Understanding the significance of migrants’ material culture

Abstract

Archaeologists are increasingly moving past discussions of whether migration events occurred in the past to more nuanced discussions of the meaning surrounding the migrants’ belongings. Migrants used material culture as powerful memory objects, to create meaning and adapt to living in a new place and often with new people. There are relatively few archaeological examples of large-scale migration into the Great Plains in the wake of European invasion of North America. One exception to this is the migration of Puebloan peoples from northern New Mexico to the Central Great Plains during the Puebloan diaspora after 1600 CE. Sites attributed to this migration are discussed in context with recent work on meaning and materiality to reconsider the critical role that objects play in identity expression and cultural survival in new homelands.