Introduction

This paper presents a discussion of site abandonment processes and applies a simulation approach in a case study of abandonment of a ninth–century pueblo in the American Southwest. The general questions addressed are: (1) To what extent can one use archaeological assemblages to explain both abandonment and preabandonment activities and processes? (2) How can one tell what was removed from or added to the systemic assemblage at the time of abandonment? (3) What can intrasite variability in abandonment assemblages tell us about abandonment processes and behavior?

There is an ongoing and sometimes heated debate in archaeology over what kind of record the archaeological record is, and how we should legitimately use it to learn about the past (Ascher 1961; Binford 1981; Schiffer 1976, 1985). Specifically, there have been many accusations that other archaeologists are misusing the archaeological record by falsely assuming a “Pompeii premise,” the term coined by Ascher to refer to a perception of archaeological deposits as “the remains of a once living community, stopped as it were in time” (Ascher 1961:324). Schiffer (1985) criticized Southwestern archaeologists for failing to evaluate adequately the effects of formation processes in creating floor assemblages. He argued that: “The real Pompeii premise is that archaeologists can treat house–floor assemblages at any site as if they were Pompeii–like systemic inventories” (Schiffer 1985:18). Schiffer advocated one alternative which was to evaluate de facto refuse depletions, which are reductions from the basic systemic artifact inventory.

Introduction

The pueblo of Zuni, in western New Mexico, is currently the major year–round residence of most of the Zuni people. Within 30 miles of Zuni is a series of small villages (Fig. 10.1), called Ojo Caliente, Tekapo, Pescado, and Nutria, the latter two being divided by some residents into Upper and Lower segments. Until about fifty years ago these villages were occupied on a seasonal basis by many of the Zuni while they farmed or herded sheep. Today almost no one lives in them.

Portions of at least two of the villages were built on top of prehistoric sites dating to the fourteenth century (Kintigh 1985:45, 53–4). The historic occupation for several of the villages dates to the mid–nineteenth century, and for most of them their population peaked around the end of the nineteenth century. The total population of Zuni at that time was 1600, of which about 1400 were associated with one of the farming villages. According to a census taken by Frank Hamilton Cushing, 473 used Nutria, 580 used Pescado, and 440 used Ojo Caliente (Ferguson 1985:58–9; Mills and Ferguson 1980:1). Although they are now mostly not occupied each village has one or two resident families, and there is some occasional transient use of the houses by sheepherders. This lack of use is the product of environmental and cultural changes that made agriculture difficult or impossible on the nearby farmlands and altered patterns of land tenure.

Introduction

Since at least the early 1970s, archaeologists have studied abandonment processes and their effect on the archaeological record (Schiffer 1976:88). Initially, concerns were with de facto refuse and curation practices as part of the abandonment process. More recently, archaeology has witnessed an intensification and diversification in the study of this phenomenon. Archaeological investigations have been directed at differences in planned vs. unplanned abandonment (Brooks 1989) and utilization of sites from initial occupation to abandonment (Binford 1982; Stevenson 1982), while ethnoarchaeological research has focused on the nature of the abandonment process (cf. Kent 1988; Stevenson 1985; Tomka 1989).

Three fundamental concepts regarding abandonment have arisen from this research. First, differences can be drawn in the nature of the abandonment process; Tomka (1989) has distinguished between episodic, seasonal, and permanent abandonment. Second, abandonment processes operate at the settlement, aggregate, and individual household level. Third, abandonment activities do not always represent orderly planned events; they may be unplanned because of either natural or cultural forces. These considerations can be viewed as a matrix of abandonment functions (Fig. 14.1)

From another perspective the process of abandonment cannot be viewed as a separate, static event. It is always dynamically linked to other events through a structure of behavioral activities. For example, abandonment of an individual household because of deterioration is usually tied in some fashion to construction of a new residence.

This paper explores household abandonment processes found among sedentary Native American societies in the Great Plains region of the United States.

Abandonment conjures up images of catastrophe, mass migration, and environmental crisis. Archaeologists are not immune to the “disaster movie” mind set. Most archaeological studies of abandonment have focused on either the regional exodus (the abandonment of the Four Corners Region of the American Southwest at AD 1300) or spectacular cases of rapid abandonment (Pompeii). Since about 1970, abandonment has been increasingly recognized as a normal process of settlement, and, more importantly, identified as a key process in the formation of the archaeological record (e.g. Ascher 1968; Schiffer 1972, 1976, 1985; Stevenson 1982).

Papers in this volume address not simply the causes of abandonment, but the articulation between human behavior at the time of abandonment and resulting patterns in the archaeological record. Combining ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological, and archaeological data from a wide range of geographic areas and time periods, all contributions share the common theme of understanding the effect of abandonment on archaeological patterns. Several papers use data from the North American Southwest where abandonment has been of long–standing interest, while others break new ground in areas as diverse as modern Iran and Copper Age Portugal.

Abandonment can occur at the level of the activity area, structure, settlement, or entire region. All purely archaeological sites have been abandoned, but not all structures or settlements were abandoned in the same way. “Abandonment processes” – those activities that occur during abandonment – include behavior such as curation or caching of tools, dismantling of structures, and the interruption of normal disposal patterns (Schiffer 1987:89–98).

Introduction

In recent years studies by Binford (1979), Shott (1986, 1989), Torrence (1983, 1987), Bleed (1986), and others have significantly contributed to the understanding of the relationships between land–use patterns, technological organization, and assemblage composition. These studies focus primarily on the conditioning effects of subsistence organization. The effects of abandonment processes upon assemblage composition have received relatively less attention. In general, assemblage structure and content are seen as conditioned by artifact use life (Schiffer 1975; Shott 1989), various discard behaviors (Deal 1985; Schiffer 1987), and curation at the time of site abandonment (Binford 1973; Schiffer 1987). Abandonment studies have alerted us to another series of processes that condition the composition of archaeological assemblages (Joyce and Johannessen 1987; Lange and Rydberg 1972; Schiffer 1987; Stevenson 1982). Stevenson, working at nineteenth–century gold rush mining camps, was the first to consider systematically the effects of abandonment conditions on the proportion of curated and discarded artifacts. Based on the composition of abandoned assemblages and the presence of abandonment caches, Stevenson also suggested, among other things, that the anticipation of return may significantly affect abandonment behavior.

The gold rush camps distributed along Bullion Creek were abandoned relatively suddenly and in an unplanned manner because of flooding, poor working conditions, and the discovery of a rich strike some distance from Bullion Creek. The camps located on Mush Creek were abandoned under more normal conditions, and without anticipation of return (Stevenson 1982:238–40).

Treatments of abandonment in the archaeological literature of the southwestern United States have commonly focused on adverse conditions precipitating departure from a previously inhabited locale. However, decisions as to the timing and mode of prehistoric abandonments were made in the light of conditions at destinations as well as points of departure, and cannot be fully understood from either partial perspective. The more inclusive process, which includes departure and relocation, is less amenable to study in the archaeological record because of the difficulty in establishing synchroneity between locationally disparate sets of events and their remains. Furthermore, material culture is seldom sufficiently distinctive to permit the tracking of particular persons or groups from one place to another.

In spite of these difficulties, additive trends in abandonment behavior can be approached through chronological change in comprehensive settlement patterns. Large–scale abandonments characterize the late prehistoric era throughout the Southwest. Within these broader developments, an instance of regional abandonment is examined among the Hohokam of southern Arizona (Fig. 8.1). Population dynamics that could account for patterns of Hohokam abandonment in the Tucson Basin are discussed in terms of cultural and environmental correlates. Evidence is reviewed for the nature of subsequent low–level use of abandoned territory and the relationship of this use to the economies of persisting communities.

Introduction

Khar o Tauran is a present–day village district in northeastern Iran (see Fig. 4.1). On the map and in the minds of its inhabitants, the area is settled. But settlement everywhere is a dynamic rather than a static phenomenon. Its fluidity in Khar o Tauran is well attested from present–day evidence as well as from archaeological remains that show shifting locations and varying sizes of occupation across time. Some of this instability is inherent in the technology of settlement, part of an intentional production strategy typical of arid land occupations; some of it is visited upon the residents by factors outside their control.

The degree of settlement stability in Khar o Tauran varies with settlement type, size, and location relative to social and environmental resources. This variation has implications not only for an understanding of settlements as elements in the local strategies of production, but also for the archaeological reconstruction of population and land use.

Settlement stability (or instability) may be viewed in two ways, locational and occupational. I use the term locational stability as a spatial concept referring to the degree to which settlements are continuously or repeatedly located in the same places. Examples of locationally stable settlements might be seasonal pastoral stations that rely on patchy resources such as springs, to which the residents return year after year.

Occupational stability, on the other hand, is a temporal concept referring to how long an occupation continues without interruption at a given location.

Recent investigations into abandonment processes have relied heavily on ethnoarchaeological studies of abandonment at the household and community levels. Archaeologists have turned toward ethnographic observation as a tool for recognizing behaviors associated with the abandonment of individual houses or entire villages (e.g. Lange and Rydberg 1972; Rothschild et al., this volume; Stevenson 1982). Although the study of abandonment in living societies provides the archaeologist with an array of behavioral possibilities, these accounts must be tested against specific prehistoric cases. In some instances, the events, activities, or behaviors associated with past abandonments may not be repeated by contemporary societies and, therefore, can only be attained through the investigation of archaeological remains. A major problem lies in identifying abandonment processes from material remains that have been subsequently affected by a variety of natural or cultural disturbances.

In order to identify abandonment behaviors, archaeologists need techniques for measuring variability in the prehistoric record. Variability due to natural or cultural disturbances must be distinguished from patterns produced by abandonment behaviors. One technique, the Relative Room Abandonment Measure (Reid 1973), looks at variability in the spatial distribution of ceramic remains at pueblo sites. Two analytical units – whole pots on room floors and sherd density in room fill – are compared to determine the sequence of room abandonment.

On the Nigerian savanna between Lafia and Shendam are thousands of farmsteads of sorghum, millet, and yam farmers. The area south of the small town of Namu is populated largely by Kofyar, who have been moving there from the hills of the Jos Plateau since the middle of this century. The Kofyar first came on a seasonal basis, living in ephemeral compounds, but by the time I came in 1984 they had established enduring settlements in many areas.

I had come to study the Kofyar settlement system, and I began by learning the local geography, especially the names of the various ungwas, or neighborhoods. While most of the place names were in Kofyar or Hausa, I would occasionally encounter names that referred to the Tiv, a tribe that had moved into the Namu area from the south. Place–names such as Koprume contained a small slice of settlement history – kop being the Kofyar term for the former residence of someone, Rume being the name of the Tiv who had abandoned the area. In fact, it turned out that our own compound had originally been built by Tiv and later abandoned.

Since a focus of my research was the evolution of settlement patterns, including the factors affecting farm abandonment, I was intrigued by the permanency of Kofyar settlement in precisely the same locales where Tiv settlement had been ephemeral. Kofyar and Tiv had apparently occupied the same ecological niche, clearing fields with fire and growing yams and interplanting millet and sorghum.

Introduction

A major challenge prehistorians face is explaining regional settlement abandonment among sedentary agricultural communities, particularly those who have invested a significant amount of energy and time in constructing and maintaining settlements. There are, indeed, many examples of regional abandonment among such communities in the prehistoric past; these include the depopulation of the Four Corners area of the southwest United States around AD 1300 and the abandonment of Mycenaean palaces in the Argolid plain of Greece at about 1200 BC. Attempts to explain these abandonments have often focused on the occurrence of a social or environmental catastrophe, such as a war, flood, drought, or volcanic eruption, which directly affected the entire region. In some causes, these events can be documented (see Cameron 1991a:178–81). In general, however, I would argue that unicausal explanations can not account for the archaeological or paleoenvironmental data associated with most regional abandonments. This is principally because the landscapes that prehistoric communities inhabited were rarely so environmentally uniform or sociopolitically integrated that one catastrophic event would have affected an entire region to the extent that all settlements in that region would have been abandoned. In the abandonment of a regional settlement system for which there is evidence of unequal access to raw materials, land, or power, or some degree of economic, territorial, or ideological domination, a more appropriate explanatory framework would recognize the possibility of different but interdependent abandonment mechanisms having taken place throughout a region.

Introduction

Since the pioneering work of Robert Ascher (1961, 1968), archaeologists have stressed the importance of studying archaeological formation processes for understanding human behavior in the past (Binford 1981a, 1981b; Schiffer 1972, 1976, 1983, 1987; Wood and Johnson 1978). A systematic understanding of archaeological formation processes provides the inferential bridge between static patterns of the archaeological record and dynamic patterns of ongoing behavior. This provides a method by which human behavior in the past can be inferred from the material patterns remaining from that behavior. At domestic sites, ignorance of archaeological formation processes has often limited the ability of archaeologists to make informed inferences concerning the activities represented by material patterning in and around house–floors (Lange and Rydberg 1972; Schiffer 1985; Stanislawski 1973). However, recent research on formation processes of domestic sites is beginning to provide the middle–range linkages needed to infer the processes responsible for the composition of domestic site assemblages (Siegal 1990; Deal 1985; Hayden and Cannon 1983, 1984; Lange and Rydberg 1972; Moore and Gasco 1990; Savelle 1984; Schiffer 1985, 1987; Stevenson 1991). Abandonment processes have been shown to be especially significant in the formation of archaeological assemblages at domestic sites (Bonnichsen 1973; Cameron 1991; Lange and Rydberg 1972; Longacre and Ayers 1968; Robbins 1973; Schiffer 1972, 1976; Stevenson 1982).

This study examines how processes of site abandonment affected material patterns at the site of La Concha, an abandoned single–family household compound in rural Mexico.