Abstract
The nature and degree of hierarchy in middle-range societies is a topic of recent interest to anthropologists and archaeologists. The use of ritual to add the weight of tradition to social and political authority is one way leaders in such societies might have reinforced their positions. In this dissertation, a multidisciplinary approach is taken to analyze prehispanic musical instruments, architecture, and imagery from the American Southwest to identify the social and physical contexts of ritual musical performance among the Ancestral Puebloans. The results show a correlation between elaboration of ritual and periods of increased social and political hierarchy, suggesting that authority figures in middle-range societies of the prehispanic Southwest manipulated aspects of ritual performance to further their political ends.
