Constructing a borderlands in the ancient international four corners: Settlement layout, architecture, and mortuary practices in thirteenth through fifteenth century CE villages along the contemporary united states-Mexico border

Abstract

Archaeological interpretations for the seemingly sudden introduction of new types of material culture or cultural practice often include attribution to the arrival of a migrant population as part the construction of a periphery or frontier zone. In the International Four Corners area of the American Southwest/Mexican Northwest, archaeologists often correlate the ascendancy of Paquimé in the late thirteenth century CE with the development of a northern periphery in southwestern New Mexico. Simultaneously, sites in far southeastern Arizona became partially integrated into the Salado phenomenon. I evaluate architecture, settlement, and mortuary data from 26 sites with respect to existing models. Given ongoing historian discourse regarding Indigenous borderlands during European colonization, I advocate a model enabling the occurrence of borderlands construction prior to colonization and lacking a predominate hierarchical society. I conclude that the inhabitants of the International Four Corners region situated themselves within multiple inter- and intra-regional zones of interaction and that existing models of frontiers and edge regions are inadequate to address the variability present, but that of the borderlands does as it recognizes relationships to adjacent culture cores as influential but also centers the local inhabitants and their agency.