Exploring The Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape: An Archaeological Study of (Peri)Colonial Navajo Pastoralism from the 18th to 21st Centuries AD

Abstract

How did Indigenous communities negotiate the introduction of new animal species and associated economic practices in colonial contexts? Attempts to answer this question in the American Southwest have focused largely on the adoption of Old World animal domesticates by subjugated Native communities during the Spanish colonial period. At the same time, however, contemporaneous pastoral traditions also developed in unconquered Indigenous communities beyond the colonial frontier, spurring their own processes of “pericolonial” social change (Acabado et al. 2017). Although the non-coercive adoption of sheep and subsequent rise of intensive pastoralism among Diné (Navajo) groups on the edge of Spanish New Mexico in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represents a particularly notable example of this process, previous studies have overwhelmingly focused on the dynamic nature of Navajo herding during the later reservation era (AD 1868-present).

This dissertation presents the findings of the Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project (ENPLP), the first sustained archaeological investigation into incipient Navajo pastoralism during the Spanish colonial period. In keeping with traditional Diné attitudes that discourage the disturbance of archaeological sites, the ENPLP avoided excavation-dependent faunal analyses in favor of a minimally invasive, multi-scalar “pastoral landscape” approach consisting of a series of analyses designed to winnow out those early Navajo sites in Dinétah unlikely to possess the potential remains of corral or pen-type enclosures. Specifically, the ENPLP findings demonstrate that a low-impact methodology melding experiential ethnoarchaeology, geospatial modeling, and an assortment of archaeological field and lab techniques (including geochemical and microremains analyses) enables the evaluation of an array of questions regarding Navajo pastoral practices and their roles in Diné society throughout history. In particular, the ethnoarchaeological findings highlight potential connections between contemporary and historic Diné herding practices, while the microremains analysis shows that fecal spherulites are present in soil samples from later Gobernador Phase (AD 1625-1750) Diné sites, strengthening the argument that a landscape-based approach offers an effective tool for studying the long-term development of pericolonial pastoral traditions in the American Southwest.