Historical transformations of kinship terminologies occupy the central position in kinship studies within sociological as well as cognitive-linguistic theories. They are pertinent to both cultural anthropologists and archaeologists, specifically in the context of the ostensibly sharp line of separation between Western Pueblo pluralism and Eastern Pueblo dualism critically re-evaluated by Whiteley. The terminological merging of the first ascending and the first descending generations, known as ‘alternate generation equations’ (GP = GCh grandparent = grandchild), can be explained in the Tewa kinship terminology as an indication of an emerging descriptive terminology out of an older stratum of a classificatory system preserved in traces of crossness and possibly symmetrical marriage exchange.