Cosmological Expressions and Medicine Stones in the Ancestral Pueblo World

Chaco Canyon (850–1130 CE) served as the regional center for Ancestral Puebloan communities in the northern U.S. Southwest. Pueblo ethnographic traditions and the archaeological record demonstrate the importance of cosmological beliefs with origins at Chaco. We suggest archaeologists can develop more dynamic interpretations of how ancient peoples manifested conceptions of the cosmos by focusing greater attention to the temporality and semiotic properties of material culture. To illustrate this point, we argue that marine fossil shells, concretions, and water-worn pebbles were seen to be indexical of a past watery world at Chaco Canyon and elsewhere in the Ancestral Pueblo World. Perceived as traces of a primordial time and place that existed before cosmic emergences into the world, this class of artifacts called “medicine stones” evokes the essential element needed to sustain life for all Ancestral Puebloan people – water. Through the analysis of museum collections, ethnohistorical data, and creation narratives from Pueblo and other Native descendant groups, we present evidence that these medicine stones were interpreted in the past as manifestations of a pre-Pueblo cosmovision. As such, these artifacts were incorporated into a wide array of cultural contexts and media, and may have in part been associated with psychosocial healing practices.