The architecture of Grasshopper Pueblo: Dynamics of form, function, and use of space in a prehistoric community

Abstract

Architecture can be an enigmatic class of material culture to understand archaeologically and a single approach to its analysis has defied archaeologists. This study views pueblos as analogous to organisms that are constantly developing and degenerating. The ability to draw behavioral inferences from the architecture of Grasshopper Pueblo (A.D. 1300-1400) is impacted not only by these everyday processes of growth and degeneration, but also by the activities of the different social or ethnic groups who were responsible for assembling the pueblo. Fortunately, this study benefits from a long and productive history of architectural research in the American Southwest and from a thirty-year excavation program at Grasshopper itself, which produced a large and representative sample of this complex architectural organism. This extensive sample insures reliable inferences about the growth and degeneration of Grasshopper Pueblo because it is representative of the parameters of time, space, and behavior at the site. This study reinforces previous work at Grasshopper and provides new insights into intrasite community dynamics that have implications for both Grasshopper research and for studies of architecture and community patterns at other southwestern pueblo sites.