Trade in molluskan religiofauna between the southwestern United States and southern California
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Date
2002-06
Authors
Smith, William Hoyt, 1949-
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This dissertation describes prehistoric trade between Native American groups of the North American Southwest and southern California. Archaeologic and ethnographic sources have been used to create a major new quantitative database on the Southwest-southern California trade. I draw on this data base to characterize the routes and intensity of exchange, as well as the specific objects involved in native trade networks.
Artifacts made of Olivella and Haliotis shells were traded eastward from the southern California Channel Islands into the Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam regions of the Southwest in south Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. This trade spanned nearly a thousand years, with a major temporal watershed at about AD 900. This research documents trends in the intensity of the trade along with changes in the importance of various trading centers over time. The research stresses the particular importance of an west-east route into the Southwest from southern California, and of a south-north route between Hohokam and Anasazi areas of the Southwest.
In exploring motivational factors I address the importance of trade to the maintenance of social elites in the two regions, the importance of cosmological ideas in motivating trade, and the role of marine faunal species and ritualization in the process of defining what was valued and traded.
Description
xxvi, 421 p. : ill., maps. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT E78.S7 S52 2002
Keywords
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Antiquities, Indians of North America -- Commerce -- Southwest, New, Commerce, Prehistoric -- Southwest, New, Shells -- Social aspects -- Southwest, New, Religious articles -- Southwest, New, Southwest, New -- Antiquities