New Research on Ancestral Pueblo Plazas Published in American Antiquity

Dr. Kelsey Hanson (PhD 2024, now at University of Texas at Arlington), Kathleen Barvick (current PhD candidate), Rebecca Harkness (current PhD candidate), Dr. Evan Giomi (PhD 2022), Scott Ortman, and Dr. Barbara Mills (UA) have published a new open access article in American Antiquity titled, "From Exclusive to Inclusive: The Changing Role of Plaza Spaces in the Ancestral Pueblo World." The authors chart changes in settlement size, plaza size, and plaza accessibility through time, demonstrating a shift from smaller, exclusive spaces to larger, more inclusive community centers through time. The authors not only relied upon existing data from the cyberSW database (www.cybersw.org) but also generated and contributed a significant new dataset on plaza size and accessibility, providing a valuable resource for future researchers.

Read more here.