Jeddito Yellow Ware and Hopi Social Networks

Hopi villages played important roles in the precontact and contact periods in the American Southwest, but analysis has largely focused on their occupants’ longdistance contacts with non-Hopi populations. Relatively little direct archaeological evidence has been mustered to document intervillage relationships on the Hopi Mesas. The lack of attention to intervillage dynamics risks encouraging an overly homogeneous view of Hopi as a sociopolitical or ethnic entity. This study employs compositional analysis of Jeddito Yellow Ware pottery to track the local movement of pottery among Hopi villages and thus map patterns of interaction among them. The circulation of pottery is found to differ over time and by ceramic type, with bichromes moving within mesas and polychromes more often between mesas. Prior to Spanish contact, the Hopi settlement cluster contained a number of localized social networks rather than a single, all-encompassing network.