Ancient Households of the Americas edited by John G. Douglass and Nancy Gonlin C O N C E P T U A L I Z I N G W H A T H O U S E H O L D S D O Ancient HouseHolds of tHe AmericAs U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S O F C O L O R A D O Louisville Ancient Households of the Americas edited by John G. Douglass and Nancy Gonlin C O N C E P T U A L I Z I N G W H A T H O U S E H O L D S D O © 2012 by University Press of Colorado Published by University Press of Colorado 245 Century Circle Louisville, Colorado 80027 All rights reserved First paperback edition 2016 Printed in the United States of America The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of the Association of University Presses. The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, University of Wyoming, Utah State University, and Western Colorado University. ∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). ISBN 978-1-60732-173-6 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-60732-538-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-60732-174-3 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-64642-065-0 (open-access ePUB) ISBN 978-1-64642-066-7 (open-access PDF) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ancient households of the Americas : conceptualizing what households do / edited by John G. Douglass and Nancy Gonlin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60732-173-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60732-538-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60732-174-3 (ebook) 1. Indians—Dwellings. 2. Indians—Social life and customs. 3. Indians—Antiquities. 4. Households—America—History. 5. Home economics—America—History. 6. Social archaeology—America—History. 7. Land settlement patterns—America—History. 8. Americax— Antiquities. I. Douglass, John G., 1968– II. Gonlin, Nancy. E59.D9A63 2012 970.004'97—dc23 2011051660 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high- quality books open access for the public good. More information about the initia- tive and links to the open- access versions can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. To the spouses of the houses, we dedicate this book to Jill and Vishy, with heartfelt gratitude and love. | vii contents List of Figures | ix List of Tables | xiii Preface | xv Acknowledgments | xvii 1. The Household as Analytical Unit: Case Studies from the Americas | 1 John G. Douglass and Nancy Gonlin section i: Household Production organization: spatial and social contexts in the Past and Present 2. Occupation Span and the Organization of Residential Activities: A Cross- Cultural Model and Case Study from the Mesa Verde Region | 47 Mark D. Varien 3. Production and Consumption in the Countryside: A Case Study from the Late Classic Maya Rural Commoner Households at Copán, Honduras | 79 Nancy Gonlin 4. Iroquoian Households: A Mohawk Longhouse at Otstungo, New York | 117 Dean R. Snow viii | Contents 5. Activity Areas and Households in the Late Mississippian Southeast United States: Who Did What Where? | 141 Ramie A. Gougeon 6. The Social Evolution of Potters’ Households in Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico, 1965–1997 | 163 Dean E. Arnold 7. Pots and Agriculture: Anasazi Rural Household Production, Long House Valley, Northern Arizona | 189 John G. Douglass and Robert A. Heckman section ii: Households as Primary Producers: implications for domestic organization 8. Hohokam Household Organization, Sedentism, and Irrigation in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona | 221 Richard Ciolek-Torrello 9. Understanding Households on Their Own Terms: Investigations on Household Sizes, Production, and Longevity at K’axob, Belize | 269 H. Hope Henderson 10. Late Classic Period Terrace Agriculture in the Lowland Maya Area: Modeling the Organization of Terrace Agricultural Activity | 299 L. Theodore Neff section iii: inter- and intrahousehold organization of Production: Households and communities 11. Fluctuating Community Organization: Formation and Dissolution of Multifamily Corporate Groups at La Joya, Veracruz, Mexico | 325 Valerie J. McCormack 12. Relationships among Households in the Prehispanic Community of Mesitas in San Agustín, Colombia | 353 Víctor González Fernández 13. Interhousehold versus Intracommunity Comparisons: Incipient Socioeconomic Complexity at Jachakala, Bolivia | 381 Christine Beaule 14. Arrobas , Fanegas , and Mantas : Identifying Continuity and Change in Early Colonial Maya Household Production | 407 Darcy Lynn Wiewall List of Contributors | 437 Index | 439 | ix figure 1.1. Map of the Americas | 19 figure 2.1. Map of the central Mesa Verde region | 48 figure 2.2. Map of the Dolores Archaeological Program (DAP) project | 49 figure 2.3. Plan map of the Duckfoot site (5MT3868) | 53 figure 2.4. Occupation span estimates | 56 figure 2.5. Mean occupation span estimates | 57 figure 2.6. Plan map of Tres Bobos (5MT4545), a household residential site occupied around AD 650, central Mesa Verde region, Colorado | 59 figure 2.7. Plan map of Prince Hamlet (5MT2161) | 61 figure 2.8. Plan map of Dobbins Stockade (5MT8827) | 63 figure 2.9. Plan map of Architectural Block 500 at Sand Canyon Pueblo (site 5MT765) | 64 figures x | Figures figure 3.1. Map of eight rural sites, Copán Valley, Honduras | 80 figure 3.2. Spatial distribution of grinding-stone fragments at Site 7D-6-2 | 89 figure 3.3. Spatial distribution of hammerstone/polisher fragments at Site 7D-6-2 | 94 figure 3.4. Plan map of Site 7D-3-1 | 96 figure 4.1. Northern Iroquoian village site clusters | 118 figure 4.2. Northeastern American longhouse cross sections | 120 figure 4.3. Contour map of the Otstungo site, New York | 125 figure 4.4. Excavation grid | 127 figure 4.5. Longhouse 1 plan | 128 figure 4.6. Longhouse 1 plan | 128 figure 4.7. Artifact distributions at Otstungo site, New York | 131 figure 4.8. Human effigy mask smoking pipe | 132 figure 4.9. Artifact distributions at Otstungo site: rim sherds | 133 figure 4.10. Artifact distributions at Otstungo site: food-bone fragments | 134 figure 4.11. Artifact distributions at Otstungo site: scrapers and projectile points | 135 figure 4.12. Distribution of quartz crystals | 137 figure 5.1. Location of Little Egypt | 143 figure 5.2. Site map of Little Egypt | 144 figure 5.3. Isopleth distribution maps | 147 figure 5.4. Model of household activity area | 150 figure 6.1. Number of potters per production unit in Ticul | 173 figure 6.2. Number of different kin categories of potters | 174 figure 6.3. Percent of total potters by kin type | 175 figure 6.4. Frequency of potters classified by generation | 176 figure 6.5. Most common kin of potters | 176 figure 6.6. Changes in the locations in production units | 177 figure 6.7. Changes in the locations of production units | 178 figure 6.8. The amount of kin relatedness among production units | 179 figure 6.9. The back of Lorenzo Pech’s house | 181 Figures | xi figure 6.10. Lorenzo’s house and the workshop behind it in 1997 | 181 figure 7.1. Location of Long House Valley, northeastern Arizona | 190 figure 7.2. Regional chronology for the western Anasazi | 199 figure 7.3. Pithouse Feature 106, after excavation | 201 figure 7.4. Unfired clay objects from an intramural feature within Pithouse Feature 106 | 204 figure 7.5. Recycled sherds from AZ-J-28-32 (NN) | 205 figure 8.1. Map of south-central Arizona | 227 figure 8.2. Chronology for the Sonoran desert | 228 figure 8.3. Late Archaic period houses | 229 figure 8.4. Pioneer period house cluster at the Eagle Ridge site | 230 figure 8.5. Hohokam communal houses from the Pioneer period | 232 figure 8.6. Prehistoric canal systems in the Phoenix Basin | 234 figure 8.7. Preclassic period house types and sizes from the Lower Verde Valley | 237 figure 8.8. Preclassic period house types at Scorpion Point Village | 238 figure 8.9. Preclassic period house clusters at Locus A, Scorpion Point Village | 239 figure 8.10. Classic period compound and courtyard groups at AZ U:15:3 | 240 figure 8.11. Pioneer and Colonial period canals and villages in the lower Salt River | 243 figure 8.12. Sedentary period canals and villages in the lower Salt River | 246 figure 8.13. Classic period canals and villages in the lower Salt River | 247 figure 9.1. Model of household organization and staple crop production | 274 figure 9.2. Location of excavation units | 277 figure 9.3. Plan view drawings of occupations 2, 3, 4, and 5 from Unit 10, K’axob, Belize | 281 figure 9.4. Plan view drawings of occupations 3, 4, 5, and 6 from Unit 14 | 282 figure 9.5. Plan view drawings of occupations 7 and 8 from Unit 14 | 283 figure 9.6. Comparison of box-and-dot plots | 285 figure 10.1. Eastern Mesoamerica | 300 xii | Figures figure 10.2. Area surveyed by the Xunantunich Settlement Survey (XSS) | 303 figure 10.3. Area surveyed by XSS near the minor center of Dos Chombitos | 304 figure 10.4. The Terrace Set #110 | 308 figure 10.5. The Terrace Set #191 | 309 figure 10.6. Lithic diversity | 313 figure 10.7. Direct freehand-percussion core-flake distribution | 314 figure 10.8. General utility biface resharpening flakes | 315 figure 10.9. Ceramic form diversity | 316 figure 11.1. Location of La Joya within Sierra de las Tuxtlas | 327 figure 11.2. Distribution of ceramics for the Tulipan phase | 332 figure 11.3. Distribution of ceramics for the Coyame phase | 333 figure 11.4. Distribution of ceramics for the Gordita phase | 340 figure 11.5. Distribution of ceramics for the Bezuapan phase | 342 figure 12.1. Map of Colombia | 355 figure 12.2. Ceramic chronology | 356 figure 12.3. Map of the Alto Magdalena region | 362 figure 12.4. Four maps of the Mesitas area | 363 figure 12.5. Map of the Mesitas area showing the location of the 76 specific household locations | 364 figure 12.6. Four maps of the Mesitas area showing the location of households for each period | 365 figure 13.1. Map of the south central Andes showing the location of the La Joya research area | 385 figure 13.2. Map of the site of Jachakala | 387 figure 13.3. Illustration of House 4 (N511 E509) | 391 figure 13.4. Distribution of IAD scores | 397 figure 13.5. Location of household units with the three highest IAD scores | 398 figure 13.6. Faunal-packet proportions | 400 figure 13.7. Proportions of trunk faunal packet elements | 401 | xiii tables tAble 4.1. Features from the Otstungo Longhouse 1, New York | 129 tAble 4.2. Iroquoian division of labor according to Sagard (1968) | 130 tAble 5.1. Classes of artifacts analyzed from house floors | 146 tAble 5.2. Household activities by age and gender | 148 tAble 6.1. Basic data on potters and production units from 1965 to 1997 | 172 tAble 6.2. The number and percent of non-relative wage laborers in production units in Ticul, 1965–1997 | 175 tAble 7.1. Material correlates of Puebloan ceramic production in the American Southwest | 195 tAble 7.2. Evidence of ceramic production comparing excavated sites in the Black Mesa area to AZ-J-28-32 (NN) | 207 tAble 9.1. Variability in household occupations at K’axob, Belize | 279 xiv | Tables tAble 10.1. Contextual descriptors for terrace excavation proveniences used in the analysis | 312 tAble 11.1. Chronological phases of La Joya | 328 tAble 11.2. Population estimates for Coyame phase residential clusters | 334 tAble 11.3. Coyame phase obsidian-to-sherd ratios | 335 tAble 11.4. Coyame phase obsidian flake sizes | 336 tAble 11.5. Coyame phase reduction technology | 337 tAble 11.6. Coyame phase vessel types | 337 tAble 11.7. Coyame phase decorated sherds | 338 tAble 11.8. Coyame phase figurine-to-ceramic ratios | 338 tAble 11.9. Summary of Coyame phase residential clusters | 339 tAble 11.10. Population estimates for Bezuapan phase residential clusters | 341 tAble 11.11. Bezuapan phase obsidian-to-sherd ratios | 343 tAble 11.12. Bezuapan phase obsidian flake size | 343 tAble 11.13. Bezuapan phase reduction technology | 343 tAble 11.14. Bezuapan phase vessel types | 344 tAble 11.15. Bezuapan phase decorated sherds | 344 tAble 11.16. Bezuapan phase fine-paste proportions | 345 tAble 11.17. Summary of Bezuapan phase residential clusters | 345 tAble 12.1. Comparison of agricultural land inside household catchment areas between the core and the periphery of Mesitas for four periods | 367 tAble 12.2. Mean household deposition rates by period | 369 tAble 13.1. Categories of artifacts from craft production and interregional exchange activities for households 1 to 9, index of assemblage diversity analysis, and scores | 392 tAble 14.1. Annual taxes owed by an Indian family in colonial Yucatán 1583 (in reales ) | 417 | xv Preface The idea for this volume originated over a decade ago, in 1999–2000, when John Douglass was finishing a year as a visiting assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside. During that time, he organized a session for the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in New Orleans that was centered on Wilk and Netting’s (1984) innovative work on how households are conceived, using the phrase they coined “what house- holds ‘do.’ ” Hence, the title of the SAA symposium was What Households Do: Recent Research on Household Organization in the Americas. As a fresh Ph.D., Douglass was interested in the household research that had been conducted by Nan Gonlin in Copán, Honduras, just a couple of hundred miles from where Douglass had done his dissertation work in the Naco Valley of northwestern Honduras. Douglass and Gonlin met for the first time in San Francisco at the American Anthropological Association meetings, before the household session had occurred. Over lunch, Douglass and Gonlin agreed to co-chair the session at the upcoming SAA meeting and to move forward with a volume on the topic if participants agreed. xvi | Preface The presentations at the 2001 SAA session in New Orleans were well received thanks to the thought-provoking work of our colleagues. The room was packed with archaeologists interested in the cross-cultural comparisons on the economic aspects of household organization. Soon after the session, a prospec- tus for an edited volume was forwarded to the director of the University Press of Colorado (UPC), Darrin Pratt, who encouraged us to pursue a publication with his press. Several members of the original session, including Jeanne Arnold, Sue Kent, Tom Killion, Anna Noah, Linda Neff, Cameron Smith, and K. Anne Pyburn, were not able to be a part of the subsequent volume for a variety of reasons, but we appreciate their important contributions to the original SAA ses- sion. Several members who were not in the original session were subsequently invited to participate in this volume, including Chris Beaule, Richard Ciolek- Torrello, Robby Heckman, Hope Henderson, Víctor González Fernández, and Dean Snow. We appreciate these authors contributing important case studies to this volume from across the Americas and helping round out the volume geographically. Time in preparing the volume has been lengthy for a number of reasons (serious family illnesses, changing jobs, moving, and a variety of other aspects of household life), and we appreciate the patience and understanding of the volume’s contributors and UPC, who have stuck with us through the pro- cess. Douglass and Gonlin have enjoyed getting to know the contributors and their research, as well as each other. Over the past few years, we have exchanged a series of funny postcards from various vacations. Working together has also led to other research collaborations, each of which we have enjoyed. We hope that readers of this volume enjoy learning more about household economic organization among a variety of cultures across the Americas, both past and present. J ohn D ouglass , T ucson , aZ n an gonlin , B ellevue , Wa a pril 2012 | xvii Acknowledgments First and foremost, we thank all of the contributors to this volume, who have made it a success. They have waited patiently for the publication of their work and we sincerely appreciate their tolerance. Darrin Pratt of the University Press of Colorado embraced this project from the beginning and has been a source of encouragement and critical feedback. We are grateful for all of those scholars who have developed theory and method in household archaeology and ethnog- raphy, some of whom have provided us with guidance in reference to the current work. Statistical Research, Inc. (SRI) has provided administrative support and professional development to Douglass for completion of this volume, for which we are grateful. At Belleveue College, Gonlin received administrative support and professional development. In particular, the Executive Dean Tom Nielsen, Director of Human Resources Cesár Portillo, the Dean of Social Science Virginia Bridwell, Administrative Manager Deanna Veyna, and Anthropology Chair Anthony Tessandori have been particularly supportive. During much of the time this volume was in preparation, Douglass was affiliated with the Department of Anthropology at UC Riverside and he appreciates the conversa- xviii | Acknowledgments tions and encouragement offered by the faculty in the department, including Wendy Ashmore, Scott Fedick, Tom Patterson, and Karl Taube. We appreciate both SRI and Bellevue College offering financial support to help complete this volume. The comments of anonymous reviewers for the volume have strength- ened the chapters and the volume as a whole. During the production process, we appreciated the good cheer and technical help of the staff at the University Press of Colorado, including Darrin Pratt, Dan Pratt, Laura Furney, Beth Svinarich, and Jessica d’Arbonne. Finally, our spouses deserve special gratitude for their continuing support and patience as we spent time away from them on weekends and evenings to get the volume completed. It is to our spouses, Jill Onken and K. Viswanathan, that we dedicate this volume. Ancient HouseHolds of tHe AmericAs