Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Independent Adaptation Of Subsistence Technologies

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Directed by Mr. Wade Campbell (Harvard University), the Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project (ENPLP) examines how indigenous communities in the American Southwest negotiated the introduction of foreign animal species and new economic practices during the Spanish colonial period. While previous archaeological studies have explored this phenomenon in the context of subjugated Native populations, few have considered how the independent development of "pericolonial" pastoral traditions spurred societal changes among unconquered indigenous groups. The non-coerced adoption of sheep by Navajo frontier communities in 17th and 18th century New Mexico and the subsequent evolution of an intensely pastoral lifeway that continues to this day stand out as unique sociocultural developments in the Southwest. The ENPLP will investigate the mechanisms by which early Navajos successfully negotiated the entry of Old World domesticates and their attendant social and landscape impacts while remaining free from Spanish hegemony. This work will allow the researchers to examine the complexity of Navajo societal responses to more than four centuries of Euro-American colonialism in the Southwest, as well as contribute an important long-term perspective to ongoing efforts to preserve and sustain traditional Navajo culture. Such work has the potential to prove significant for researchers outside the American Southwest exploring an array of anthropological topics including pastoralism, colonialism, and indigenous identity politics. The ENPLP will examine the pericolonial impacts of incipient pastoralism on the social organization and settlement patterns of early Navajo communities in the Dinétah region of northwest New Mexico. The oldest known center of Navajo settlement in the Southwest, Dinétah was the center of a number of sociocultural shifts in Navajo society during the Gobernador Phase (c. AD 1626-1775), including population growth, fortress construction, and migration away from the region. Although previous researchers have suggested these changes are related to the rise of Navajo sheepherding practices following Spanish colonization circa AD 1600, this relationship remains poorly understood. The ENPLP will employ a collaborative three-phase research program involving both Native and non-Native archaeologists to address these questions. In Phase One, the participant-observation of modern sheepherding practices on the Navajo Nation will be used to identify interpretive analogs for early Navajo pastoral land use. Phase Two will build on the ethnoarchaeology to create a geospatial model for early Navajo pastoral site location and land use. Phase Three will employ intensive site mapping and geoarchaeological testing to distinguish potential Navajo pastoral sites by identifying nearby corral-related dung deposits in the Dinétah region. These data will be combined with archival data from previous Cultural Resource Management projects in order to determine the spatial and material correlates of Gobernador Phase Navajo pastoral sites. Together this information will be used to assess the extent, intensity, and type of herding strategies employed by Gobernador Phase Navajo groups in Dinétah, as well as evidence for social differentiation based on access to livestock. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.