Archaeology

In contrast to the ubiquitous Ancestral Pueblo practice of residential burial, at least 32 deceased were transported 10 kilometers or more for deposition within the Wallace Ruin great house. This Chacoan outlier, situated near Mesa Verde, Colorado, was a ritual-economic center c. AD 1060-1150. Upon the collapse of the Chacoan system, habitation of this building, three great houses nearby, and all domiciles within several kilometers ceased. Between c. AD 1180 and 1220 a minimum of six rooms were used as a Pueblo III mortuary facility for a series of primary burial deposits. The interrogation of this anomaly involved a bioarchaeological approach that included spatial and statistical analyses of mortuary location choices. The diachronic analysis of c. AD 1050-1300 data from roughly 100 San Juan Region sites and about 1200 primary burial deposits revealed several ways in which post-AD 1180 mortuary decisions involving Wallace Ruin departed from longstanding communities of practice. The evidence detailed here supports the proposition that the Pueblo III use of this former Chacoan great house for mortuary and ritual purposes entails a local reformulation of ancestor veneration protocols established by Pueblo Bonito house societies during Pueblo II times.

This doctoral thesis presents the results of a multi-disciplinary investigation of a variant Ancestral Pueblo mortuary rite at Wallace Ruin, southwest Colorado (USA). This multi-storey building is one of four Lakeview Group great houses connected to the Pueblo II regional system centred at Pueblo Bonito of Chaco Canyon some 100 km to the south. From c. AD 1060-1150, Wallace Ruin functioned as a ritual- economic centre with a small residential component. Then, habitation of this great house, the Lakeview Group and all domiciles within 10 kilometres ceased. However, three or more decades later at least six rooms were used as a non- residential, Pueblo III mortuary facility for a minimum of 32 individuals. This use was in marked contrast to the enduring Ancestral Pueblo practice of residential burial, usually in the extramural midden. The interrogation of several hypotheses concerning this anomaly entails a bioarchaeological approach that integrates skeletal evidence with spatial analyses regarding diachronic mortuary location choices at Wallace Ruin. Taphonomic methods that segregate bone displacements during corpse decomposition in a filled versus a void space provide accurate determinations of the depositional versus discovered mortuary microenvironments. The diachronic analysis of data from over 100 San Juan Region sites reveals additional ways in which Wallace’s Pueblo III mortuary program departs from longstanding communities of practice, whether great house or domicile. Chief among these are the use of a surface room floor and the postural arrangement of supine bodies with flexed knees upright. These results, in combination with material culture evidence, form the basis of this thesis: The Pueblo III mortuary program at Wallace Ruin is a variant rite that entails a Mesa Verde Region reformulation of a Pueblo Bonito house society. The sanctioned retrieval of objects of memory offers a plausible explanation for intentional intrusions into two mortuary contexts. Beyond addressing questions concerning Wallace Ruin, a major contribution of this study includes advancement of the house society model as an interpretive scheme for evaluating Mesa Verde Region socio-ritual dynamics. This research also demonstrates the effectiveness of anthropologie de terrain (Duday, 2006) to retrospectively determine the original status of Ancestral Pueblo mortuary microenvironments. The refinement developed for this study, in which Range of Motion criteria are used to detect large-scale movements of lower limbs during corpse decomposition, is suitable for bioarchaeological analyses the world over.