A woman's work is never done: Changing labor at Grasshopper Pueblo

Abstract

After being a dominant decorated ware in the northern Southwest for centuries, Cibola White Ware ceased to be produced in the Grasshopper region of Arizona within a single generation, sometime between A.D. 1300--1325. The demise of Cibola White Ware and the increase in locally-produced Roosevelt and Grasshopper red wares coincided with the transition to full dependence on agriculture in this region. This study draws on feminist theory, theories of technological change, and an extremely robust archaeological record to construct an explanatory model of this ceramic transition by exploring one critical feature of the context in which it occurred: the labor of Grasshopper women. The model proposes that Roosevelt and Grasshopper red ware pottery were less labor-intensive than Cibola White Ware pottery to produce and that their adoption was related to women's scheduling constraints associated with the rapid transition to agriculture.