Communities in Crisis: Kayenta Diaspora and Salado Coalescence in Southwestern New Mexico

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Past human responses to environmental and social crises have current relevance. Two common responses are migration and aggregation, movements that can generate both multi-ethnic communities and communities in diaspora. A multi-ethnic community shares a place, but is separated by culture. A community in diaspora shares a culture, but is spatially dispersed. Both are challenging to sustain.With National Science Foundation support, the Center for Desert Archaeology will examine evidence for both community types in southwestern New Mexico during the late prehistoric period, an interval of environmental change, social upheaval, and demographic collapse. In the late 13th century Kayenta groups from drought-stricken northeastern Arizona walked over 300 kilometers to the river valleys of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Southern Arizona valleys were already occupied by established Hohokam irrigation communities whose residents were culturally distinct from the Kayenta migrants. Results of a previous NSF grant (No. 0342661) indicate prolonged conflict between Kayenta and Hohokam in some regions. Elsewhere, integrative religious and cultural institutions developed within two generations resulting in a mixed Hohokam-Kayenta identity. In addition, a Kayenta community in diaspora that linked the scattered migrants and their descendants can be traced for at least three generations. Valuable goods (particularly obsidian for weapons) and information regarding ceramic style (with ritual significance) was circulated by this spatially dispersed, but culturally connected, community.When the population of southern Arizona plummeted in the late 14th century, limited evidence suggests some of the mixed Kayenta-Hohokam groups migrated into southwestern New Mexico where they joined small Kayenta populations living in a relatively isolated frontier. This second migration resulted in the formation of a number of villages along the Upper Gila River tributaries and in the Mimbres Valley. The current project will test this basic premise with a much larger data set and examine how these 14th century communities were organized. Did many of these villages belong to a revitalized Kayenta community that had found a new homeland? Alternatively, did Hohokam-Kayenta mixing and a century of dispersal render Kayenta identity meaningless? If so, was each village an independent community with only weak ties to other villages?Research objectives will be achieved by 1) demographic reconstruction at 50-year resolution based on a recently refined ceramic chronology, 2) source, frequency, and stylistic analyses of relevant decorated ceramics, and 3) source, frequency, and technological analyses of obsidian artifacts and samples. Use of existing, unanalyzed collections from sites in and around the project area will be emphasized. These collections are curated in various Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Ohio repositories. In addition, ceramic and obsidian artifacts will be obtained from several unsampled sites with minimal impact, either by surface collection or small excavation units in trash mounds. Of particular interest is the only known village near the primary obsidian source used by Kayenta migrants in southern Arizona. This important site will be tested by a field school for undergraduate students from Hendrix College, Arkansas and staffed by University of Arizona graduate students, giving valuable training to both.This study will enhance understanding of migration and community formation during intervals of severe stress and demographic collapse. It will also provide a perspective on diasporas from the vantage point of traditional societies where pedestrian travel was the only means of transportation. Previous diaspora studies have emphasized modern and ancient state contexts with more developed transportation and communication technologies.