Architecture as Artifact—Part II: A Comment on Gilman

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Abstract
Can architecture be treated as an artifact worthy of archaeological analysis? This is a key question that remains unanswered in Gilman's (1987) article on southwestern pit structures and pueblos. The majority of Gilman's article is a cross-cultural ethnographic overview of pit-structure and pueblo use. Gilman takes such a "big-picture" approach that when she finally presents her archaeological data it is insufficient to test her model of architectural change. More importantly, by disregarding temporal changes in prehistoric southwestern pit-structure and pueblo designs, Gilman fails to realize that pit structures and pueblos are architecturally related phenomena during the transition period that is the focus of her research. Pit structures, rather than being independent of pueblos, actually provide the construction dirt with which many of the first pueblos are built.

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