I'm working on the supposed mission mound of an early colonial pueblo (Tzelaqui, aka Sevilleta) in south-central New Mexico. The wall foundations were built in a curious mix of adobe, rocks, and pebbles. Groundstone (manos/metates/comales) and groundstone fragments occur frequently in these foundations, to the extent of ca. 3 pieces per meter of wall length (30 cm av. width).
It seems as if in constructing this room block, the builders were scouring the adjacent pueblo (which had been temporarily abandoned) for suitable building materials, including groundstone. The pattern contrasts sharply with that observed at a nearby pueblo (Teypana, aka Plaza Montoya), at which not a single piece of groundstone was found embedded in walls (there is a map of that site on my profile). The specific historical contexts for both pueblos can be generally reconstructed and differ substantially.
Now I'm wondering if there are other instances, preferably quantified and with good dating context, of extensive groundstone reuse during the reoccupation of previously abandoned pueblos. Thanks to anyone who may be able to shed some light on this.
Michael,
I'm not sure how helpful this information will be, but my work with N.C. Nelson's Galisteo Basin notes and collections indicate that groundstone and structural wood were regularly curated and recycled in the Mission period roomblocks at San Cristobal (LA80) and other mission sites. I do not have good quantitative data on how often groundstone is incorporated into masonry, but I have seen it at Paa'ko 9LA 162) as well as in Nelson's data. The work is documented in Chapter 9 of my dissertation (available online from Proquest:
Archaeological Implications Of European Contact: Demography, Settlement, And Land Use In The Middle Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, UNM 1995.
I believe there is also some ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological work on recycling of groundstone that I probably cited in that chapter.
Michael,
Speaking from well outside your area, I've seen instances of just about any kind of rock (sculptures, drain stones, ballcourt markers, and so forth) recycled in later platform facings and wall foundations in NW Honduras (mostly dating to the 7th-10th centuries AD). Metates are also used this way but rarely and apparently serendipitously. I know of no quantitative data on such reuse nor can I recall references to the practice.
Best of luck in your research.
Ed
This practice is also fairly common in the Red Mesa Valley area of northwestern NM where I've been working. These are mostly PII "Prudden unit" household-size structures, rather than the aggregated pueblos from later times. So it seems like a long-lived practice in the Puebloan world.
Working with small Sinagua pueblos near Flagstaff AZ we often find metates reused as wall stone. Some appear to be intentionally broken as it is difficult to imagine accidentally smashing a good solid thick metate. Not necessarily salvaged from other sites, but perhaps from long and intermittent use of same site. If you break a metate, that is a very expensive bit of wall stone, and probably meaningful.
We have not tried to quantify, but now that you suggest it, sounds like a good idea.
And you have probably seen just out Duwe et al Pueblo Decomposition Model for quantifying architectural rubble to estimate population size in JAR
Also not your area, but we see a lot of recycled field stone from the Middle Bronze Age used for new foundation construction during the Iron Age at Tall el-Hammam in Jordan. We also find socket stones and broken grinders embedded in the foundations. They used air-dried mud brick for the superstructures of the buildings from the Chalcolithic Period through the Iron Age.
Lots of groundstone used in house construction as Zapotecs in the Valley of Oaxaca added on rooms, patched walls during occupancy as well as abandonment. I would have to say they used groundstone manos and metates wherever and whenever they could. I have seen these artifacts in water diversion walls in the piedmont in the Tlacolula Valley as well as part of house construction. In the village that I worked in (San Sebastian Teticpac) present day stonecutters construct manos and metates to make money and told me that they use these objects to patch walls, as cemetery markers and in their fields.
Thanks everyone for your comments on this issue. I'm taking away a few things from the answers. First, use of groundstone in construction was apparently a widespread practice (and why not), not just in the Americas but also the Near East. I don't know what kind of material and intangible (spiritual?) value Bronze Age (or even recent) farmers in Jordan placed on their grinding stone, but would be interested if there is any info on this.
Christine, is there any information on what immaterial value the Zapotecas are placing on groundstone today? From you comment, it seems to me they use it fairly indiscriminately. I'd assume manos/metates used as ditch liners, field markers and such are mostly too exhausted to have much grinding life left - at least I'd assume this from the Pueblo sites that I have been working, with the striking exception of the one (Sevilleta/Tzelaqui Pueblo) that prompted me to pose this question here in the first place.
Second, there don't seem to be any quantification studies of the occurrence of groundstone in structures - at least none that I'm aware of. Again, I didn't really think much about quantification until encountering a structural component, the mission mound (I) at Sevilleta Pueblo (which btw no longer looks like a mission mound but rather like a roomblock built for "outsiders" in a reduccion context during the late 1620s) with a frequency of structural placement of (i.e. useable) groundstone totally unlike that at a nearby site (Teypana Pueblo).
It will be interesting to see if testing in the other mounds at Sevilleta will reveal a distribution similar to the Mound I walls or a a pattern more consistent with Teypana Pueblo, or, the spirits forbid, something else entirely.
Thanks again, Michael
Michael,
I worked in a stonecutter village (San Sebastian Teiticpac) in the Valley of Oaxaca, so maybe because many the campesinos are stonecutters, they use manos and metates indiscriminately. That is to say, they can afford to because they have a lot of debitage laying around their contemporary house sites. They rappel down the side of several local mountains, bang out blanks to bring back to their homes via donkey or trucks if they can get them in to narrow spaces; and then debitage seems to accumulate around their homes. In addition, they might make a mistake if the stone doesn't fracture correctly and those pieces (I would call debitage) can be used accordingly. Have you inteviewed any stonecutters in villages where manos and metates are made?
However, I have seen manos and metates used for lots of reconstruction in their contemporary homes. This occurred in homes of folks who weren't stonecutters as well. In other words, everyone uses this artifact set to repair walls in houses, water diversion walls, cemetery markers etc. I think they use this artifact set like I use duct tape.
Michael,Try to check out Tammy Stone ASU (I think). She has worked extensively on manos and metates in the SW.
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