Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 15, 2009). "Department of Anthropology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 534-572).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-227).

Taste--an appreciation for some things, a disdain for others--is usually understood by sociologists as playing a key role in struggles for position within closed, hierarchical status systems. Yet taste that reaches across cultural and social boundaries is a common phenomenon in a world of mobility and falling barriers to travel and access. This study argues that this expression of taste also has a political dimension, through an examination of the sponsorship of traditional Pueblo Indian pottery by Anglo newcomers to northern New Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. The organization that these newcomers founded, the Indian Arts Fund, played an important role in building a differentiated market for Pueblo pottery, supported by an increasingly complex body of knowledge and evaluation. This intervention into the market for pottery, and into the definition of Pueblo culture, served to insert the Indian Arts Fund's members into regional society, against the resistance of older, more established elites. A visible association with Pueblo pottery linked newcomers to the transformation of the regional economy by tourism, which had shifted the source of value in northern New Mexico from natural resources to the marketing of particularity and difference. An examination of the role of pottery production, and income from pottery, in Pueblo communities reveals that the relationship between pottery and Pueblo culture was more complex, and more tangential, than the image that was being constructed in the context of the market.

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2007. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references.

Project (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Anthropology. / "Spring 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-184).

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation explores the layering of colonial and imperial processes in the Northern Rio Grande region of North America from a material perspective. It investigates how different outside influences shaped the development of San Antonio del Embudo, a vecino land grant community, from the 18th to 20th centuries. Based on historical, archaeological, and anthropological research, the study traces the accumulation and impact of various processes on Embudo. It places particular emphasis on how vecino life responded to existing and emerging Indigenous political and economic dynamics and the impact of later American colonialism. The dissertation analyzes excavation data to track changing settlement patterns over time and examines ceramics found in excavation contexts to understand Embudo's role in the regional ceramic economy. Additionally, it draws on archival records and community knowledge to aid in archaeological interpretation. This work reveals the multifaceted social position of vecinos in the Northern Rio Grande. Vecinos have, at times, embodied Spanish colonial policies and aspirations. Yet they have also forged long-term relations with Pueblo nations, negotiated an ambivalent relationship to American settler colonialism, and developed distinct ways of dwelling in the region through centuries of navigating Spanish, American, and Indigenous influences.

No description available.

This study illustrates the importance of finding out whether painted ceramics represent the total repertoire of decorated artifacts that are expected to carry social information. Painted designs on pottery are the focus of study because (1) painted decoration has had great importance in Southwest archaeology for studying social interaction, cultural affiliation, and fine-grained chronology based on stylistic change, and (2) painted decoration is less constrained by technology and intended vessel function than other attributes, and is most free to vary for social or ideological reasons. Two assumptions underlying previous work on ceramic design "messaging" are examined. First, are ceramics the most important medium for carrying social information? Second, is ethnicity the kind of information they are most likely to carry? These questions are addressed in a case study from the American Southwest. Decorated pottery, baskets, textiles, figurines, and rock art from the seventh century Basketmaker III period occupation of rock shelters in the Prayer Rock District, northeastern Arizona are examined. Comparison of design structure and content across these different media reveals two decorative styles, one for the portable household artifacts and one for rock art. In this case, pottery does not carry the full range of potential social information signalled by applied designs. The contexts of these two decorative styles are suggested by considering aspects of artifact function, design visibility, spatial distribution of artifacts, rock art, and architecture, together with hypotheses about gender differentiation and community organization. It is concluded that for the Prayer Rock Basketmakers, pottery decoration may have carried messages that had more to do with gender than ethnicity.