Drylands are diverse and dynamic ecosystems that have been occupied by humans throughout the Holocene. Nonetheless, drylands are often conceived of as marginal, rare, and inimical to human livelihoods. This Special Issue interrogates the interactions between humans and arid and aridifying environments to investigate how drylands offer unique risks and opportunities to their resilient inhabitants. This article introduces the 11 environmental archeology papers and 1 discussion paper in this Special Issue, the proceedings of a 2021 virtual workshop on the topics of risk and resilience. Each contribution explores a different geographic and chronological context around the globe. We also introduce three subthemes of this Special Issue: “Multi-Scalar Analysis,” “Abundance and Diversity,” and “Cascading Risks.” Collectively, a key strength of the case studies in this volume is the range of environmental archeology methods and datasets that they showcase. These authors draw out details within a multi-scalar understanding of risk and risk perception in the particular contexts in which they work. As we face compounding contemporary risks associated with the global impacts of a changing climate, it is more important than ever to recognize the range of human relationships with aridification, and the dynamic, localized socio-environmental histories of drylands.
Risk and vulnerability are especially acute for colonizing populations due to their limited knowledge of the environment in newly settled areas and constrained social networks. Focusing on the initial settlement of the New Mexico colony, this paper examines the social response of Spanish colonists to vulnerability and risk during the early colonial period (AD 1598–1680). We use historical documents and modern weather records to assess the strategies implemented by 17th-century colonists to mitigate their vulnerability to the effects of unfamiliar, arid environmental conditions. The Spanish Crown had developed risk-reducing practices that encouraged successful establishment of colonies, including technological methods such as irrigation ditches and social methods such as tithing. However, these strategies made certain social and ethnic groups more vulnerable than others, ultimately contributing to the destruction of the New Mexico colony during the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. We argue that vulnerability buffering mechanisms are unevenly distributed across society. Systems of power must be considered when evaluating the effectiveness of social responses to risk.
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