Archaeologists often view migrations as either the opening or final act of a cultural sequence, as points of rupture or departure. The editors of this volume argue that the emphasis on change, rather than continuity, has separated Pueblo people from their cultural heritage. In contrast, they urge archaeologists of the U.S. Southwest to take Pueblo concepts of history and philosophy seriously, and to take a broader view of movement in both spatial and cultural terms. They consider movement as a discourse on being and becoming.
Contributors to this volume—collaborative coauthorships comprising Native scholars, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists—examine movement and becoming in creative and illuminating ways. Ten chapters (in addition to a foreword and a final commentary) are organized into two sections. Chapters in the “On Becoming” section focus on precontact events, whereas those in “Always Becoming” discuss the colonial era. I scarcely noticed crossing from the first section to the second, which is a testament to the contributors’ efforts to weave together past and present effectively.
The late Damian Garcia and Kurt Anschuetz suggest that being and becoming Acoma is a mindset, informed by place and history through the process of movement at a variety of scales. This chapter revealed much to me about Pueblo concepts of center and periphery. Paul Tosa and colleagues relate the Jemez origin narrative (possibly new to many readers) and use an obsidian sourcing study to show how movement was curtailed during the Spanish colonial period. Maren Hopkins and colleagues provide an example of how federal property withdrawals (Fort Wingate) have affected traditional Zuni movement to pilgrimage locations. In each of these three cases, the authors discuss origin narratives and how these discourses are relived and reshaped through periodic movement between centers and hinterlands. The chapters by Tosa and colleagues and Hopkins and colleagues address how the curtailment of movement has impacted Pueblo people over the last 400 years.
Samuel Duwe and Patrick Cruz suggest that Tewa migrations into the middle Rio Grande Valley reveal multiple, noncontradictory truths depending on the place and time under investigation. Pulling extensively from Duwe's recent book (Tewa Worlds: An Archaeological History of Being and Becoming in the Pueblo Southwest, 2020), they draw on Pueblo historical and philosophical concepts to strike a middle ground between scholars who argue that large-scale migrations from the Mesa Verde region were responsible for the Tewa florescence in the AD 1300s and 1400s, and scholars who instead argue for in situ development. Samantha Fladd and colleagues creatively link depositional practices at Homol'ovi to different forms of movement, and they consider intentional acts of closure as part of a process of continual becoming. Behavioral interpretations of structure infilling have dominated Southwest archaeology for decades, and it is refreshing to see a perspective that includes greater emphasis on symbolism and agency. Joseph Aguilar and Robert Preucel adopt an Indigenous perspective on settlement patterns during the Pueblo Revolt era, noting that people relocated villages to elevated landforms for not only physical defense but also spiritual defense and strength, because these landforms are participants in the broader sacred landscape. Severin Fowles and Sunday Eiselt provide the most systematic consideration of different kinds of movement, describing emergences, migrations, and ethnic shifts evident in the history of Plains-Pueblo interaction at Taos Pueblo.
Bruce Bernstein and colleagues pursue the idea of cultural movement by arguing that the creation of new pottery vessel forms was an effort to socialize a foreign domesticate (wheat) appropriately within a context where geographic movement was curtailed or problematic. Their suggestion that objects such as pottery are embodiments of Pueblo history and ceremony is compelling. Samuel Catanach and Mark Agostini describe how movement away from and back to Pojoaque Pueblo was an integral part of the creation of a Vecino identity. In the final chapter, Joseph Suina explains that after Spanish invasion and Anglo imposition, Pueblo people were no longer free to move about. The rapid adoption of new ideas (e.g., capitalism) and new technologies (e.g., electricity) has led to a “migration in the mind” as people at Cochiti Pueblo have migrated toward the American dream, with results both beneficial and detrimental to the people's well-being.
The editors and contributors to this volume join recent debate over the merits of “upstreaming” in Southwest archaeology, and I have two observations (not critiques) concerning The Continuous Path, neither of which is confined to movement. First, there are few explicit discussions of power and agency. Pueblo historiography is more teleological than Western historiography. Taking this seriously will have major implications for how we situate causality and agency in the past—or whether those are even important topics of inquiry. As such, this volume is a well-crafted and welcome demonstration of the merits and challenges that accompany decentering Western anthropological theory.
Second, are there limits to an archaeology of continuity? The Pueblo origin narratives reference deep histories and past states of being, but archaeological inquiry in this particular book is limited to events that occurred after about AD 1200. There is little Formative, little Chaco, and no Archaic in The Continuous Path. Their absence suggests that an archaeology of continuity faces some temporal and conceptual barriers that have yet to be overcome. The volume's emphasis on continuity, rather than transformation or evolution, is framed by the editors as a statement of moral and ethical responsibilities for the field of archaeology, joining recent (laudable and important) efforts to make ethics intrinsic to methodology. I believe those efforts are correct. These observations have given me much to think about as I revisit and reconsider my own work after reading the assembled contributions in The Continuous Path.
