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Although humans in the Southwest were hunter-gatherers for about 85 percent of their history, the majority of the archaeological research in the region has focused on the Formative period. In recent years, however, the amount of data on the Archaic period has grown exponentially due to the magnitude of cultural resource management projects in this region. The Archaic Southwest: Foragers in an Arid Land is the first volume to synthesize this new data. The book begins with a history of the Archaic in the Four Corners region, followed by a compilation and interpretation of paleoenvironmental data gathered in the American Southwest. The next twelve chapters, each written by a regional expert, provide a variety of current research perspectives. The final two chapters present broad syntheses of the Southwest: the first addresses the initial spread of maize cultivation and the second considers present and future research directions. The reader will be astounded by the amount of research that has been conducted and how all this information can be woven together to form a long-term picture of hunter-gatherer life.
Why and when human societies shifted from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture engages the interest of scholars around the world. One of the most fruitful areas in which to study this issue is the North American Southwest, where Late Archaic inhabitants of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts of Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico turned to farming while their counterparts in Trans-Pecos and South Texas continued to forage. By investigating the environmental, biological, and cultural factors that led to these differing patterns of development, we can identify some of the necessary conditions for the rise of agriculture and the corresponding evolution of village life. The twelve papers in this volume synthesize previous and ongoing research and offer new theoretical models to provide the most up-to-date picture of life during the Late Archaic (from 3,000 to 1,500 years ago) across the entire North American Borderlands. Some of the papers focus on specific research topics such as stone tool technology and mobility patterns. Others study the development of agriculture across whole regions within the Borderlands. The two concluding papers trace pan-regional patterns in the adoption of farming and also link them to the growth of agriculture in other parts of the world.
The American Southwest is characterized by environmentally and
culturally diverse landscapes, which include the northern Rio
Grande valley as it cuts through north-central New Mexico from Taos
to Albuquerque. The region has a long and rich history of
anthropological research primarily focused on the archaeological
remains found along this valley corridor. Only recently has
research involving large-scale surveys and excavations been
conducted on the nearby mesas and mountains that form the rugged
margins of the river valley. "From Mountain Top to Valley Bottom
"incorporates this new research into a perspective that links the
ever-changing and complementary nature of lowland and upland land
use.
The end of the Pleistocene era brought dramatic environmental
changes to small bands of humans living in North America: changes
that affected subsistence, mobility, demography, technology, and
social relations. The transition they made from Paleoindian
(Pleistocene) to Archaic (Early Holocene) societies represents the
first major cultural shift that took place solely in the Americas.
This event--which manifested in ways and at times much more varied
than often supposed--set the stage for the unique developments of
behavioral complexity that distinguish later Native American
prehistoric societies.
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