Nan Ranch

The NAN Ranch Ruin The NAN Ranch Ruin Site is a Mimbre village located in Southwestern New Mexico along the Mimbres River, occupied continuously from c.a. AD 600 to 1140. Extensive excavations have occurred at the site in the 1920s and again in the 1970s and 1990s. The name comes from the ranch cattle brand, NAN, and was given by C.B. Cosgrove, who with his son Burt Jr. conducted the first excavations in 1926. Setting The NAN Ranch site is located in the Mimbres culture area, which is located in southwest New Mexico and adjoining areas. Sites of the culture are found along the upper Gila River, from Red Rock to the West Fork and across the Mimbres Mountains and Black Range to the western slopes of the Rio Grande Valley, from Radium Springs to the Palomas drainage. The landscape ranges from mountains that are up to 10,000 feet high to grasslands and plateaus that are 4000 feet high. The semiarid climate has average temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the southern region to 51 degrees Fahrenheit in the northern region. Rainfall varies according to elevation with an average of ten inches in the southern region and fourteen inches in the mountains. Local animals of use to prehistoric human populations, when the site was occupied, including: jackrabbits, cottontails, rats, mice, roadrunners, doves, hawks, and various reptiles. The animals found in the higher elevations included: bear, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, wolf, rattlesnake, golden eagle. Mimbres’ culture is characterized by ceramic bowls and vessels with red on white with later black on white with paintings of animals and humans as well as pictures of scrolls. Mimbres also had burial techniques characterized by ceremonies of termination and continuity . The pithouses at NAN Ranch occurred over three phases. At its largest late in its occupation the site was occupied a population of about 200 people. History of Excavation Margaret Hinton and the Hinton family invited Texas A&M University to conduct a field school from 1978 to 1989. Subsequent fieldwork in the 1970s, was conducted by University of New Mexico Mimbres Foundation directed by Steven LeBlanc. Chronology, technological organization, contextual analysis, and the role of symbolism and religion was a part of the “new archeology” approach that was conducted at NAN Ranch site during the 1970s. Texas A&M also conducted research at the site in 1978, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1996 with the volunteer assistance of graduate students and former staff members. The research resulted in the recognition of 116 rooms that is at the site. The NAN Ranch Mimbres Community The earliest structures at NAN Ranch were pithouses that appeared about A.D. 600 to 650, during the latter half of the Georgetown Phase. As time passed the structures became more complex due to a growth in community population and the need for greater food storage. Some of these structures were also used for ceremonial rituals. There was some evidence for clustered housing that indicates existence of nuclear and extended families. During the Georgetown Phase from 550 AD to 650 AD one structure was found with plastered adobe floors with a circular fire hearth with a cobble deflector. Pottery was also recovered from this room in the form of ceramic bowls. Subsequent occupation, during the San Francisco Phase dating A.D. 650 to 750, sub rectangular structures were used with plastered walls and floors and roofs supported by three main beams. These houses were used as storage and as sleeping areas in cold weather; most other while the activities were performed outside. The last phase at this site was the Three Circle Phase dating from A.D. 750 to 1010 and during the latter part of this phase from A.D. 900 to 1010 cobble stones used for aboveground houses and interior walls, and entryways changed. By this time the village had grown considerably and plazas as well as larger structures with clay-plastered floors and walls, used for ceremonial rituals, or kivas, were present. The community inhabitants may have prepared food in one room while living and sleeping in another room. The community consisted of one room to multi-room clusters suggesting small-scale domestic or household units. The NAN Ranch social order includes gender, labor organization, and the role of power that is displayed in the art and pottery. Artwork is the main indicator for the gender classifications in the Mimbre culture. Hair styles were a main indicator of male and female classifications in the art. Males are known to have three different types of hair styles in the artwork. One image shows the men with knotted hair weaving a basket. Facial paint is also shown as an indicator of gender. Farming, gathering, and fishing are the main activities of the males shown in ceramic artifacts found at the NAN Ranch site. There are clear indications of women because of the floating strings hanging down past the waist indicating the presence of an apron. There is also women shown pulling antelopes indicating their experience of hunting and gathering. The imagery of an apron with strings hanging down indicates that women were the makers of pottery, bowls, and vessels. Artwork shows evidence of women carrying the burden of hunting and gathering various animals and also child rearing. Yet there is little evidence of a trading network among these people during the time period of the NAN Ranch existence; the division of labor indicates prestige and status among the Mimbres people. An individual with several material possessions is to be thought of in high rank while others are of lower rank. Another aspect of the Mimbre social order is maintaining a social network and expanding these networks. The imagery found on ceramics at NAN Ranch Ruin has women often pictured alone while the men were always in groups. This suggests that men were usually in meetings and were more public than women, and their images were more common. On ceremonial imagery there were more men than women, which is assumed to signify the authority of men, the positions that they held, and the knowledge that they had. Four types of housing were found in the NAN Ranch Three Circle community: single household, lineage households, multihousehold units, and the overall NAN community. The single household had two to three rooms which held a nuclear family unit with a habitation room and a hearth. Single households contained burials of family members whom had lived in the house for many years underneath the occupied rooms, probably family members who had died near or at the house. Lineage household had multi-room structures plastered more than once with detailed ceremonial burials. Lineage households had two course thick cobble stone walls and roofs. Some of these types of houses were found in clusters indicating a formation of a courtyard or plaza. A multihousehold cluster is a grouping of corporate units that incorporated well defined architecture. These units include things like kivas, extended households, granaries, and civic-ceremonial rooms. The expansion of households at NAN Ranch was due to the growing complexity of the society. Evidence of this expansion was shown in items such as connected crawlways, tools, mutates, manos, and corrugated jars. The NAN community was finally constructed by this last phase of housing that integrated the single, lineage, and multihouseholds together. Mortuary customs went through many changes over time among the Mimbres. There were 222 human burials at NAN Ranch, all apparently interred with ceremonies. The males were always buried with jewelry while the females were buried with ceramics. NAN Ranch burials showed that 75 percent of pottery was initially used for cooking and preparing food but ultimately used for burial items . There was no evidence for ranking among people buried at the NAN Ranch. Some components of the diet of the people of NAN Ranch consisted of maize, common bean, squash, goosefeet, pigweed, sunflower, walnut, and pinon nuts. The people would store food items in a storage pit in the household. Whose size was determined by the size of the household. NAN Ranch people also stored their food in baskets, jars, arbors, and racks to dry. Other evidence of subsistence included: projectile points, broken and discarded food processing tools, animal bones, charred corn kernels, and cobs. As the society grew more complex the need for better irrigation systems became a central issue. The irrigation systems were thought to have been managed by family groups whose labor force was threatened by the growing economy. The irrigation systems included the use of canals, ditches, terraces, diversion dams, and check dams. The food processing tools that they used included manos, metates, and cooking pots. These processing tools were present during the San Francisco Phase and increased in incident during the Three Circle Phase because of the availability of maize. Each family apparently owned a single metate foods were prepared on the extensive family levels, on roofs, and in the courtyards at NAN Ranch. Another way the Mimbres stored their food was in food granaries, which first appeared in the Late Three Circle Phase in the late 900s. At NAN Ranch these granaries were found in places with thick adobe floors made of cobble stone, and vertical slabs placed on the inside and outside of houses. Granaries were used to store food such as corn, prickly pear cactus, grass pollen, pine, and Juniper. The inhabitants would have used granaries to keep the rodents away. Zooarcheological evidence was found at the NAN Ranch site suggesting that they hunted jackrabbits, rats, mice, gophers, and occasional deer and mountain sheep. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

References

1. ^ Fagan, Brian A. Ancient North America. Thames & Hudson. London: 2005. Print.
2. ^ Powell-Martini, Valli S. and Patricia A. Gilman. Mimbres Society. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson: 2006. Print.
3. ^ Shafer, Harry J. Mimbres Archaeology At The NAN Ranch Ruin. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque: 2003. Print.

External links

Mimbres Achaeology At the NAN Ranch Ruin- http://books.google.com/books?id=53hkYITSKhAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nan+ranch+archaeological+site&source=bl&ots=JBOmHh1UhB&sig=wCFTjNYP-4MANa6AuDUw0MIZM9M&hl=en&ei=qnmwTe2PNNG3twf09fHtCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nan%20ranch%20archaeological%20site&f=false