With National Science Foundation support, MS Patricia Capone will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will examine the response of Native Americans in the U.S. Southwest to Spanish missionization which took place during the 17th century. Beginning in about 1630 the Spanish established a number of missions in this region with a goal both of converting Native Americans to Christianity and of integrating them into a Spanish economic system. Native Americans were forced to provide labor to the missions. While it is clear that missions did have a major effect on Native American lifeways, the nature and degree of change is less well understood. It is also not known how uniformly different Native American groups adapted. The goal of this research is to use locally produced ceramics to examine this issue. In the prehistoric Southwest and continuing into historic times ceramics were widely produced and traded over broad areas. Some decorated types were moved great distances and likely were produced by specialists in localized areas. Ceramics therefore provide insight into economic and trade organization as well as - more indirectly - into political and social structures. MS Capone will examine two Pueblos at Abo, New Mexico, and Awatovi, Arizona which are located at the Eastern and Western ends of the Pueblo region respectively. She will study the geology of each area to locate and characterize clay sources. She will then study ceramic materials from both sites by means of petrographic thin section analysis. On this basis she will be able to tie vessels to raw material source areas. She will also look as such factors as uniformity of production to determine the degree of craft specialization. Each site spans the pre-mission and mission periods and therefore MS Capone will be able to examine the issue of continuity and change. Preliminary work suggests that native Americans were more resistant to change by missionization than historic data suggests. This research is important because it will increase our understanding of how very different cultures interact with each other. It will shed new light on culture change and assist in the training of a promising young scientist.
