Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Early Contact Period Interaction in the Western Spanish Borderlands - A Ceramic Technological Study

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Under the supervision of Dr. Ann Ramenofsky, Ms. Jennifer Boyd will conduct her doctoral research addressing disruption and innovation in Pueblo Indian groups at European contact as reflected in ceramic technological change. The contact period was a time when vastly different worlds collided, stimulating a complex process of interaction among different groups of people, technologies, material goods, ideas, and diseases. Native American-Spanish interactions took different forms in various parts of the Americas resulting in locally distinct continuity and change. This study will look at changes in Pueblo Indian lifeways in the western Spanish Borderlands (now modern New Mexico) from initial contact in the 16th century through the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. New Mexico is a unique place to study Native American-Spanish interaction because of its remote location in the northernmost Borderlands and may provide an important counterpoint to other areas where there was a high degree of Spanish domination and simultaneous decimation of Native American groups. Pueblo Indians were not just victims of European dominance. They were active participants in shaping interactions. The development of colono wares represents one such indigenous response to an empire-wide need for European vessel forms. Colono wares are ceramics with attributes from hand-coiled, low-fired Native American ceramic traditions and medieval European vessel forms. These ceramics, found throughout the Spanish Empire, mark the appearance of new vessel forms in the indigenous ceramic repertoire. Unfortunately, little is known about these ceramics, especially what technological changes may have accompanied vessel form changes. Mineralogical, chemical, and formal analyses will be used to determine the nature of technological changes in Pueblo Indian ceramics, especially colono wares. This study will distinguish between two types of technological change to make interpretations in terms of disruption and innovation. Change in highly conservative attributes related to motor skills of potters or the successful production sequence will be interpreted as reflecting disruption due to discontinuity in potter group structure, breakdown in cultural transmission, and/or indigenous population loss. In contrast, change in attributes not directly related to the successful production sequence and visible on a finished vessel will be interpreted as reflecting Pueblo Indian innovation. The intellectual merit of this study is that it will advance knowledge regarding Pueblo Indian-Spanish interactions and the early colonial history of New Mexico. This will be the first comprehensive technological study of colono wares in the American Southwest and will provide a robust means of determining disruption and innovation in Pueblo Indian groups by comparing a variety of mission and non-mission settings. The broader impacts of this study will be the dissemination of information regarding early Pueblo Indian-Spanish interaction and ceramic technological change in the western Spanish Borderlands. This project will also provide the author with significant, additional professional training. The results of this study will be shared with professional and public audiences, including modern Pueblo Indian groups, through published papers and professional and public talks. The results will also be used to enhance museum displays and interpretive brochures at the Palace of the Governors Museum and Pecos National Monument.