarity of this assemblage to other Chacoan sites. We demonstrate that an unusually wide variety of avian species was deposited in the northern burial cluster, particularly wing elements that may reflect wing fan deposition. These findings improve our understanding of ritual life at Pueblo Bonito and also show the utility of using both qualitative and quantitative data to create a more accurate understanding of past ceremonial activity.

Las aves son una parte importante del ceremonialismo de Pueblanos moderno e histórico, con el uso de plumas, alas, aves rellenas y aves vivas en ceremonias, sacrificios y la creación de parafernalia ritual. La evidencia arqueológica sugiere que las aves desempeñaron un papel ideológico y ritual para algunos grupos prehispánicos del sudoeste norteamericano. En este estudio exploramos el uso de los restos aviares para propósitos rituales en Pueblo Bonito, presentando nuevas evidencias del cúmulo del enterramiento norteño. Basándonos en múltiples medidas cuantitativas, establecemos la disimilitud entre este conjunto y otros sitios en Chaco Canyon, demostrando que una variedad inusualmente amplia de especies aviares se depositaron en el cúmulo del enterramiento norteño, particularmente elementos del ala, que probablemente fueron utilizados como abanicos de mano. Estos hallazgos mejoran nuestra comprensión sobre la vida ritual en Pueblo Bonito, demostrando que la utilización de datos tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos crean una comprensión más precisa de la actividad ceremonial pasada.

Keywords:

• Birds
• Ceremonialism
• Diversity
• NTAXA
• Cook’s distance
• Leverage
• Pueblo Bonito
• Chaco

Acknowledgments

Patricia Crown directed the Room 28 excavations with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (RZ-51417-13) and the National Geographic Society (9276-13) and permitted by the National Park Service (ARPA Permit 13-CHCU-01). Special thanks to Dabney Ford, Archaeologist at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, for all of her help and to the intrepid crew who excavated the room in 2013. Thanks to Dr. Christopher C. Witt and Andrew B. Johnson for their assistance in working with the comparative collections at the Museum of Southwestern Biology; to Cyler Conrad for his expertise with R; to Lucia Agudo Perez for assistance with the Spanish abstract; and to Chip Wills, Steve Plog, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Caitlin S. Ainsworth http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6680-8219

Patricia L. Crown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5084-3693

Emily Lena Jones http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9927-7469

Stephanie E. Franklin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6386-2113

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Geographic Society (9276-13) and National Endowment for the Humanities (RZ-51417-13).