Seventeenth Century Metallurgy on the Spanish Colonial Frontier: Transformations of Technology, Value and Identity

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes archaeological features and materials related to metal production excavated from the early colonial component (1598-1680 AD) of the Pueblo of Paa-ko (LA 162), Bernalillo County, New Mexico. The dissertation characterizes the metallurgical technology employed at Paa-ko through the integration of archaeological, technological and ethnohistorical data in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the technology in terms of its material and social aspects. By integrating many scales of analysis, from site specific behavioral observations, to regional and global economic networks, the project investigates how economic, technical and social knowledge is communicated, contested, and transformed across the social and cultural boundaries present in early colonial communities. The dissertation addresses how the situated agency of indigenous practitioners incorporated within colonial industries, shapes such industries. It also explores the effects of such agency in the resulting technology at LA 162, and early Spanish colonial constructions of 'value' (of both an economic and social nature), more broadly.