ROOM TO GROW WITH ROOMS TO SPARE

Abstract

Archaeologists have documented more than 75 large, late pre-Columbian (ca. A.D. 1250–1600) Tewa villages, which represent more than 26,000 rooms, in northcentral New Mexico’s Tewa Basin. Researchers also have recognized expansive arrays of diverse agricultural fieldworks throughout this setting. Nonetheless, the number of rooms outstrips the basin’s agricultural potential. To cope with the unpredictability of farmland productivity, theTewas built, occupied, depopulated, and reoccupied their great villages within a system of short-term sedentism. To accommodate their need to maintain access to a broad land base and to sustain a sense of constancy within a milieu of continual change, the Tewas also used their village architecture to impose their agricultural rhythm on the landscape. In this process, the Tewas created a meaningful material record with which to sustain their occupancy of places where they resided and farmed intermittently.