Communal Ritual and Faunal Remains: An Example from the Dolores Anasazi

Communal ritual has long been recognized as important to small-scale, sedentary societies. The identification of behaviors identified as ritual in the archaeological record of the American Southwest have been primarily limited to ceramic and architectural evidence. Faunal remains, in conjunction with ceramic and architectural remains, are argued to be an additional and complementary source of data on prehistoric communal ritual. Faunal remains from McPhee Village, a Pueblo I village site in the Four Corners region that has been argued to exhibit discrete ritual loci, are explored in an attempt to further document and characterize communal ritual behaviors. Two aspects of ritual are identified: communal feasting, and the use of fauna for ritual paraphernalia. In addition, the spatial distribution of the faunal remains identified as the remains of ritual suggests that within the McPhee community, communal ritual operated simultaneously as a force of social integration and of social distinction.