Occupation Histories of Four Postclassic Hamlets

From the moderate-sized Postclassic sites along Palomas drainage come the data that provide an understanding of Mimbres reorganization. The surface ceramics of the sites indicate occupation both before and after the mid-century depopulation of large villages. How these sites were occupied through this period provides the basis for examining how people in the Eastern Mimbres region moved and reorganized their lives. To answer the larger questions about the region, questions about site-level data need to be answered, because fine-grained information derived from excavation is the basis for examining reorganization and continuity. We must know whether the use of the sites was continuous, how site use changed over time, and how households were reorganized in the process. All of these questions require information on the timing of construction, remodeling, and abandonment. Toward these ends, I analyze the occupational history of the four sites that were introduced at the end of the previous chapter. Chronometric and relative dating procedures are applied to examine timing; architectural and artifactual details are employed to assess the continuity and organization of site occupation.