Early Cultigens from Fresnal Shelter, Southeastern New Mexico

1996 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyn D. Tagg
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Mass Spectrometer ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Wood Charcoal ◽  
Early Agriculture ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Desert Regions

Fresnal Shelter is one of few known preceramic sites in southern New Mexico with evidence of early agriculture. Recent tandem accelerating mass spectrometer (TAMS) radiocarbon determinations on corn and bean samples indicate that cultigens were used at this site as early as 2945 ± 55 B.P. In addition to providing more evidence of Late Archaic agriculture in the desert regions of the American Southwest, these new data and other previously unpublished radiocarbon dates from the site also illustrate the problem of relying on wood charcoal dates in association with cultigens to determine the age of early agriculture.

Evaluating the Old Wood Problem in a Temperate Climate: A Fort Ancient Case Study

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (04) ◽  
pp. 763-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Cook ◽  
Aaron R. Comstock
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Wood Charcoal ◽  
Arid Climate ◽  
Temperate Climate ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Eastern Woodlands ◽  
Fort Ancient

Abstract Schiffer (1986) first identified the old wood problem for wood charcoal-based dates from archaeological contexts in the American Southwest. The potential for dates to be skewed toward excessively old calendar ages in this region has recently generated reticence in part of the archaeological community towards including wood charcoal dates in general. Some scholars have even begun to cleanse the radiocarbon databases of regions throughout North America, partly with this presumed limitation in mind. However, the issues that contribute to the old wood problem have not been closely examined outside the arid climate of the American Southwest, resulting in some studies excluding hundreds of radiocarbon dates. The present study fills that void by examining the radiocarbon record from four well-dated Fort Ancient sites in southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana. Specifically, we test whether or not there are significant differences between wood charcoal and non-wood charcoal assays. Our findings suggest that wood charcoal dates should not be excluded. We explore reasons for this difference in the Eastern Woodlands and propose an ideal dating regime.

New Evidence for the Early Use of Cultigens in the American Southwest

1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan H. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Early Use ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
New Evidence

Recent excavations near Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico have yielded evidence for the use of cultigens by the early second millennium B.C. and continuing into the first millennium B.C. This information comes from four sites, all of which have been radiocarbon dated. The evidence for the oldest use of a cultigen, maize, is in the form of pollen; however, macrobotanical specimens of maize or squash were also recovered from sites dating to the Late Archaic. These data are summarized, as are their significance and implications.

scholarly journals Quantification of Elemental Contaminants in Unregulated Water across Western Navajo Nation

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (15) ◽  
pp. 2727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Credo ◽  
Jaclyn Torkelson ◽  
Tommy Rock ◽  
Jani C. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Hard Rock ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Navajo Nation ◽  
Hard Rock Mining ◽  
Rock Mining ◽  
American Nation

The geologic profile of the western United States lends itself to naturally elevated levels of arsenic and uranium in groundwater and can be exacerbated by mining enterprises. The Navajo Nation, located in the American Southwest, is the largest contiguous Native American Nation and has over a 100-year legacy of hard rock mining. This study has two objectives, quantify the arsenic and uranium concentrations in water systems in the Arizona and Utah side of the Navajo Nation compared to the New Mexico side and to determine if there are other elements of concern. Between 2014 and 2017, 294 water samples were collected across the Arizona and Utah side of the Navajo Nation and analyzed for 21 elements. Of these, 14 elements had at least one instance of a concentration greater than a national regulatory limit, and six of these (V, Ca, As, Mn, Li, and U) had the highest incidence of exceedances and were of concern to various communities on the Navajo Nation. Our findings are similar to other studies conducted in Arizona and on the Navajo Nation and demonstrate that other elements may be a concern for public health beyond arsenic and uranium.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PROTO-TEWA SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE: MAKING THE CASE FOR FLOODPLAIN FARMING IN THE OHKAY OWINGEH HOMELAND, NEW MEXICO

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Sunday Eiselt ◽  
J. Andrew Darling ◽  
Samuel Duwe ◽  
Mark Willis ◽  
Chester Walker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Subsistence Agriculture ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Rio Chama ◽  
Land Farming ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

Previous research on agriculture in the American Southwest focuses overwhelmingly on archaeological survey methods to discern surface agricultural features, which, in combination with climatological, geological, and geographical variables, are used to create models about agricultural productivity in the past. However, with few exceptions, the role of floodplain irrigation and floodwater farming in ancestral Pueblo agriculture is generally downplayed in scholarly discourse. Using a variety of methods, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), satellite imagery, pedestrian survey, and supervised classification of remotely sensed imagery, we examine this issue through a consideration of how ancestral Ohkay Owingeh (Tewa) people solved the challenges of arid land farming in the lower Rio Chama watershed of New Mexico during the Classic period (A.D. 1350–1598). Based on acreage estimates, our results indicate that runoff and rainwater fields in terrace environments would have been insufficient to supply the nutritional needs of an ancestral Tewa population exceeding 10,000 individuals. Based on these observations, we present a case for the substantial role of subsistence agriculture in the floodplain of the Rio Chama and its associated tributaries.

The Persistence of Unfree Labor in the American Southwest

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-280
Author(s):  
William S Kiser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Northern Half ◽  
Unfree Labor ◽  
Debt Peonage

Abstract This article explores the continuities of forced labor in the Southwest, where peonage and the partido system lasted for more than a century after the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, and places it within the broader context of modern global slavery. Debt peonage and peasant sharecropping—known locally as the partido—are usually classified as two different forms of unfree labor, but in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Southwest they had much in common and were oftentimes mutually reinforcing. Through the legal and cultural intricacies of the partido system, thousands of landless Hispanos in the northern half of New Mexico and southern reaches of Colorado worked full-time in exchange for a small share of the annual wool harvest. Many of those same men became debt-bound to the tiny percentage of wealthy families who owned the sheep herds and grazing ranges. Through these means, partidarios (sheep renters) lost much if not all of their autonomy and became, to varying degrees depending on the disposition of their creditor and benefactor, debt peons.

Environment and Animal Procurement by the Mogollon of the Southwest

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian S. Shaffer ◽  
Christopher P. Schick
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Small Animal ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Food Regime ◽  
Resource Depression ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
Site Catchment ◽  
Human Predation

Prehistoric horticulturalists of the American Southwest relied on crop complexes for much of their vegetal diet, but also relied heavily on hunting and trapping. Permanent settlement by the Mogollon resulted in resource depression of larger animal taxa (primarily artiodactyls) in some areas that could not withstand sustained human predation. This resulted in the predation of smaller animals (primarily jackrabbits, cottontail rabbits, and rodents) that could withstand intensive predation. The extent to which small animal taxa were incorporated into the prehistoric food regime is closely tied to the inability of the site catchment environments to support viable populations of larger taxa capable of withstanding human predation. This scenario is exemplified by five Mogollon sites from western and southwestern New Mexico.

Territorial and Early Statehood Periods

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresita Majewski ◽  
Lauren E. Jelinek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Formative Time ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Trajectory

The archaeology of the territorial and early statehood periods (1850–1917) in the American Southwest was virtually terra incognita until the advent of government-mandated archaeology in the 1960s. Subsequent work has shown that historical archaeology has much to contribute to a fuller understanding of this dynamic and formative time in U.S. history. Historical-archaeological investigations have demonstrated that although the United States formally exerted control over Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico by the last half of the nineteenth century, the interactions among its Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican inhabitants strongly influenced the territory’s historical trajectory into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter provides a historic context and a selective overview of archaeological studies that relate to the key themes of shifting economies and cultural heterogeneity.

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