EARLY PUEBLO RESPONSES TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY: FARMING TRADITIONS, LAND TENURE, AND SOCIAL POWER IN THE EASTERN MESA VERDE REGION

Abstract

Maize agriculture is dependent on two primary environmental factors, precipitation and temperature. Throughout the Eastern Mesa Verde region, fluctuations of these factors dramatically influenced demographic shifts, land use patterns, and social and religious transformations of farming populations during several key points in prehistory. While many studies have looked at the influence climate played in the depopulation of the northern Southwest after A.D. 1000, the role that climate played in the late Basketmaker III through the Pueblo I period remains unclear. This article demonstrates how fluctuations in precipitation patterns interlaced with micro- and macro- regional temperature fluctuations may have pushed and pulled human settlement and subsistence patterns across the region. Specifically, we infer that preferences for certain types of farmlands dictated whether a community used alluvial fan verses dryland farming practices, with the variable success of each type determined by shifting climate patterns. We further investigate how dramatic responses to environmental stress, such as migration and massacres, may be the result of inherited social structures of land tenure and leadership, and that such responses persist in the Eastern Mesa Verde area throughout the Pueblo I period.

La agricultura de maíz depende de dos factores ambientales primarios: precipitación y temperatura. A lo largo de la región oriental de Mesa Verde las fluctuaciones de estos factores influyeron dramáticamente en cambios demográficos, patrones de uso de la tierra así como transformaciones sociales y religiosas en las poblaciones agrícolas durante varios momentos clave en la prehistoria. Mientras que varios estudios han tratado la influencia que tuvo el clima en el despoblamiento del norte del Suroeste después de 1000 D.C., el rol que el clima jugó en la parte tardía de Basketmaker III y a lo largo del periodo Pueblo I permanece poco claro. Este artículo demuestra cómo las fluctuaciones en los patrones de precipitación entrelazadas con fluctuaciones micro- y macro-regionales de temperatura pudieron haber afectado asentamientos humanos y patrones de subsistencia a lo largo de la región. Específicamente, inferimos que las preferencias por cierto tipo de tierras de cultivo definieron si una comunidad usaba prácticas de abanico aluvial en oposición a prácticas de cultivo en tierra seca. Además, investigamos como respuestas dramáticas a estrés ambiental, tales como migraciones y masacres, pudieron haber sido el resultado de estructuras sociales heredadas respecto a la tenencia de la tierra y liderazgo, y que tales respuestas persistieron en el área oriental de Mesa verde a lo largo de periodo Pueblo I

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks are due to our colleagues in the Upper and Middle San Juan regions who have contributed such a huge body of research over many years. Winston Hurst, Mark Varien, and Ruth Van Dyke contributed helpful comments on our initial SAA presentation as discussants, which guided the direction of the larger study presented here. Tim Kohler and an anonymous reviewer provided many helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. James Potter, Rich Wilshusen, and Jason Chuipka's recent work in the Eastern Mesa Verde Region has contributed greatly to the body of knowledge we draw upon here. Potter's support of our initial research in the Durango area 10 years ago gave us the vantage point from which to see into the greater San Juan Basin. Scott Ortman also deserves special thanks for pushing us to look beyond warm/dry and wet/cold to look at Ancestral Puebloan cultural responses to climatic change on a larger social level.