New Interpretations of Mimbres Public Architecture and Space: Implications for Cultural Change

Abstract

Recent excavations and reanalysis of existing data on communal pit structures provide intriguing insights into ritual and cultural developments over a period of about 350 years, from A.D. 800 to 1140, in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern New Mexico. In the middle of this period, people shifted dwellings from pithouses to pueblos, a shift previously viewed as the pivotal transformation of Mimbres society. In this paper we show that significant changes in Mimbres society began in the A.D. 800s. Trends in the construction methods of communal pit structures, the placement of dedicatory items within them, their ritual retirements, and their long-lived significance within Mimbres villages, reflect other changes that occurred in Mimbres society. We contend that in the A.D. 800s, rapid change based on strong connections with the Hohokam of southern Arizona and agricultural intensification began a trajectory that culminated in the Classic Mimbres pueblos of the A.D. 1000s and early 1100s.