ABSTRACT
In the very specific context of southwestern archaeology, "sedentism" and "aggregation" have meanings that reflect our conceptions of Pueblo prehistory, particularly archaeologists ideas about Pueblo II and Pueblo III. The Pueblos represent a kind of acme of sedentism; Acoma is currently claiming the honor of the oldest town in North America. Confirming evidence for deep sedentism came with the dating revolution, the development of dendrochronology in the early 1930s. As Rafferty, in a review of sedentism in archaeology, pointed out, aggregation and sedentism are oddly intertwined; big sites are automatically seen as sedentary sites-and nowhere is this more evident that in southwestern archeology. The idea of aggregation was critical, in a cultural-historical sense, to the concept of Puebloan deep sedentism. The "gathering clans" notion of Pueblo III was tied into a perceived prehistory, leading by evolutionary stages to the modern pueblos.
