Mimbres Macaws and Other Parrots: Contemporary with Hohokam and Chaco Psittacine Birds, but Not the Same

Archaeological sites in many regions of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico (SW/NW) have featured macaws and other parrots, although such birds were not common. One might thus think that macaws and parrots were used in similar ways and had similar meanings throughout the area. As I will show here, this is not the case. Macaws and parrots from the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico, for example, contrast with the earlier Hohokam and the contemporary Chaco birds (figure 1.1. in Plog, Schwartz, and Gilman, this volume), suggesting that people before 1150 CE in di«erent parts of the SW/NW