| This thesis utilizes the concepts of enculturation, technological style and habitus, to investigate intrasite architectural variation and identity formation within the context of preliterate, small-scale societies, such as the ancestral pueblo settlement at Hummingbird Pueblo in New Mexico. The archaeological record of puebloan prehistory between the early 13th and early 15th centuries A.D. provides the geographical and chronological background for this research. This study presents a systematic analysis of the architectural details at Hummingbird Pueblo culminating with a reconstruction of the settlement patterns of diverse groups of builders within the Hummingbird community. The built environment is seen here as an expression of a larger cultural framework and as the product of individual builders' abilities through a series of design decisions. As an artifact, architecture is the product of technological choices driven by learned, culturally-specific conventions of construction that shape and condition space and its uses.;This study suggests that the diverse building practices at Hummingbird Pueblo are the result of local and incoming groups co-existing within separate sectors at the site. Variations in room construction traditions and practices can be construed as differences in technical choices between the groups who founded various parts of Hummingbird Pueblo. The technological traditions of the prehistoric builders at Hummingbird reveal their enculturated past and background because of the manufacturing choices they made. Highly visible architectural elements may be used to ascertain status and instill social memory. Low-visibility or internal architectural attributes, such as room form, foundation and wall construction, and floor treatments, do not possess the communicative potential of high visibility artifacts. They are not usually intended for use or viewing outside the occupying residential unit, and thus reflect the learning frameworks of the builders. By focusing on low-visibility individual elements of construction and their architectural details, we can identify how various groups created and altered specific architectural forms. Architectural details, therefore, provide clues about how various immigrant communities perceived and manipulated space at Hummingbird Pueblo.;Through a temporal and spatial assessment of excavated and surficial material, the settlement's reorganization and its occupation sequence were investigated concomitant with absolute tree-ring and radiocarbon dating. The available radiocarbon dates provided a broad temporal framework of building patterns and occupation at Hummingbird Pueblo. The site was used during the very early times of the 12th and into the early 13th century at places where the subsequent plazas were to form, followed by a first occupation wave of rapid building during the late 13th to early 14th centuries that created most of the visible configuration of five roomblocks and three formal plazas. Rooms were consequently built, used, abandoned, and reused in new configurations in a cycle of transformation and new social settings. Construction continuities or discontinuities are evaluated as providing a means by which to explore aspects of prehistoric cultural identity and organization of built environment. |
