An Exploration of the Relationship between Mobility and Sedentism in the American Southwest and Mesoamerica
In Anthropology a false notion occurs in that hunters and gatherers are mobile and agriculturalists are sedentary. There are many examples of Native North American tribes and cultures that exhibit mobile agriculturalism, opposing early archaeological preconcieved notions of a unilineal settlement continuum from mobile to sedentary. The model from mobile hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture should be thought of as a universal, variable and mutil-dimensional phenomenon. The American Southwestern culture of the Hopi and the Mesoamerican culture of the Raramuri are two fascinating examples of the incorporation of both mobility and sedentism as subsistence strategies.The concept of mobility must be thought of in terms of being a property of individuals who may move in many different ways: alone or in groups, frequently or infrequently, over short or long distances, daily, seasonaly or annually (Kelly). Binford differentiated between residential mobility, movements of the entire band or local group from one camp to another, and logistical mobility, foraging movements of individuals or small task groups out from and back to the residential camp (Binford). Binford later on added another dimensio
They engage in four types of residential mobility; growing season mobility, winter mobility, wage-labor mobility, and ceremonial mobility. Archaeologists who are studying the American Southwest are reevaluating the concept of sedentism, and may think that the agriculturalists, who occupied the pueblo villages and lived in the pithouses, were much more mobile than previously thought of (Kelly, Fish and Fish). "Villages may have been permanent over many years, occupied year round for a few years, occupied seasonally, reoccupied at intervals in either of the two preceding cases, or may have encompassed different mobility patterns among member households" (Fish and Fish 93). Bibliography Literature Cited1. Fourth, during the winter and spring, Rejogochi households spend a few days and sometimes weeks attending fiestas in Basihuare, where the administrative center and the church for the pueblo are located. The Raramuri's most important motivatin for winter mobility is whether they are caring for sheep and goats during this time of the year. Third, entire households sometimes relocate temporarily to work for wages outside of the Rejogochi community. Mobility must be looked at as both behavioal and cultural, "in that cultural conceptions of the environment affect the way a locality is treated" (Kelly 45). In some instances one household owned as many as ten different fields that were scattered in different areas of the valley with houses built adjacent to several of them.
Common topics in this essay:
Hard Merrill,
December February,
Grande Pueblos,
Mexico Raramuri,
Binford Lastly,
Pearl Beaglehole,
AMERICAN SOUTHWEST,
Southwest Mesoamerica,
SEDENTISM Sedentism,
Fish Historically,
logistical mobility,
growing season,
sheep goats,
hard merrill,
residential mobility,
hopi economic life,
hopi economic,
economic life,
wild plants,
mobility sedentism,
mobility growing,
mobility growing season,
economic life based,
annual review anthropology,
residential logistical mobility,
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Acceptance Essays
