Mimbres painted pottery from the U.S. Southwest is renowned for its spectacular designs. Literature on style and identity suggests three concepts helpful for understanding its social significance: boundaries, multiple dimensions of variation, and historical context. This article investigates these concepts by synthesizing past studies with new analyses. The distribution of Mimbres pottery is strongly bounded, demonstrated with data from the cyberSW project. Variation in designs is multidimensional: (1) individual artists created distinctive styles; (2) specific designs are distributed homogeneously across the region, a conclusion demonstrated in part with new analyses of the geometric designs; and (3) pan-regionally, the designs’ content, regular structure, and appearance on multiple media suggest they were meaning-charged. Considering these findings in their historical context provides insights into the pottery's social significance and elaboration: population growth in the resource-rich Mimbres region engendered land tenure systems, marked in part by burials that included pottery. The pottery came to convey the message “I belong here” from two perspectives. By adopting the pottery, people, including migrants, signaled their acceptance of established ways of life in the region, and their access to the pottery indicated their acceptance in the social milieu.

中文翻译：

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Mimbres彩绘陶器在美国西南部的社会意义

来自美国西南部的 Mimbres 彩绘陶器以其壮观的设计而闻名。关于风格和身份的文献提出了有助于理解其社会意义的三个概念：边界、多维变异和历史背景。本文通过将过去的研究与新的分析相结合来研究这些概念。Mimbres 陶器的分布有很强的界限，来自 Cyber​​SW 项目的数据证明了这一点。设计的变化是多维的：（1）个别艺术家创造出独特的风格；(2) 特定的设计在整个地区均匀分布，这一结论部分通过对几何设计的新分析得到证明；(3) 从泛区域来看，设计的内容、规则的结构和在多个媒体上的出现表明它们是有意义的。在历史背景下考虑这些发现，可以深入了解陶器的社会意义和详细说明：资源丰富的 Mimbres 地区的人口增长产生了土地保有权制度，部分以包括陶器在内的墓葬为标志。陶器从两个角度传达了“我属于这里”的信息。通过采用陶器，包括移民在内的人们表明他们接受了该地区既定的生活方式，他们获得陶器表明他们接受了社会环境。陶器从两个角度传达了“我属于这里”的信息。通过采用陶器，包括移民在内的人们表明他们接受了该地区既定的生活方式，他们获得陶器表明他们接受了社会环境。陶器从两个角度传达了“我属于这里”的信息。通过采用陶器，包括移民在内的人们表明他们接受了该地区既定的生活方式，他们获得陶器表明他们接受了社会环境。