Life's pathways: Geographic metaphors in ancestral puebloan material culture

Recognizing the cultural importance of metaphors helps archaeologists and art historians understand how shared ideas facilitate interaction among social groups, past and present. Metaphors describe one thing in terms of another. We usually think of metaphors as verbal expression, but visual metaphors are just as frequent and important and are sometimes amenable to archaeological analysis. Particular expressions and contexts of metaphors should help us trace migration, pilgrimage, and the spread of religious systems across time and space. Metaphors may also provide evidence for transformations and innovations in ritual practice, iconography, and graphic expression in particular times and places.