A History of Mobility in New Mexico: Mobile Landscapes and Persistent Places

by Lindsay M. Montgomery

Overview

A History of Mobility in New Mexico uses the often-enigmatic chipped stone assemblages of the Taos Plateau to chart patterns of historical mobility in northern New Mexico.

Drawing on evidence of spatial patterning and geochemical analyses of stone tools across archaeological landscapes, the book examines the distinctive mobile modalities of different human communities, documenting evolving logics of mobility—residential, logistical, pastoral, and settler colonial. In particular, it focuses on the diversity of ways that Indigenous peoples have used and moved across the Plateau landscape from deep time into the present. The analysis of Indigenous movement patterns is grounded in critical Indigenous philosophy, which applies core principles within Indigenous thought to the archaeological record in order to challenge conventional understandings of occupation, use, and abandonment.

Providing an Indigenizing approach to archaeological research and new evidence for the long-term use of specific landscape features, A History of Mobility in New Mexico presents an innovative approach to human-environment interaction for readers and scholars of North American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367348007
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/31/2021
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lindsay M. Montgomery is an assistant professor in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, USA. She is co-author of Objects of Survivance (2019), and has published in the Journal of Social Archeology, International Journal of Heritage Studies, American Indian Quarterly, and Advances in Archaeological Practice. Her research focuses on the ethnohistory of Indigenous people in the North American West, with particular emphasis on documenting interethnic interaction, settler colonialism, and cultural resiliency.

Table of Contents

List of figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

In search of songs 1

1 Place on the move 2

Part I Indigenizing the archaeology of mobility 23

In search of Indigenous futurism 25

2 Indigenous history 27

In search of the right words 47

3 A note on Indigenous style 49

In search of nomads 67

4 The messy work of mobile archaeology 69

Part II Persistent places on the Taos Plateau 83

In search of mobile places 85

5 Playa landscapes 86

In search of violence 130

6 Cerro de la Olla 133

In search of multivocality 154

7 Cerro del Yuta 156

A closing verse 179

8 Persistent places 180

Index 201