Abstract
Archaeologists working in culture contact zones have devoted much of their attention to the ethnic component of cross-cultural relations, expecting that such interactions will lead to an exaggeration of ethnic differences and some of these differences will be detectable in the archaeological record. While this can be the case, ethnicity is never the only axis of social identification, and sometimes – especially in colonial or national frontiers – civic identity supersedes it as the more significant organizing principle of a population. This study of vecino identity, a civic identity that united a multi-ethnic population of New Mexican villagers during the late Spanish colonial period, serves as a reminder that diverse populations often came together as communities, and that membership within these communities could be equally or more important than affiliation with an ethnic group.
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