Lithic raw material procurement and the social landscape in the central Mesa Verde region, A.D. 600--1300

This dissertation explores social interactions by investigating procurement patterns of lithic raw materials to make inferences concerning territoriality in the central Mesa Verde region. It investigates a central question: What do lithic raw material procurement patterns indicate about territoriality and interactions from A.D. 600 to 1280s?;In this research, the costs of traveling from each habitation to the nearest quarry to obtain the several raw materials used are summed in order to understand how inhabitants expended energy in procuring these raw materials across space and through time. I also examine the way in which the proportions of each material used relates to cost-distances for procurement, across space and through time. The results of these two analyses suggest that the ancestral Mesa Verde Puebloans probably developed restricted territories during the early Pueblo III period (A.D. 1140--1225).;The results of this analysis are also compared with expectations from three models---Dyson-Hudson and Smith's economic defensibility model; modified resource predictability and productivity model, controlling for population size; and the naïve-cultural evolutionary model. None of the three models fully explains the development of territoriality in this region over time seen in the lithic data. This research, however, suggests that considering socio-political organization is crucial for understanding behaviors of the ancestral Puebloans.;The central Mesa Verde population began to emigrate from the region to Rio Grande areas in New Mexico during the A.D. 1200s, possibly to reduce tensions in sociopolitical organization. Since the ancestral Puebloans diffused competitive modes through emigration, I claim that their emigration was not an indication of failure, but rather an adaptive success in human history. This research suggests that we can learn from how the ancestral Puebloans sustained and maintained their cultures and lifeways by investigating their histories.