The Elk Ridge Community in the Mimbres Pueblo World

Abstract Elk Ridge was the largest pueblo in the northern Mimbres River Valley during the Classic Mimbres period. Data from the pueblo and surrounding sites indicate that it was the economic and ritual center of a larger community. Here, we use multiple lines of evidence—including survey data, ceramics, architecture, and faunal remains—to reconstruct the extent and structure of the Elk Ridge community. We see social interaction as the basis for community development, with (1) community members interacting to negotiate access to land, resources, and labor; and (2) communal rituals serving to reinforce cooperation and cohesion. The Elk Ridge community produced ceramics and raised turkeys that were traded to other Classic Mimbres communities, and these exchange networks created social ties between communities. Data from Elk Ridge also document interaction with non-Mimbres communities to the north, revealing a network of cultural interaction across the region. This study illustrates how landscape, location, kin relations, exchange networks, and ritual activities translate into a social community, similar to those we see throughout the US Southwest and elsewhere in the Neolithic world.