Rites of Passage and Migration

Van Gennep’s (Reference van Gennep1960) Rites of Passage begins with a discussion of forms of magic. Summarizing previous studies, he identified multiple forms of magic, including sympathetic, contagious, direct, indirect, positive, and negative (see Frazer Reference Frazer1922; Haddon Reference Haddon1906; Hewitt Reference Hewitt1902; Hubert and Mauss Reference Hubert and Mauss1899; Marett Reference Marett1900; Tylor Reference Tylor1871). Any ritual including a rite of passage combines these forms of magic to accomplish its goals. For example, in the American Southwest closure deposits in villages included emplaced floor and fill artifacts (e.g., arrow points, crystals, minerals, and shell) that through imitation (sympathetic) or by touch (contagion) contain dangerous life-giving or life-taking powers. Burning and burying of these villages is a form of negative magic and makes them less accessible to witches. Simultaneously, closure ritual transfers animating essences of pueblo buildings and deposited artifacts to the afterlife. Therefore, we can imagine that they continue their material-culture (the tools, clothes, and houses) functions, albeit in spirit form, used by ancestors. This direct magical act of transmutation serves as a gift (Parsons Reference Parsons1996:206) to the ancestors who control the weather. Consequently, it is also an indirect form of magic that will hopefully lead to rain, crop, fertility, and other future favors.

In subsequent chapters, van Gennep (Reference van Gennep1960) brings this understanding of magic to bear on physical spaces and communal celebrations. This combination of themes brings rites of passage into focus. He reviews ritual for crossing power-laden and socially charged spaces at scales such as regions, towns, villages, houses, and shrines. He frequently refers these thresholds as “portals” that separate and sacralize these spaces. In houses, there are foundation deposits and rules about entry. For example, thresholds often contain magical objects. Villages have shrines, sacred rooms, and forbidden zones to the uninitiated or outsider. Shrines mark boundary thresholds in territories where deities and spirits patrol transition zones between them. His discussions of space logically lead to rites that facilitate physical movement within and between places. Such rites begin at a point of separation or threshold (Stage 1), facilitate movement across these thresholds into a liminal space (Stage 2), and finally end with rites of communal celebration that incorporate people into a new place or reincorporate them if returning home (Stage 3). On larger spatial scales, these rites of passage facilitate exchange, travel, war/conquest, and (we would argue) migration. On smaller scales, they make possible transit into ceremonial rooms or approaches to shrines and other places. Drawing on these physical examples, van Gennep (Reference van Gennep1960) also illustrates magical acts associated with changes in social roles as people move through social spaces of their life histories (e.g., birth, puberty, marriage, and death).

Magic and Pueblo Material Culture

The Smithsonian’s brand of nineteenth-century evolutionary theory left little room for scholars to confuse their own rational/scientific thinking with that of the people they studied. In their evolutionary models, they assumed just the opposite—that is, to a large degree, “irrational” magic and animism characterized many cultures, including those of the Pueblo people. In theory, the relative amounts of animatism (Marett Reference Marett1900), animism (Tylor Reference Tylor1871), dynamism (Hewitt Reference Hewitt1902), or even fetishism in tandem with other expressions of reason (e.g., technology) helped these scholars to place cultures within evolutionary stages.

As a result, early evolutionists recorded a treasure trove of magical activities that they productively applied to Southwest archaeology (e.g., Bourke Reference Bourke1892; Cushing Reference Cushing1883; Fewkes Reference Fewkes1901, Reference Fewkes1919:220). They also recorded extensive oral traditions (e.g., Cushing Reference Cushing1920; Fewkes Reference Fewkes1910) that universally featured migration. In their origin stories, Pueblo peoples moved through a series of worlds below ours, eventually emerging into our present one. Along the way, they became fully formed humans and acquired the attributes of Pueblo culture (e.g., pottery making, farming, hunting, masked dancing). The archaeological sites that dot the landscape offer them visible evidence of those primordial journeys. These emergence narratives provide a chartering logic (sensu Vansina Reference Vansina1985) for Pueblo organization and sanctification for most magical activities. In perhaps a more contemporary phrasing bereft of ethnocentric judgments about rationality, these early ethnographers explored and recorded the materiality of Pueblo life. They found in Pueblo oral traditions examples and lessons about the animate powers of things and recorded how people and other beings harness those powers. Subsequent ethnographers, particularly Elsie Clews Parsons (Reference Parsons1996) synthesized these studies in her magnum opus, Pueblo Indian Religion.

Parsons (Reference Parsons1996:88) described Pueblo magic as the manipulation of analogical relations of “resemblances.” Magic, after all, represents manipulation of invisible relations or sympathies between things; for Pueblo peoples and many others, these invisible relations emanate from animating force(s) occupying things. Parsons’s (Reference Parsons1996) discussion of these “resemblances” would fall squarely within more universal categories of sympathetic magic and contagious magic as defined by Frazer (Reference Frazer1922:11–45) and other later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars (see van Gennep Reference van Gennep1960:4–9).

Sympathetic magic through imitation of an object (e.g., arrow point, animal, spirit), process (e.g., water falling, ancestor dancing, culture hero hunting), or place (e.g., oceans, mountains, cardinal direction) can draw out its power and attach it to its imitation. Discussions of such magical technologies in the literature often lead to the short-hand expression of “like causes like” (Cushing Reference Cushing1883:9, Reference Cushing1920:634; Parsons Reference Parsons1996:88). In these ethnographies, we can see that the animacy or power inheres within one or more of its formal properties such as color, shape, or raw material. Such considerations offer archaeologists a starting point for studying magic objects.

Contagious magic relies on manipulation of a part of an object or something that was closely associated with it. Often, that means an actual piece of something is used to manipulate it. However, two separate materials once in intimate contact would also retain sympathetic links to each other. In either case, the linkage between the two objects persists despite the distance between them. To protect oneself, therefore, it is important to keep one’s own body parts (hair, nails, a baby’s umbilical cord) or intimate artifacts (clothes, tools, house) from falling into the wrong hands (e.g., witches). Purification rites accomplish these goals in part by severing sympathies between things. In the Southwest, this often involves magical use of ash or smoke (see Roth and Adams Reference Roth and Adams (editors)2021). Such concerns and actions alone offer a proximate cause for the long history of closure ritual found in Southwest villages, especially given their relatively short duration of 50–100 years.

Parsons (Reference Parsons1996:98) also describes the importance of locations (central places) and directions (cardinal as well as up and down) as sources of powers one can access or avoid through magical imitation or contact. For example, sleeping positions that resemble burials are taboo. Zuni—and Acoma—do not sleep with the head pointed toward the east because they bury people facing east (Parsons Reference Parsons1996:98–99). One can also gain magical access to places of power such as cardinal directions as well as up and down through their associated colors (Parsons Reference Parsons1996:98–100, 186). Hopi can, for example, imitate the red of the south as a means of accessing power of spirits from the south. Although such color manipulation and the corresponding meaning of directions are critical to all Pueblo peoples, particular Pueblo cultures assign different colors to different directions.

Clearly, sickness or death offer obvious contexts where magical powers of things come to the foreground. Witchcraft manipulation of hidden powers of things is universally regarded as a prime cause for illness in Pueblos (Simmons Reference Simmons1980). Magic, however, does not confine itself to particular religious institutions or ceremonies (e.g., healing, witches, ceremonial altars) but serves as a component of technology in everyday life. Magic facilitates building a house as well as a ceremonial chamber such as a kiva (Mindeleff Reference Mindeleff1891). A potter, ground stone maker, and flint knapper all tap into powers of materials and activate them or draw other powers to them; each brings tools to life during their creation.

A farmer prepares for planting by not only clearing the field of stones and brush but depositing a clay ball or stone, from an arroyo, that aids in the bringing of water to their field and serves as offerings to ancestors (Cushing Reference Cushing1920:157–158). This draws on its resemblance to rocks in an active river course as well as power it may possess from previous contact with running water. These imitative and contagious attributes of the stone allow it to attract water to the field. In addition to such strategically placed cobble(s) during field preparation, a farmer might also bury a mixture of turquoise, shell, and other primordially created materials. These inherently possess powers of primordial life, and the act of depositing them has the additional benefit of transmitting their essences to the spirit world for use by ancestors (Parsons Reference Parsons1996:206; Stevenson Reference Stevenson1894:85). The ancestors may respond to this gift by visiting the field in one of their most potent manifestations—rain.

Pueblo rites of passage punctuate movements of people through places and inflection points in their life histories. Naming ceremonies, weddings, sodality initiations, warrior purifications, scalp taking, and death put such technologies to work in the form of gift exchanges, food preparation, making of clothes, and many other associated activities. Complex rites of passages, such as Pueblo weddings, join families creating economic, religious, and political changes, to the point that these ceremonials themselves are broken down into a series smaller rites of passage to manage the materiality they entail (Schlegel Reference Schlegel1973). As with many artifact and human life trajectories, events in one part of a life redound to later parts. Wedding attire for Hopis become their funeral clothing later, when magical properties of their garments facilitate transition to the next world.

In Pueblo ethnographies, migration stories structure Pueblo worldviews; however, only hints of accompanying large-scale rites of passage remain. Ethnographers describe journeys or “pilgrimages” to distant holy places such as Zuni Salt Lake, the Grand Canyon, or important mountain peaks. These pilgrimages facilitate acquisition of critical power objects, such as minerals (turquoise, salt, pigments), shells (abalone, glycymeris, conch), plants, or power-filled ocean and lake water. Building on such ethnography, Miller (Reference Miller, Stokes, Dungan and Sedig2023, Reference Miller and Wright2024) identified prehistoric evidence of pilgrimage and movement of similar sacred objects in the Jornada region.

What these ethnographies do not describe are actual migrations or village closure rituals because such practices once commonplace ended with Spanish colonialism. Perhaps, the last large-scale migrations (see Snow Reference Snow, Brown, Condie and Crotty2012) occurred during and after the Pueblo Revolt (AD 1680–1700). Likely similar but smaller-scale movements happened but—like prehistory—were not observed by ethnographers. Because of this, we must ask, given the obvious importance of migration in all Pueblo oral traditions, could such relatively frequent events have been accomplished without magic? Indeed, given that they would have begun with closure rites, followed by dedication ceremonies when constructing new homes elsewhere, it seems reasonable that the journeys themselves would have been ritualized and that the entire process would have been a grand rite of passage. Such a suggestion—although perhaps jarring to hear—would fit well with the migration theory of Anthony (Reference Anthony1990).

Migration Studies Theory

Anthony’s (Reference Anthony1990) watershed article on migration theory highlighted that archaeological questions should focus on migration processes rather than artifactual traits of migration. Cultural variability often precludes definitive trait lists where site unit intrusions are not obvious (sensu Rouse Reference Rouse and Thompson1958). He instead calls for relationally defined units more appropriate to the variability of human behavior. Anthony (Reference Anthony1990) highlighted, for example, that migrants often know the places they move to and may already have established social ties to it. If they need more information, they can send “scouts” out to it. In the American Southwest, a clear case could be made that exchange activities associated with public ceremonials, pilgrimages, weddings, hunting, or other activities leading to exchange of power objects (minerals, projectile points, shells), as well as circulation of ceramics across community boundaries, would contribute to such knowledge.

Once migrant communities become established, they often continue to maintain ties to their homelands, leading in some cases to return migrations and in other cases to larger movements of immigrants. Clearly, the continued exchange of materials by migrants living in new places would likely enhance communication and exchange between the old and new. For this reason, the relative frequencies of nonlocal pottery in particular contexts may measure migration.

A range of causal factors would either “push” migrants to new locations or “pull” them from old ones. Archaeologists often focus on environmental factors such as drought, but Anthony (Reference Anthony1990) notes that they seldom drill down and ask who is pulled and who is pushed specifically: are they families, clans, villages, or entire communities? Not all groups would react the same way. For example, Carla Van West (Reference Van West1994) and others have demonstrated that despite the drought conditions of the late thirteenth century in the four corners of the American Southwest, out-migration dramatically exceeded by half what was environmentally necessary. However, if those communities were similar to later Pueblo communities, then a movement of half the population would no doubt have totally disrupted political and religious life to such an extent that the remainder might have chosen to leave to preserve some version of their existing social organization. For this reason, “push and pull” factors should be considered in relation to effects at various social scales.

Finally, Anthony (Reference Anthony1990:898–899) reminds us that ideological concerns cannot be ignored in discussions about migration, citing the extreme example of 100,000 Helvetii burning down their own villages and then invading Gaul to seek “glory” and territory (Caesar Reference Caesar and Edwards1917:9). Caesar (Reference Caesar and Edwards1917) stated that the Helvetii burned their homes to ensure that they had no option to return. Perhaps the Helvetii also ritualized their movement through space (sensu van Gennep Reference van Gennep1960), and this was a form of ritual closure marking the beginning of their martial migration. In either case, Anthony’s (Reference Anthony1990) point is well taken.

With respect to Anthony’s (Reference Anthony1990) relational themes, we can ask how animate powers might shape them. Pueblo peoples, for example, personify environmental forces: ancestors take the forms of rain clouds, rain, and snow; deities become natural objects—sun, moon, and wind. When we extend the boundaries of society to include these social actors, we render “natural forces” as social ones (see Horton Reference Horton1993). Consequently, reactions to environmental processes take the form of social relations with these nonhuman beings. Droughts, for example, create crop failure and famine as well as questions about why ancestors or other spirits would withhold their life-giving powers. Answers to such questions in oral traditions often address transgressions by community members such as selfishness, witchcraft, adultery, or incest. In addition to blaming themselves, people also question the effectiveness of their ritual technologies, leading in some cases to new rituals and religious movements. In such contexts, migrants might want to move either away from the solutions or toward them.

Previous Migration Studies in the Southwest

Between AD 900 and 1450, the Southwest witnessed several pulses of aggregation into larger communities and dispersal into smaller ones. These processes of population movements included short-distance moves as well as longer-distance migrations resulting in coalescent communities. The Medieval Climate Anomaly—or Medieval Warm Period—correlated with population growth and aggregation across the region’s three culture traditions (Hohokam, Mogollon, and Ancestral Pueblo) between AD 1000 and 1150. In northwest New Mexico, the Chacoan Phenomenon flourished. Great houses abounded; ceremonial roadways connected people and places of power to leaders in Chaco Canyon who hoarded animate objects for use in elaborate magical technologies. Similarly, in southern New Mexico, Mimbres peoples shifted from pithouses to pueblos and spread their own version of a magic-laden materiality, which included plazas, kivas, and distinctive black-on-white pottery. In the west, Hohokam culture grew to its largest areal extent, and its oval ballcourts could be found from Flagstaff to Tucson. At the height of this Southwest population explosion, however, a disastrous drought struck the entire region between AD 1125 and 1145 (Grissino-Mayer et al. Reference Grissino-Mayer, Baisan and Swetnam1997). This environmental catastrophe brought the Southwest to its knees, leading to societal reorganizations, pueblo closures, and migration.

This mid-twelfth-century apocalypse seemingly revealed to the Southwest peoples problems with their existing social relations with nonhuman beings, which led them to question their ritual technologies. Such climatic failure would have ensured questions to spiritual leaders, questions about the spirit realm (ancestors and deities), and of course, questions about everyday objects, such as Mimbres Black-on-white or Gallup Black-on-white pottery.

The subsequent thirteenth century experienced below-average precipitation and ended with another severe drought known in the Ancestral Pueblo region as the “Great Drought” (Grissino-Mayer Reference Grissino-Mayer1996:202; Grissino-Mayer et al. Reference Grissino-Mayer, Baisan and Swetnam1997:24). Not surprisingly, during the thirteenth century, large-scale migrations occurred within and between Ancestral Pueblo, Mogollon, and Hohokam areas. The Kayenta peoples of northern Arizona moved out the Ancestral Pueblo region south into the Mogollon Highlands of central Arizona (e.g., Point of Pines) and farther south into Hohokam territory (e.g., Davis Ranch, Goat Hill, Reeve Ruin), which possessed better watered valleys (see Di Peso Reference Di Peso1958; Gerald Reference Gerald2019; Haury Reference Haury1958; Lyons Reference Lyons2003; Woodson Reference Woodson1999). Haury (Reference Haury1958, 1989) described both a site unit intrusion at Point of Pines Pueblo focusing on a room block whose architecture resembled that of the Kayenta homeland and new forms of pottery (the Maverick Mountain series) that seemed to be Kayenta types (e.g., Kiet Siel Polychrome) executed using local materials (see Lyons and Crown Reference Lyons, Crown, Schwartz, Plog and Gilman2022). Similarly, in the San Pedro River Valley, other pueblos (and their kivas) contrasted sharply with local Hohokam architecture (Clark et al. Reference Clark, Birch, Hegmon, Mills, Glowacki, Ortman and Dean2019).

In the east, other archaeologists have tracked the thirteenth-century migration of Mesa Verde peoples south into the northern Rio Grande Valley as well as farther south to Gallinas Springs Pueblo and to Pinnacle Ruin in central New Mexico (Ferguson et al. Reference Ferguson, Laumbach, Lekson, Nelson, Schollmeyer, Laumbach and Miller2016; Lekson et al. 2002). Their architecture could be contrasted with that of local constructions. A new pottery type, Magdalena Black-on-white, found there resembles a locally made version of McElmo Black-on-white (Laumbach Reference Laumbach2024:171–172).

In both areas, east and west, during the subsequent fourteenth century, descendants of these migrants forged coalescent communities from the Salt River in the west (Clark et al. Reference Clark, Huntley, Hill, Lyons and Card2013; Kowalewski Reference Kowalewski, Gregory and Wilcox2007) to the Salinas region and beyond in the east. New religious movements such as the Katsina religion (Adams Reference Adams1991) and the Southwest Regional Cult (Crown Reference Crown1994) rose up in part to unite these peoples. As a result, we refer to this period as the magical fourteenth century. Several of those eastern pueblos—such as Quarai, Abo, and Gran Quivira—persisted into the seventeenth century (Rautman Reference Rautman and Stokes2019; Spielmann Reference Spielmann2017). We argue below that the ethnogenetic processes that forged these Salinas pueblos also pushed some people away south who did not embrace the kivas, architecture, ceramics, and other forms of materiality of the Ancestral Pueblo migrants.

In sum, we expect magic contributed to the practices associated with migration. If one thinks of particular moves as rites of passage, then the packing up and closing of buildings and other rituals associated with leaving form the first stage of separation. The move itself and associated transgression of territorial boundaries along with intrusion into potentially existing communities form the transition phase. Finally, the construction of new homes, shrines, and ceremonial rooms forms the final act that reincorporates the migrants into a new place. We expect such processes to include smaller and larger moves (including return migration). People would also likely move to places they have scouted or already know.

In shorter-distance moves, such as those we propose for the Jornada, migrants could follow already established exchange networks. This could lead to more exchange in those areas. For more distant moves, where such enhanced exchange is less feasible, it could lead to the re-creation of homeland objects using local materials (e.g., Kayenta ceramics becoming Maverick Mountain series or McElmo Black-and-white becoming Magdalena Black-on-white) or architecture such as Kayenta spinal room blocks at Point of Pines Pueblo. If people have social relations with the animate powers of their ceramics and architecture, then it makes sense that they would attempt to replicate them in new places. By the same logic, migrants’ closure ceremonies, designed to interact or manipulate those forces, would also accompany them. In the case study below, we consider the hypothesis that Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community resulted from regional migrations within the Jornada. We examine its architectural variation, ceramic assemblages, and closure practices to see if we can identify such processes at work among the groups at Cottonwood. We then look across the Jornada to assess how the Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community fit into the larger Jornada variability of the El Paso phase (AD 1300–1450). We argue that this is one of several communities that form an internal frontier comprising southern, northern, and western peoples.

The Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community: A Case Study

In southern New Mexico, a coalescent community (Cottonwood Spring Pueblo LA 175) formed during the El Paso phase (AD 1300–1450) along Cottonwood Draw on the west side of the San Andres Mountains (Figure 2). Similar to Kayenta and Mesa Verde migration cases, architecture (variable room sizes, variable construction materials), closure practices (different floor and fill processing), and the presence of particular artifacts (Seco Corrugated pottery, bone whistles/flutes, lithophones) suggest a multiethnic community of peoples from northern, western, and southern regions of the Jornada Branch of the Mogollon Culture (Lehmer Reference Lehmer1948).

Figure 2.

Jornada pueblos in the San Andres Mountains. (Color online)

Figure 2 Long description

Map of southern New Mexico highlighting archaeological sites in the San Andres Mountains. The map includes locations marked with blue and red dots representing El Paso Style and Lincoln Style, respectively. Key sites include Fleck Draw, Fleck Ranch Village, Indian Tank, and Andrecito. Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Areas A, B, D, and E are also labeled. Drainage patterns are shown with blue lines, indicating various draws and canyons such as Fleck Draw, Horse Camp Draw, and Cottonwood Draw. Elevations are marked at specific points, including 4957 ft, 6083 ft, 5205 ft, and 4472 ft. A scale bar indicates distances up to 8 kilometers. An inset map shows the location within New Mexico, near El Paso. The map provides a detailed view of the region's topography and archaeological styles.

Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) consists of multiple pueblo villages grouped into Areas A, B, D, E, F, and a hilltop shrine, Area C (Figure 3). We further subdivided these areas into loci. For example, in Area E we designated room blocks by Loci 1, 2, and 3. Rock imagery panels occur on the high points around Areas A, B, and C. Architecture in the Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community represents a mix of southern (El Paso Style) and northern (Lincoln Style) Jornada construction traditions. This site entered archaeological discussion in 1925 when Dean W. Bloodgood, of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (New Mexico State University), excavated a room in what we now call Area E in the northwest portion of the site. Perhaps, recognizing that the close proximity of pueblo room blocks formed one community, Kenneth Chapman (Reference Chapman1926) from the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe gave this large complex one site number (LA 175). He noted a contrast between linear pueblo room blocks with plain adobe walls in Area E and those in Area A, near the spring, that possessed stone (cimiento)-laden adobe walls (vertical stones placed in adobe) arranged around plazas. This cimiento construction technique occurs primarily in the northern Jornada (Kelley Reference Kelley1984; Wiseman Reference Wiseman2019) in association with the Sierra Blanca region Lincoln phase (AD 1300–1450) and contrasts with southern Jornada El Paso phase pueblos (AD 1300–1450). For this article, we define three forms of walls: (1) simple, poured adobe walls; (2) poured adobe with stones (cimientos) placed within them, similar to modern cement rebar reinforcement; and (3) jacal walls, where large base stones support walls created by a lattice of vertical posts and woven branches covered by adobe mud. In the Jornada region, we will refer to the simple adobe walls as the El Paso Style.

Figure 3.

Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community (San Andres Peak USGS). (Color online)

Figure 3 Long description

Map of Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Community in New Mexico, highlighting several areas within the site boundary. Areas are marked with red dots labeled A, B, C, D, E, and F. Cottonwood Spring is indicated by a blue teardrop symbol. The site boundary is outlined in blue, encompassing all marked areas. Contour lines depict elevation changes, with Cottonwood Spring located near the center. An inset map shows the location within New Mexico, near El Paso. A scale bar at the bottom indicates distances in kilometers, ranging from 0 to 1 kilometer.

Subsequent work by Herbert Yeo (Reference Yeo1949) led to the mapping of more linear adobe pueblos in Areas E and D. Lekson and Rorex (Reference Lekson and Rorex1987) later identified the foundations of a jacal-walled pueblo (Area B) that possessed one masonry room (northern tradition) located at the top of a small hill overlooking the whole community. They also designated the rock rings of a shrine on a larger adjacent hill as Area C. This diversity of construction materials and pueblo buildings occurs throughout the San Andres Mountains, and we call the jacal and cimiento forms collectively “Lincoln Style.” This style is particularly dense along Fleck Draw, 17 km to the north of Cottonwood Spring, and in smaller washes and canyons between Fleck Draw and Cottonwood Draw. Despite this architectural diversity, ceramic types and frequencies generally resemble those of other El Paso phase sites. Some differences include elevated numbers of Seco Corrugated and Chupadero Black-on-white.

Architectural Variability at Cottonwood

Beginning in 2012, New Mexico State University began working in the San Andres Mountains north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. To date, we have completed four archaeological field schools at Cottonwood Area A, two at Cottonwood Area E, and one at Cottonwood Area D, along with reconnaissance at a similar complex of sites along Fleck Draw to the north. These studies revealed a representative sample of Pueblo architecture (jacal, cimiento, plain adobe), artifacts, and closure practices. One pueblo, Cottonwood Area B, possesses a combination of jacal and masonry walls. Four pueblos display a mix of cimiento-laden walls and jacal: Fleck Draw Pueblo (LA 72851), Fleck Ranch Village (LA 142783), Andrecito Pueblo (LA 72149), and Cottonwood Area A (LA 175). Three more pueblos—Indian Tank (LA 59560), Cottonwood Area E, and Cottonwood Area D—display plain adobe walls of variable widths. Ceramics in Cottonwood Area D possess few fourteenth-century ceramics (e.g., Gila polychrome, Ramos Polychrome, Lincoln Black-on-red) relative to other Cottonwood pueblos and a higher percentage of Three Rivers Red-on-terracotta. We therefore suggest it lies in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century at the beginning of the El Paso phase. Tree-ring samples from the largest pueblo, Cottonwood Area A, date construction of some rooms to the late fourteenth century (AD 1375–1400). We hypothesize that this architectural variability marks ethnic differences. We further argue that as animate materials, they exist in social relationships with their makers. Perhaps many ethnic distinctions in material culture derive from such animism. Similarly, these relationships also shape how people ceremonially close pueblos and allow us to use both materials and closure as traces of the northern Jornada migrants.

Construction Materials

Cottonwood Area B possesses a combination of jacal and masonry walls and closely resembles architecture of the Salinas region (see Caperton Reference Caperton and Hayes1981:4–6) as well as similar sites in the Sierra Blanca region (Kelley Reference Kelley1984). Fleck Draw Pueblo (LA 72851), Fleck Ranch Village (LA 142783), Andrecito Pueblo (LA 72149), and Cottonwood Area A (LA 175) all contain cimiento-laden walls (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Jacal foundations at Cottonwood Area B (top), Andrecito Pueblo (left), and Fleck Ranch Village (right). (Color online)

Cottonwood Area A possesses two plazas surrounded by cimiento-reinforced adobe walls. Ceramics indicate a fourteenth-century occupation, and tree-ring dates (1357v, 1360vv, 1364v, 1373b) also place the pueblo within the later fourteenth century (AD 1350–1400; Renteria Reference Renteria2020; Towner Reference Towner2015). This architectural style resembles Lincoln phase (AD 1300–1450) villages in the Sierra Blanca and what Caperton (Reference Caperton and Hayes1981:6) called “transitional pueblos” in the Salinas. There, cimiento-reinforced adobe walls as well as plain adobe walls occur resting on masonry lower courses. These villages have plazas but do not typically possess kivas or full masonry walls. Eventually, however, Ancestral Pueblo wall forms and ceremonial structures become the norm in the area sometime in the late 1300s. Indeed, the early masonry pueblo at Gran Quivira consists of a series of concentric or round masonry walls surrounding a central circular kiva (Hayes et al. Reference Hayes, Young and Helene Warren1981). These foreign building materials and architectural forms derive from the Ancestral Pueblo migrants coming from farther north. In contrast to these northern styles of architecture, pueblos at Cottonwood Area D (LA 175) and Indian Tank (LA 59560) consist of plain adobe walls without cimientos. As noted above, we call this wall type the El Paso Style (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Cottonwood Area E plain adobe walls without cimientos (left); Cottonwood Area A adobe walls with cimientos (right). (Color online)

Room and Pueblo Closure

Although assemblages were similar among the various Cottonwood pueblos we excavated, we did find some subtle artifactual differences in closure ritual. Closure in most rooms in Cottonwood Area A and in the two rooms excavated in Area E Locus 1 involved emplacement of floor artifacts, burning of roofs, and subsequent burial of the room that included adding of other objects to the burial fill (see Walker and Berryman Reference Walker and Berryman2023). At Cottonwood Area A, emplaced projectile points, crystals, ochre, and marine shell were concentrated in floor contexts (see Figure 6). For example, we recovered 34 projectile points distributed across nine room floors in Area A. In two excavated rooms at Area E Locus 1, we also found nine points on two floors. In contrast, only one floor out of the six large rooms at Area E Locus 2 had a single point on its floor. In Area D, we excavated three rooms and several extramural trenches and recovered six points, none of which were from floors. In all cases, the rooms were habitation rooms; if we assume that per-capita projectile-point frequencies did not differ between villages, then it seems reasonable to explain their differential placement on floors because of different closure rituals.

Figure 6.

Closure artifacts collected from Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Area A: minerals, shell (left), and stained ceramics with ochre and limonite (right). (Color online)

At Cottonwood Area A, we also recovered a bone flute/whistle and a stone bell (see Brown Reference Brown, Brown, Condie and Crotty2014, Reference Brown2021; Brown and Seltzer-Rogers Reference Brown and Seltzer-Rogers2021) that are similar to those found in closure deposits in the Sierra Blanca region (Figure 7). These artifact classes were absent in Cottonwood Areas D and E. In contrast, Area E produced three copper artifacts, a copper bell from Area E Locus 1, and two copper pendant-shaped artifacts (resembling earrings) from a hearth in Area E Locus 2.

Figure 7.

Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Area A: (A) bone whistle/flute; (B) stone lithophone. (Color online)

In summary, architecture at Cottonwood looks like a mix of El Paso phase villages with Lincoln phase (AD 1300–1450) villages from Sierra Blanca, or the “transitional-phase pueblos” (AD 1300–1350) from the Salinas region (see Caperton Reference Caperton and Hayes1981). It is also possible that some of the immigrants moved in from the northwest Rio Grande area pueblos (Puskas Pueblo [LA 126790], Las Animas Village [LA 3949], and Beyer site [LA 3948]) near Las Animas Creek. These western pueblos possess cimiento architecture similar to that found in Fleck Draw Pueblo (see Laumbach and Laumbach Reference Laumbach and W. Laumbach2013; Stokes and Hungerford Reference Stokes and Hungerford2018:44–46). One could call Cottonwood Area A a Lincoln phase village and Cottonwood Areas D and E El Paso phase villages, but this simply labels their difference and defies the geographic component of the phases’ names. Such is the nature of coalescent communities, perhaps.

Exchange and Migration in the San Andres Mountains

In the San Andres Mountains, Fleck Draw Pueblo, Fleck Ranch Village, Indian Tank, Andrecito Pueblo, Cottonwood Area A, and Cottonwood Area B all occur adjacent to springs. In addition, Cottonwood Area B has a commanding—perhaps defensive—view of the surrounding territory. The central valley of the San Andres Mountains offers a natural path for north–south travel that articulates with passages to the east and west (Kurota et al. Reference Kurota, Rogers, Sternberg and Ludeman2019). Access to the west is available through the Cottonwood and Fleck Draw drainages. Two entry points to the east connect this central valley with the Tularosa Basin and Sacramento Mountains farther east. Archaic hunter-gatherer period sites and earlier farming villages concentrate along these corridors, documenting their long-term use (Browning Reference Browning1991; Duran Reference Duran1991; Kurota et al. Reference Kurota, Rogers, Sternberg and Ludeman2019). Andrecito Pueblo, in the central valley, sits at the entrance to the northern east passage adjacent to Andrecito Spring. The large pueblo of Fleck Draw remains relatively unexplored but resembles Cottonwood Area A in size, architecture, and location.

These pueblos’ locations in the passes and adjacent springs suggest that an initial wave of immigrants may have settled the smaller Andrecito, Fleck Ranch Village, and Cottonwood Area B pueblos (see Kemrer Reference Kemrer2005:5). In subsequent moves, larger groups founded Cottonwood Area A and Fleck Draw pueblos. Although the landscape today possesses thick groves of mesquite bushes and coppice dunes, in the fourteenth century, these two watercourses offered grassy floodplain farming.

The most common ceramic types in the San Andres Mountains in the fourteenth century include El Paso Polychrome, Chupadero Black-on-white, Seco Corrugated, Playas Red, Lincoln Black-on-red, and Three Rivers Red-on-terracotta. Chupadero Black-on-white occurs in all Jornada sites but in varied frequencies. Potters living in northeastern Jornada and in the Salinas region just north manufactured this pottery (Clark Reference Clark2006, Reference Clark and Spielmann2017; Creel, Clark, and Neff Reference Creel, Clark, Neff and Glascock2002; Creel, Williams, et al. Reference Creel, Williams, Neff and Glascock2002). However, there is not much exchange between these two production centers (Clark Reference Clark and Spielmann2017). Chupadero Black-on-white produced in the Sierra Blanca was exchanged broadly to the southern Jornada, whereas Chupadero Black-on-white produced in the Salinas region largely stayed within the region, with limited distribution west to the Rio Grande (Clark Reference Clark2006, Reference Clark and Spielmann2017; Creel, Clark, and Neff Reference Creel, Clark, Neff and Glascock2002). The distribution and significance of Seco Corrugated production commonly occurring as bowls with obliterated corrugation on their exteriors appears in high frequencies in pueblos to the northwest of Cottonwood (Critz Reference Critz2025; Laumbach Reference Laumbach2024). Pueblos located around modern-day Caballo Lake, such as the Beyer Site and Puskas Pueblo, form a southern source for Seco Corrugated production and also formed the western boundary of the Jornada Branch. A northern source for Seco Corrugated also occurs farther up the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Cañada Alamosa (Laumbach Reference Laumbach2024). At Cottonwood, we identified Seco Corrugated from both production locales. Interestingly, Cottonwood Area A had both sources, whereas Area E was dominated by the southern source (Critz Reference Critz2025).

Lincoln Black-on-red, a decorated type that commonly occurs as serving bowls, offers tantalizing clues to potential Jornada migration, identity, and power. This ceramic type was produced in the Sierra Blanca region and possibly in the northern Tularosa Basin (Wiseman Reference Wiseman2017). Its manufacture coincides in time with movement of Ancestral Pueblo peoples into the Salinas just to the north of the Jornada. In the Salinas region, coalescent communities incorporated a new decorative type—Agua Fria Glaze-on-red—manufactured along the Rio Grande. Early line work in these two black-on-red forms differed, given that early Lincoln Black-on-red resembled the Three Rivers Red-on-terracotta that preceded it. However, later Lincoln Black-on-red designs resemble the Agua Fria designs. Although both can be found together, Lincoln Black-on-red usually predominates in the Jornada, whereas Agua Fria predominates in the Salinas region (see Laumbach Reference Laumbach2024).

During the last 30 years, archaeologists working in the San Andres Mountains have assumed that its architectural variability reflects some sort of intrusion of northern and eastern Jornada peoples into the San Andres, but they have not been sure how to approach it. After all, as Anthony (Reference Anthony1990) notes, processualist scholars typically shunned migration or ignored it. In the Jornada case, it was easier to do so because unlike the Mesa Verde and Kayenta cases, the immigrants do not derive from another culture branch or tradition. The ceramics at Cottonwood clearly place Areas A, B, D, and E in the El Paso phase even if the architecture seems to pull them out of it. This diversity in architectural forms raises the following question: why do some pueblos have stones in their walls and others not given that both have access to stones?

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, both jacal and adobe walls with and without cimientos occur in the northern Jornada region (Kelley Reference Kelley1984; Wiseman Reference Wiseman2019). They also appear to the west in the post–AD 1150 villages of the Mimbres Branch Mogollon during the Black Mountain phase (AD 1150–1300) and Cliff phase (AD 1300–1450). However, these walls tend to have more stone in walls and foundations. They spread across multiple creeks and streams: (1) the drainages (Berrenda, Tierra Blanca, Percha, Las Animas, Seco, and Palomas Creeks) of the Rio Grande (Nelson and Hegmon Reference Nelson and Hegmon2001; Stokes and Hungerford Reference Stokes and Hungerford2018), (2) drainages (Antelope, Rio de Arenas, Cameron Creeks) of the Mimbres River (Creel Reference Creel2006a; Nelson and Leblanc Reference Nelson and LeBlanc1986:33–36; Putsavage Reference Putsavage2015), and (3) drainages (Mogollon Creek, Duck Creek) of the Gila River (Lekson Reference Lekson2002; Wallace Reference Wallace1998). In the Mimbres Branch Mogollon during the earlier Mimbres Classic phase (AD 1000–1150), pueblos possessed cobble masonry construction that influenced later adobe pueblo forms in the area (e.g., Gomolak Reference Gomolak1976:13; Laumbach Reference Laumbach and Beckett1982; Lekson Reference Lekson1990:7–9; Shafer Reference Shafer2003). In the subsequent Black Mountain phase (AD 1150–1300), large vertical stones were placed in trenches, then courses of adobe were layered over them. These upper layers of adobe contained high frequencies of smaller cimientos. These walls resembled a core of cimiento cobbles covered by adobe. As Putsavage (Reference Putsavage2015:169–170, Figures 5.8 and 5.11) notes for the Black Mountain–type site, “the main difference between the Classic Mimbres walls and the Locus 2 Black Mountain Phase walls is the amount of adobe.” Creel (Reference Creel2006b:217–231) found a similar pattern in the Black Mountain–phase component of the Old Town site. In the following Cliff phase (Nelson and Leblanc Reference Nelson and LeBlanc1986:33–36; Stokes and Hungerford Reference Stokes and Hungerford2018; Wallace Reference Wallace1998:78, Figures 37 and 42), pueblos retained these stone foundation walls but had fewer cimientos in the upper layers. For this reason, they differ from San Andres pueblos in terms of foundation stones, trenches, and the quantities of cimientos.

Cody Browning (Reference Browning1991) recognized the similarity of some San Andres villages to those built by peoples living along the eastern slopes of the Sacramento Mountains (Sierra Blanca). Gibbs (Reference Gibbs2003), referring to the northern boundary area of the Jornada, described possible “Anasazi” Pueblo influences based on the jacal, masonry, and cimiento-laden adobe walls known from the earlier components of the Salinas region. The Jornada Branch seems to have once included parts of the Salinas area. However, in the late AD 1200s and early AD 1300s, migrants from the Ancestral Pueblo region from the north and east moved into that province, replacing the architecture and many of the ceramics—albeit not the Chupadero Black-on-white. At that point, the Sierra Blanca become the new northern boundary of the Jornada Mogollon. Kemrer (Reference Kemrer2005) also argued that Sierra Blanca peoples moved into the San Andres area and created multiethnic communities.

Kemrer (Reference Kemrer2005) pointed out that the two largest pueblos in San Andres Mountains—Fleck Draw Pueblo and Cottonwood Area A—occur along large washes on the western face of the mountains adjacent to springs. These villages exhibit cimiento-reinforced adobe walls that contrast with the smooth adobe walls of nearby large pueblos, such as Indian Tank, Cottonwood Area D, and Cottonwood Area E. He noted that all of the simple adobe pueblos occurred downstream and farther away from the springs. He suggested that migrants from the Lincoln phase (northern Sacramento Mountains) and perhaps the Late Glencoe phase (AD 1300–1450) villages (southern Sacramento Mountains) contemporary with the El Paso phase moved into the San Andres Mountains in the later fourteenth century. He offered two explanations for their movement: (1) the potential pull of new religious movements, such as the Katsina religion (see Adams Reference Adams1991) and southwestern regional cult (Crown Reference Crown1994), and (2) the pull of shared defense in the event of war (see LeBlanc Reference LeBlanc1999). As part of his warfare interpretation, Kemrer (Reference Kemrer2005) suggested that the small jacal pueblo atop a hill in Cottonwood Area B was defensive. It possessed commanding views to the north, south, and west, and its single masonry room may have functioned as a watchtower of sorts. Given the strength of its walls, people could have more safely stood watch on its roof—unlike the flimsy jacal rooms adjacent to it. These warfare interpretations arise out of Kemrer’s (Reference Kemrer2005) processual assumptions about resource competition during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (see also LeBlanc Reference LeBlanc1999). He assumes that large, burned sites resulted from conflict. However, as described below, stratigraphy in these and other Jornada pueblos does not match such interpretations but instead conforms with ceremonial closure (see Miller Reference Miller and Wright2024; Miller and Graves Reference Miller and Graves2009; Walker and Berryman Reference Walker and Berryman2023).

Artifact and Architectural Comparisons across the Jornada

Looking beyond Cottonwood Spring Pueblo, migration created other coalescent communities across the Jornada during the fourteenth century. We asked whether the material differences we see at Cottonwood make sense as part of a larger migration of peoples across the region. We hypothesize that differences in animistic understandings would inform choices people make when interacting with artifacts and architecture. Magic as a technology would underlie their construction choices, artifact types, and closure activities. Consequently, we divided the Jornada region into nine subregions following the spatial clustering of known villages and then compared their wall construction materials (adobe, stone, jacal), room sizes, and possible closure practices such as the burning of roofs, intentional placement of artifacts on room floors, and potential burial of rooms.

These regions across the Jornada represent clusters of pueblos forming communities. In a couple of cases, however, there are single sites (Three Rivers Pueblo and Sacramento Pueblo) that stand alone in space and get their own regional designation (Figure 8). The nine regions are (1) Sierra Blanca (e.g., Hiner, Frank Sultemeier, Clint Sultemeier, Phillips, Block Lookout, Bonnell), (2) Northern Tularosa (Three Rivers Pueblo), (3) Rio Grande (Las Animas Village, Puskas Pueblo, Beyer Site), (4) San Andres Mountains (Fleck Ranch Village, Fleck Draw Pueblo, Indian Tank, Andrecito Pueblo, and Cottonwood Spring Pueblo Areas A, B, D, and E), (5) Sacramento Mountains (Alamogordo Site 1 House 1, Alamogordo Site 1 House 2, Alamogordo Site 2 House 1), (6) Roswell Oasis (Fox Place, Bloom Mound, Henderson), (7) South Sacramento Mountains (Sacramento Pueblo), (8) Southern Tularosa Basin and Hueco Bolson (Madera Quemada, Pickup Pueblo, Twelve Room, Firecracker Pueblo), and (9) Southern Rio Grande (La Cabraña, Anapra). We left off Millington, a site in the La Junta region to the southwest along the Rio Grande near Big Bend. Recent study of Millington by Kenmotsu (Reference Kenmotsu2018) suggests that this pueblo itself represents a migration of Southern Tularosa Basin / Hueco Bolson people into the La Junta area.

Figure 8.

The magical frontier highlighted in color. (Color online)

Figure 8 Long description

Map of the Jornada region depicting clusters of pueblos and individual sites. The map highlights a frontier area in a shaded region. Key sites include Three Rivers Pueblo, Sacramento Pueblo, and Alamogordo Houses 1 and 2. Other labeled locations are Las Animas Village, Puskas Pueblo, Beyer Site, Fleck Ranch Village, Fleck Draw, Indian Tank, Andrecito, Cottonwood Spring Pueblo, Fox Place, Bloom Mound, and Henderson Pueblo. The Rio Grande is marked, and a scale bar indicates distances of 0, 25, and 50 kilometers. A compass rose shows north. An inset map provides a broader geographic context, indicating the location within New Mexico and near El Paso.

We argue below that an internal frontier zone depicted in the highlighted portion of Figure 8 developed in the Jornada during the fourteenth century. It runs from the Rio Grande through the San Andres Mountains across the southern Tularosa Basin through the Sacramento Mountains to the confluence of the Pecos and Hondo Rivers at the Roswell Oasis. South of this line, there seems to be more El Paso–style architecture, whereas along the line, there is a mix of northern and El Paso styles. We hypothesize that people moved from north and south, creating new dynamic communities in the middle.

Across the Jornada, pueblos uniformly possess an orientation to the cardinal directions, likely using the North Star (see Miller and Graves Reference Miller and Graves2009:101). Jornada pueblos vary in size (Miller and Graves Reference Miller and Graves2009: Figures 3.1 and 3.11), and larger pueblos possess plazas formed by room blocks (see also Marshall Reference Marshall1973). Interestingly, many (but not all) of these villages occur along and to the north of the frontier. For example, in the Sierra Blanca region, most pueblos possess plazas. Along the frontier, there is a mix of village forms, and to the south, plazas fall off in frequency. This distribution suggests movement of people to the frontier but also raises the question of how plazas might have been needed for ritual activities. Indeed, the animate powers of materials and their arrangements rest at the heart of animistic magic.

Construction Materials and Room Sizes

In terms of construction materials, the northern Jornada above the frontier contains a mix of wall forms that include adobe and cimiento walls, jacal wall with cimiento foundations, and masonry walls, sometimes all in the same site (Kelley Reference Kelley1984; Wiseman Reference Wiseman2019). However, south of the frontier, most sites possess plain adobe construction. Room sizes generally increase from north to south but vary a lot depending on room function. Table 1 describes the construction materials as well as average and median room sizes. Figure 9 illustrates room-size variability through a box and whisker plot. It is clear, in some cases, that large ceremonial rooms or small storage rooms change the averages dramatically. The median measure tends to show a more accurate point of comparison as a result.

Table 1.

Summary of Rooms Sizes and Construction.

Table 1 Long description

Column names: Region; Construction Materials; Average Room Size (m2); Median Room Size (m2). The table is presented in two side-by-side sections with the same four column headers. Summary of visible values: Average Room Size ranges from 4.73 to 33.96. Median Room Size ranges from 5.01 to 29.44. The largest Average Room Size is 33.96 (Alamogordo Site 1 House 2). The smallest Average Room Size is 4.73 (Frank Sulteimeier). The largest Median Room Size is 29.44 (Alamogordo Site 1 House 2). The smallest Median Room Size is 5.01 (Hiner). Rows with Unknown values appear under San Andres Mountains (Fleck Ranch Village, Fleck Draw Pueblo, Indian Tank). Row 1: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Hiner; Adobe and jacal; 5.41; 5.01. Row 2: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Frank Sulteimeier; Adobe and masonry; 4.73; 7.05. Row 3: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Clint Sulteimeier; Adobe; 6.67; 5.33. Row 4: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Phillips; Adobe, jacal, and masonry; 8.01; 7.44. Row 5: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Block Lookout; Adobe and masonry; 12.26; 6.69. Row 6: Sierra Blanca Pueblos; Bonnell; Adobe and jacal; 18.32; 15.63. Row 7: North Tularosa Pueblos; Three Rivers Pueblo; Adobe; 14.99; 11.64. Row 8: Rio Grande Pueblos; Las Animas Village; Adobe with cimientos; 18.58; 16.63. Row 9: Rio Grande Pueblos; Puskas Pueblo; Adobe with cimientos; 24.8; 24.44. Row 10: Sacramento Mountains Pueblos; Alamogordo Site 1 House 1; Adobe; 16.44; 14.08. Row 11: Sacramento Mountains Pueblos; Alamogordo Site 1 House 2; Adobe with cimientos; 33.96; 29.44. Row 12: Sacramento Mountains Pueblos; Alamogordo Site 2 House 1; Adobe with cimientos; 32.2; 25.20. Row 13: Roswell Oasis Pueblos; Bloom Mound; Adobe, jacal; 7.18; 6.00. Row 14: Roswell Oasis Pueblos; Henderson; Adobe with cimientos; 12.16; 13.05. Row 15: South Sacramento Mountains Pueblo; Sacramento Pueblo; Adobe; 13.99; 12.23. Row 16: Southern Tularosa Basin and Hueco Bolson Pueblos; Madera Quemada; Adobe; 14.99; 12.31. Row 17: Southern Tularosa Basin and Hueco Bolson Pueblos; Pickup Pueblo; Adobe; 18.64; 17.20. Row 18: Southern Tularosa Basin and Hueco Bolson Pueblos; Twelve Room; Adobe; 19.29; 15.10. Row 19: Southern Tularosa Basin and Hueco Bolson Pueblos; Firecracker Pueblo; Adobe; 17.59; 16.70. Row 20: Southern Rio Grande; La Cabraña; Adobe; 15.43; 14.10. Row 21: Southern Rio Grande; Anapra; Adobe; 14.82; 12.24. Row 22: San Andres Mountains; Fleck Ranch Village; Adobe with cimientos; Unknown; blank. Row 23: San Andres Mountains; Fleck Draw Pueblo; Adobe with cimientos; Unknown; blank. Row 24: San Andres Mountains; Indian Tank; Adobe; Unknown; blank. Row 25: San Andres Mountains; Andrecito Pueblo; Jacal; 21.37; 22.10. Row 26: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area A; Adobe with cimientos; 12.96; 14.00. Row 27: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area B; Adobe with cimientos, jacal; 19.49; 17.60. Row 28: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area D; Adobe; 18.11; 20.30. Row 29: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area E1; Adobe; 12.77; 12.25. Row 30: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area E2; Adobe; 22.25; 22.08. Row 31: San Andres Mountains; Cottonwood Spring Area E3; Adobe; 24.7; 26.91.

Figure 9.

Room sizes by regions. (Color online)

Figure 9 Long description

The box plot illustrates room size distribution across various sites and regions. The horizontal axis represents room size in square meters, ranging from 0 to 110. The vertical axis lists site names. Each box plot shows the median, interquartile range, and whiskers indicating the range of data. Outliers are marked as individual points. Notable observations include: Alamogordo Site 1 House 2 has the largest room sizes with outliers near 100 and 110 square meters. Twelve Room and Bonnell also show significant outliers. Sites like Hiner and Frank Sultemeier have smaller typical room sizes with no visible outliers. The plot highlights variations in room sizes, with some sites showing a wider spread and others more centralized distributions. The legend identifies regions such as Sierra Blanca, Northern Tularosa Basin, and others, with mean room sizes marked by an 'X'.

Discussion: Magic and Migration

What might have pushed or pulled people out of the Salinas and Sierra Blanca regions? What do we know about their knowledge of their destination? How did the process unfold? How might magic contribute to these processes?

Late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Salinas and Sierra Blanca regions of the northern Jornada area were faced with the intrusion of peoples moving south as part of the larger immigration of northern pueblo peoples into the Rio Grande Valley. Like dominos, people were moving south along the Rio Grande, seemingly pushed by the arrival of new people farther north behind them.

For most of its history, Chupadero Black-on-white pottery was produced in two regions: the Salinas area and the adjacent Sierra Blanca area. The Sierra Blanca area tended to supply the rest of the Jornada, whereas the Salinas area supplied mostly the Salinas region and some of the middle Rio Grande Valley (Clark Reference Clark and Spielmann2017). During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, exchange of Chupadero Black-on-white pottery contributed to a larger Jornada Mogollon identity. Because of this, end points in this exchange sphere facilitated migration destinations during the fourteenth century.

The Salinas region underwent a process of ethnogenesis during the fourteenth century (Graves Reference Graves and Spielmann2017). Those who stayed behind in the region eventually built large stone pueblos, embraced Ancestral Pueblo architecture—including round kivas—and became the southernmost Ancestral Pueblo peoples. Those who left for points south and east, including the San Andres communities, chose a different path, initially retaining their jacal construction at sites such as Andrecito Pueblo and Cottonwood Area B. Eventually, as larger groups joined them a generation later, they constructed cimiento-reinforced adobe that still reflects the more traditional elements of their homeland (see Cottonwood Area A, Fleck Draw Pueblo, and Fleck Ranch Village). More generally, if we accept the assumption that Jornada people’s perceptions of animacy and the associated ritual technologies differed from those of ancestral peoples to their north, then this migration offered a form of resistance to incoming religious changes.

Those working in the Salinas region have argued that violence likely contributed to settlement patterns in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, noting that burned jacal and adobe sites characterize the province (Solometo et al. Reference Solometo, Rautman, Chamberlin and Spielmann2017). Many of these had shifted to higher, more defendable locations during the fourteenth century, albeit with some stone pueblos mixed in with them. Without excavated stratigraphic evidence, however, such burning is ambiguous. Ritual closure and burning of pithouses, jacals, and (later) pueblos has a long history in the Southwest. This pattern holds for the Jornada as well. Context is key. As Lyons and Crown (Reference Lyons, Crown, Schwartz, Plog and Gilman2022) have recently demonstrated, Kayenta migrants at Point of Pines Pueblo ritually destroyed their room block in an elaborate closure ceremony. Previous scholars had suggested the burning resulted from an attack on these migrants. Perhaps the burning of Salinas, like that in the Sierra Blanca and places farther south, also represents closure practices.

More broadly, the formation of a frontier zone across the middle of the Jornada documents widespread movements from the north, the south, and possibly the west. The combinations of architecture in these coalescent communities indicate that peoples were drawn to new places. However, late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century coalescent communities varied across the Jornada. The Horned Serpent ritual seems to have been shared in these new places despite their differences. A serpent mural adorns a kiva at Fox Place (Late Glencoe), Horned Serpent bone-effigy artifacts occur at Bonnell and Bloom Mound, and a prominent Horned Serpent rock art image also rests on the hillside overlooking Cottonwood Area A (Figure 10). Forward-curling Horned Serpent imagery appeared in the Mimbres to the west during the Mimbres Classic phase (AD 1000–1150) and then resurfaced in the Jornada and the Casas Grandes region to the south in the early fourteenth century. Horned Serpent depictions with backward-curling horns occur on Salado Polychrome ceramics that move into the Jornada and Casas Grandes regions from the west (see Phillips et al. Reference Phillips, VanPool, VanPool, VanPool and VanPool2006). Eventually, variants of these serpents find their way into historic pueblo ceremonialism.

Figure 10.

Horned Serpent overlooking Cottonwood Area A. (Color online)

Miller and colleagues (Reference Miller, Creel and Geib2024) recently dated goggled-eyed (sometimes called “Tlaloc”) imagery in the Jornada and adjacent Mimbres regions, and they found three periods of use: an initial one dating to the AD 600s; a subsequent fluorescence in the AD 1000s, contemporary with the Mimbres horned serpent; and finally, during the fourteenth century. Consequently, revitalization of earlier cults accompanies aggregation or coalescence of communities as would occur in the frontier communities such as Cottonwood.

Magic creates invisible ties between the materials that people implement in their ritual technology. Animate forces are those ties that reside in the materials of everyday life, which include architecture, pottery, projectile points, and ornaments of shell, mineral, and bone. In our case study, Chupadero Black-on-white pottery would have possessed such power and therefore would have served to forge an identity among the Jornada who used and exchanged it. Similarly, local communities possessed their own understanding of what makes a wall, such as adobe, cimientos, and jacal. They also created their own rites of passage for themselves and their pueblos, leading to variable closure practices. Those interested in migration can therefore track people by their animate understanding of materials. Such migration may also derive from desires to preserve these types of traditions in the face of other migrants. Conversely, when migrants create multiethnic communities such as the Jornada Frontier, we can find new configurations of animacy and/or the revitalization of older practices, such as the Horned Serpent or goggle-eyed spirit.

The San Andres case and others offer the further understanding that magic as applied in ritual technologies can shape the evidence of migration (closure deposits, unique artifacts, architectural styles) as well as structuring it as a rite of passage. New religions can contribute to causes of movement. They could become attractors and eventually—as in the case of the Katsina religion among the Ancestral Pueblos—become the engine that transforms a multiethnic community into a stable community.