In spite of considerable fluctuations in the likelihood of agricultural success from place to place and from time to time, the southern Colorado Plateaus show a smooth increase in farming populations between A.D. 1 and 1150. At the local level, however, population curves in this region often register a pattern of short-lived occupations and abandonments that are tied to specific patterns of short-term and long-term climatic conditions. The prehistoric population record from the Dolores area, in the southwestern corner of Colorado, demonstrates how localized population adjustments to climatically sensitive environments can result in long-term population increases. Here, a 600-year history of population increase was maintained primarily through population movements between environmentally complementary places. When that strategy failed, due to a combination of adverse short-term and long-term climatic conditions, agricultural methods shifted from rainfall farming to intensified agriculture supported by water-control facilities.
Public agencies at all levels of government and other organizations that manage archaeological resources often face the problem of many undertakings that collectively impact large numbers of individually significant archaeological resources. Such situations arise when an agency is managing a large area, such as a national forest, land management district, park unit, wildlife refuge, or military installation. These situations also may arise in regard to large-scale development projects, such as energy developments, highways, reservoirs, transmission lines, and other major infrastructure projects that cover substantial areas. Over time, the accumulation of impacts from small-scale projects to individual archaeological resources may degrade landscape or regional-scale cultural phenomena. Typically, these impacts are mitigated at the site level without regard to how the impacts to individual resources affect the broader population of resources. Actions to mitigate impacts rarely are designed to do more than avoid resources or ensure some level of data recovery at single sites. Such mitigation activities are incapable of addressing research question at a landscape or regional scale.
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