Population aggregation, community organization, and plaza-oriented pueblos in the American Southwest

Throughout the northern American Southwest, the Pueblo III and Early Pueblo IV periods (ca. AC 1150 to the mid-1300s) are characterized by regional population movements and aggregation into fewer and larger sties. In central new Mexico, their aggregated residential sites are characterized by their highly standardized organization, with linear roomblocks defining a square or rectangular central plaza. Excavations at a Pueblo III site (Kite Pueblo, LA-199) in the Salinas region of central new Mexico highlight the role of site layout, and of exterior space in particular, in the community re-organization that accompanied aggregation. Relatively widespread change in social strategies for group living and land use is expressed during this time by the standardization of site size and site layout. I suggest that the plaza-oriented pueblo was a strategy that ws important in the process of group definition and self-identification. Aggregation in central New Mexico during Pueblo III appears to represent a period of re-organization among an extant population, without substantial population immigration. A second period of aggregation, during the 15th century (Pueblo IV) may have involved a different process, with new groups arriving to join established pueblos.