Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin

Book excerpt: Following two decades of excavations and research at the NAN Ranch Ruin in southwestern New Mexico, Harry Shafer offers new information and interpretations of the rise and disappearance of the ancient Mimbres culture that thrived in the area from about A.D. 600 to 1140. The NAN Ranch site gives evidence of a fascinating restructuring of Mimbres culture and society, owing to the introduction of irrigation agriculture in the late ninth century. The social restructuring that accompanied this shift in technology resulted in changes that are visible in architecture, mortuary practices, and ceramic decoration. The NAN Ranch ruin has yielded the largest body of evidence ever gathered at a single Mimbres site and thus offers the clearest picture to date of who the ancient Mimbreños were in relation to their Anasazi and Hohokam neighbors to the north and east. Shafer introduces us to the Mimbres people, gives a history of archaeological research in the Mimbres Valley, and traces the occupation of the NAN Ranch site from pithouses to classic pueblo to abandonment. Social customs, subsistence, biological information, and the symbolism of the distinctive Mimbres designs in their ceramics, pottery, stone artifacts, textiles, and jewelry are all addressed in this comprehensive survey.