Transilient Acts and Resilient Villages

Pueblo Community Persistence in the Northern Rio Grande

Michael A. Adler

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780816548842
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816548859
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

A powerful rethinking of resilience through the lens of Pueblo history, this work reveals how Tiwa communities in the Northern Rio Grande used culturally intentional strategies to adapt, transform, and endure across a millennium of change. Anthropologist Michael A. Adler introduces the concept of transilience—culturally intentional acts that address existential threats and enable transformation—as a framework for interpreting the long-term persistence of Tiwa communities.
 
Focusing on the Tiwa-speaking communities of Taos, Picuris, and Pot Creek Pueblos, Adler shows how social and ritual organization, architectural change, and sacred geographies were mobilized in response to disruption. He challenges conventional resilience theory, which emphasizes systemic stability, instead centering Indigenous agency, mobility, and sacred practice as key to understanding cultural endurance.
 
Grounded in decades of collaborative research with Pueblo communities, Transilient Acts and Resilient Villages is a vital contribution to southwestern archaeology. It offers a compelling model for how archaeology can respectfully engage with descendant communities and provides essential insights for scholars, students, and community members seeking to understand the complexities of cultural persistence in the face of change.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Resilience and Transilience
• 2. The Peopling of the Northern Rio Grande: Foundations of Resilience and Transilience
• 3. Who Lived Where, and When? Forensics of Settlement Data for the Taos Region
• 4. Dueling with Duality: Northern Rio Grande Pueblo Social Organization
• 5. Picuris Pueblo: Redefining Resilience through Identity
• 6. Picuris and Taos Social Organization
• 7. Burning Down the House: Modeling Fire Behavior in Surface Pueblo Architectural Contexts
• 8. Transilience at Picuris: Burial and Seclusion as Protection
• 9. Operationalizing Transilience Studies
• References Cited
• Index