Borderlands Histories

Ethnographic Observations and Archaeological Interpretations

Edited by John Philip Carpenter, Matthew Pailes

What are the connections between past and present peoples in the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico? How were the ancient societies that occupied this landscape interconnected? Contributors leverage diverse source materials rooted in classic ethnography, oral tradition, and historical documents to offer novel answers to these questions. Running throughout the discussions is a metanarrative that reflects the tensions between disciplines such as anthropology and history and the rapidly evolving dynamic between scholars and the Indigenous subjects of past and present research. With chapters written by scholars from the U.S. and Mexico, including Indigenous coauthors, Borderlands Histories offers diverse perspectives and illustrates the range of methods and interpretive approaches employed by some of the most respected and experienced names in the field of borderlands archaeology today.

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John Philip Carpenter is research professor at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia—Centro INAH Hermosillo, Sonora. His research includes archaeology and enthnohistory projects in Arizona, California, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, as well as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Zacatecas, Mexico.

Matthew Pailes is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. He is currently collaborating with John Carpenter and Guadalupe Sánchez on long-term research in the Sierra Madre Occidental to compare material culture from multiple valleys to reconstruct the demographic and political history of the region.

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Table of Contents:

 

1. Introduction: Documentary Relations in Archaeological Interpretations 
Matthew Pailes and John Carpenter

Section I: The Sierra Madre Occidental Region
2. Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Northwestern Slope of the Sierra Madre Occidental
John Carpenter and Guadalupe Sánchez
3. What’s Really Important in the Ethnohistory of Sonora?
Matthew Pailes

Section II: The Sonoran Desert
4. The Wa:k O’odham and Their Akimel O’odham Heritage
Deni J. Seymour, Tony Burrell, and David Tenario
5. Multiethnic Dimensions of Agriculture in Hohokam Society
Suzanne K. Fish and Paul R. Fish
6. Unpacking the Layers of Native American History and Land Use in the Western Papaguería
Maren P. Hopkins

Section III: The Puebloan World
7. “The Dance of The Sprouting Corn”: Casas Grandes Maize Ceremonialism and the Transformation of the Puebloan World
Michael D. Mathiowetz
8. Proposed Historical Origins of the Tablita/Corn Dance Among the Rio Grande Pueblos
Polly Schaafsma

Section IV: Metanarratives on Research
9. Anthropologists, Archaeologists, Documents, and Native Voices: Pursuing History in the U.S. Southwest
Richard C. Lange and E. Charles Adams
10. Crossroads of Disciplines: Precipitating Causes, Latent Causal Conditions, and Other Considerations
Richard Flint

References
Index