Dispersed Centrality: A Ceremonial Organization Underpinning Hohokam Platform Mound Ceremonialism

Abstract

Monumental architecture, in the form of ballcourts and platform mounds, has dominated discussions of Ancestral O’Odham (Hohokam) ceremonialism. As conceptualized within the literature, ritual and ceremonialism progressed from the household to the community at ballcourts and then centralized at elite-controlled platform mounds. In this article, I explore Ancestral O’Odham ceremonialism through ritual items and spaces. Beginning with the Casa Grande community and then the village of AZ U:9:56 (ASM), I explore settlement patterns and the distribution of ritual objects in relation to platform mounds to understand where ceremonies may have occurred. As discussed, the presence of multiple locations of ceremonial importance suggests that ritual authority was unlikely linked to a single individual or household. Instead, ceremonialism and ritual were likely carried out in multiple places, a “dispersed centrality,” as it is defined here, by different types of leaders.