Ornaments as socially valuable objects: Jewelry and identity in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds

• A comparative study of personal ornaments from Pueblo Bonito and Aztec Ruin.
• The past social values of objects are examined through a contextual approach.
• Ritual deposits and high-status interments from both sites contain similar ornaments.
• These similarities reveal continuities in identity and ritual practice over time.

This paper explores the relationship between identity and demographic reorganization through an examination of the extent to which Chacoan identity and practice, as demonstrated by the social values attributed to ornaments at Pueblo Bonito during the cultural florescence at Chaco Canyon (A.D. 900–1130), were maintained or transformed by the post-Chaco period inhabitants of Aztec’s West Ruin (A.D. 1140–1290s). The study includes the analysis of the large ornament assemblages from both of these sites, with an emphasis on identifying socially significant dimensions of physical variation through a contextual approach. Utilizing the concepts of value gradations, inalienability, and structured deposition, both similarities and differences in the social use and potential meaning of ornaments at the two sites are identified. Based on similarities in the attributes of ornaments associated with structured ritual deposits and high-status interments, it appears that the residents of Aztec Ruin continued to participate in at least some elements of the Chacoan ritual-ideological complex. I suggest that the depositional practices associated with these socially valuable goods served as citations or references to Chacoan cosmology and the powerful leaders and/or ancestors connected to Pueblo Bonito. Local leaders at Aztec Ruin may have used these references to legitimize their authority by affirming real or reconstructed historical links to Chaco Canyon.