0036 - Pecos 2016 - Pecos Presentation: Landforms as Architecture

“Landforms as Architecture and the Appropriation of Place on Orayvi Wash, A.D. 550-800” by Kellam Throgmorton Binghamton University During a 2015 survey of Orayvi Wash, Arizona, two adjacent sequentially inhabited community centers were documented. The communities date between A.D. 550 and 800, the Basketmaker III and Pueblo I periods. The particularly unique aspect of these communities are the large buttes near the habitation area, which may have been seen as formalized ceremonial structures. On top of these landforms, post-and-adobe architecture was constructed, consequently manipulating the landscape into a power symbol. Consequently, we can see the creation of new power dynamics in early aggregated villages in this area.