Methodical and detailed excavation of room and feature fill at Homol'ovi I pueblo has allowed for the study of structure and feature closure and dedication practices. At least six reoccurring ash closure deposit types have been identified, and several can be tied to the renewal and re-use of features, structures, and pueblo space. Other ritual closure deposits serve to cover and seal off space, and based on the various colors of sediment, ash, and objects used in the creation of elaborately layered structure and feature fill, the deposits are suggestive of conservation efforts that are connected to traditional Hopi cosmology, color symbolism, and religious ideology. Still other ash closure deposits may have been an element of ritual purification. A large number of plants have prominent roles in traditional Hopi ritual practices. This study specifically explores the plant taxa that are present within the six reoccurring ash closure deposit types, and Hopi ethnography and recent collaborative efforts are used to draw inferences between past and the present plant uses. The closure deposits are compared amongst each other, as well as against non-ritual deposits in an attempt to define patterns of plant use and ritual behavior.

In this thesis, historic Hopi ethnographic data are employed to model ancestral Hopi agricultural land use through the lens of archaeological landscape theory. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of landmarks--loci of discrete interactions between humans and the land--within networked cultural landscapes, archaeological landscape theory provides a unique perspective from which to examine overlapping planes of historic and prehistoric land use.Drawing on ethnographic accounts, a model is constructed that integrates the physical, social organizational, ritual/ceremonial, and traditional history dimensions of historic Hopi agricultural land use. Durable material correlates of agricultural land use are proposed on the basis of ethnographic documentation. This holistic model is applied to archaeological data from the Homol'ovi Ruins State Park (HRSP), northeastern Arizona. The integrative model produced herein allows for the interpretation of relationships between archaeological features representing different land use behaviors and the conceptualization of linkages between landmarks in the ancestral Hopi agricultural landscape.

Major social and demographic changes occurred during the Pueblo IV Period (AD 1300-1600) in the American Southwest. Small scattered communities aggregated into large settlement centers with more complex social organization during this period. Mural paintings created at this time are dramatically different stylistically from murals created before the social and demographic shift. At Homol'ovi in northeastern Arizona, these mural changes were accompanied by changes in plastering behaviors, including the development of distinct pigment use patterns.The hypothesis of the present study is that the visual performance characteristics of Hopi wall decorations, such as pigment sources, wall plaster colors and mural painting motifs, were part of a complex communicative system that changed as social power relationships changed and new rituals were established to support and legitimize the new social organization.Using inexpensive optical plaster and mural analysis techniques and XRF analysis of pigment samples from the ancestral Hopi sites of Homol'ovi I, Homol'ovi II and Chevelon, this research demonstrates the significance of wall decorations as social and political indicators marking transitions that occurred during the Pueblo IV and contact periods.

The Homol'ovi region of northeastern Arizona was home to a dense prehistoric population with strong, archaeologically-visible ties to the Hopi Mesas. As an ancestral Hopi residential area, this region is an important part of the Hopi cultural landscape utilized contemporarily by Hopi people for religious and resource procurement purposes. However, while previous research indicates that the Cottonwood Wash drainage formed an important component of the Homol'ovi landscape, the archaeology of the wash and its adjacent uplands is poorly understood. This research adopts a two-pronged approach to assessing the efficacy of GIS analysis for interpreting the spatial distribution of archaeological sites within the Homol'ovi landscape. The deductive approach draws on principles of cultural landscape theory to construct a descriptive model of dimensions of Hopi land use on the basis of ethnographic documentation and Hopi traditional history. This model is applied to a database composed of survey data collected from the Cottonwood Wash vicinity and data from the Homol'ovi Research Program's survey of Homolovi State Park. The model is then operationalized through GIS analysis of site distributions, and the efficacy of the model for predicting the location of different types of prehistoric land use is evaluated. The second, inductive, approach examines site distribution relative to patterns of visibility and movement in the Homol'ovi region and identifies areas for the refinement of spatial data associated with shrines and petroglyphs in the region. On the basis of this two-pronged approach, a research strategy iteratively incorporating deductive and inductive analyses, coupled with the use of participatory approaches, is recommended for future research.