Population Aggregation in the Prehistoric American Southwest: A Selectionist Model

1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Leonard ◽  
Heidi E. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
The North ◽  
Population Aggregation ◽  
Population Dispersion ◽  
Production Labor ◽  
North American Southwest

The settlement practices of the prehistoric Anasazi of the North American Southwest exhibited shifts from the occupation of dispersed settlements to aggregated villages in many locales both concurrently and at different times. Explaining the nature and timing of these shifts has long been a focus of interest to researchers working in the Southwest. We present a model that outlines the relations among population growth, population dispersion and aggregation, regional abandonments, the nature of specialized systems of production, labor organization, climatic change, and the role of natural selection in producing evolutionary explanations. We offer the hypothesis that aggregation is the product of changes in the organization of corporate labor related to the stabilization of specialized strategies of resource production in response to changes in environmental conditions.

Population Aggregation in the Prehistoric North American Southwest

1996 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Kohler ◽  
Lynne Sebastian
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
North American ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Ancestral Puebloan ◽  
Population Aggregation ◽  
North American Southwest

We attempt to clarify the role of demographic factors (size, density, history, and trajectory) in aggregation in the ancestral Puebloan Southwest, which we found obscure in Leonard and Reed (1993). In addition, we question one of the case studies from Chaco Canyon that they used to support their model, and we suggest that data from the Mesa Verde region between A.D. 700 and 1300 argue against the generality of their explanation for aggregation.

Resource Specialization, Population Growth, and Agricultural Production in the American Southwest

1989 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Adaptive System ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Specific Adaptation ◽  
Resource Specialization ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism

The prehistoric period of the northern American Southwest is characterized by increased population, increased agricultural production, and regional depopulation. Most current models of evolutionary change that attempt to explain these phenomena are defined at the scale of "culture" or of a specific adaptation, e.g., "Anasazi adaptive system." I suggest that for most purposes these are not productive constructs, and that their application makes useful explanations difficult, if not impossible to formulate. As a further liability, these models ignore the role of natural selection as an explanatory mechanism, preferring instead to seek explanation through the premature application of the concept of adaptation. The application of a selectionist perspective, as opposed to the more popular adaptationist model, leads to the conclusion that the operation of natural selection favoring productive specialization accounts for the characteristics noted above for the prehistoric American Southwest.

Visiting the horned serpent’s home: A relational analysis of Paquimé as a pilgrimage site in the North American Southwest

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd L VanPool ◽  
Christine S VanPool
Keyword(s):  
American Southwest ◽  
Casas Grandes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Relational Perspective ◽  
Architectural Features ◽  
The Dead ◽  
North American Southwest ◽  
Insight Into

Paquimé, Chihuahua, was the ceremonial center of the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450) Casas Grandes world, and the focus of regional pilgrimages. We use a relational perspective to explore the connections that were created and expressed during the pilgrimage. We propose that Paquimé was considered a living city, and that pilgrims actively supported its vitality through offerings of marine shells and other symbolically important goods. A region-wide network of signal fires centered on Cerro de Moctezuma, a hill directly overlooking Paquimé, summoned pilgrims. Ritual negotiations also focused on the dead and may have included at least occasional human sacrifice. While the pilgrimages focused on water-related ritual, they also included community and elite competition as reflected in architectural features such as the ball courts. Central to the pilgrimage was negotiation with the horned serpent, a deity that controlled water and was associated with leadership throughout Mesoamerica and the Southwest. The horned serpent is the primary supernatural entity reflected at the site and in the pottery pilgrims took with them back to their communities. Thus, the pilgrimages were times when the Casas Grandes people created and transformed their relationships with each other, religious elites, the dead, the landscape, and the horned serpent. These relationships in turn are reflected across the region (e.g., the broad distribution of Ramos Polychrome). This case study consequently demonstrates the potential that the relational perspective presented throughout this issue has for providing insight into the archaeological record and the past social structures it reflects.

The Shaman-Priests of the Casas Grandes Region, Chihuahua, Mexico

2003 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine S. VanPool
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Political System ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Casas Grandes ◽  
The North ◽  
West Mexico ◽  
Spirit World ◽  
North American Southwest

The Casas Grandes culture flourished between two well-known regions: Mesoamerica and the North American Southwest. An analysis of Medio period (A.D. 1200-1450) pottery suggests that Paquimé, the center of the Casas Grandes world, was dominated by shaman-priests. The pottery includes images that document a “classic shamanic journey” between this world and the spirit world. These images can be connected to the leaders of Paquimé and to valuable objects from West Mexico, indicating that the Casas Grandes leadership had more in common with the Mesoamerican system of shaman-leaders than with the political system of the Pueblo world of the North American Southwest.

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