Wall foundation from Spanish-era prison building.

Government buildings, especially those with a relationship to punishment, are often intended as symbols of state power, thus helping to discipline and control populations. Comparatively monumental brick buildings like this in the Colonial city would have stood in stark contrast to the modest houses at the periphery of the town, many of French-style post-in-ground construction. While archaeological evidence of the monumental is often the most visible in the ground, small finds hint at the forms of everyday social life still at work behind those façades. At the Cabildo, excavators also recovered at least 20 sherds of Native American pottery, attesting to the continued ties between city residents and local indigenous peoples.