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Madsen, David B.; Simms, Steven R.

doi:10.1023/a:1022322619699

Cited by 80 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Variability in the reliance on maize agriculture is a hallmark of Fremont behavior that is one of the primary contributions that it makes toward an understanding of the foraging-farming transition (Coltrain & Leavitt, 2002;Madsen & Simms, 1998). Fremont scholars understand the adoption of maize agriculture within the context of declining return rates of foraged foods (Barlow, 2002), but because of extreme regional ecological variability, heterogeneity of foraging resources, and limitations to suitable agricultural niches (Codding et al, 2021;Yaworsky & Codding, 2018), adaptive diversity and residential cycling structured Fremont lifeways (Madsen & Simms, 1998). Finley et al (2020) suggest that multidecadal precipitation variability was the context of selection for maize agriculture and Fremont behavioral variability including maize intensification and the formation of early agricultural communities.…”

Section: Fremont As Transitional Forager-farmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regional material cultural variants are known throughout this large geographical space (Ambler, 1966;Marwitt, 1970). Fremont populations consisted of an ethnically and linguistically diverse mix of indigenous Archaic foragers and migrant Basketmaker farmers from the Four Corners, who likely were ancestral Hopi and Kiowa (Madsen & Simms, 1998;McNeil & Shaul, 2020;Ortman & McNeil, 2017).…”

Section: Fremont As Transitional Forager-farmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Cub Creek reach of northeastern Utah's Dinosaur National Monument is located on the northern margins of the Colorado Plateau, an area characterized by the terminal spread of maize agriculture in western North America between A.D. 300 and 1300, as part of the Fremont archaeological complex (Madsen & Simms, 1998). The study of the Fremont complex is paramount in global research on the foraging-farming transition because it presents one of the rare instances where agriculture was adopted, semisedentary communities formed, and incipient social hierarchies developed before the entire system was abandoned for a return to full-time foraging (Madsen & Simms, 1998). Because the Fremont complex was a relatively recent phenomenon, the evolution of transitional agricultural societies can be examined within the context of highly resolved paleoenvironmental records.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Arroyo formation impacts on an early dryland agricultural community in Northeastern Utah, USA

2022

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Indigenous Fremont farmers in Cub Creek, a part of northeastern Utah's Dinosaur National Monument, occupied the northern ecological margin of maize cultivation in western North America from A.D. 300 to 1300. Agriculture in Cub Creek was a response to multidecadal precipitation variability, but when precipitation stabilized between A.D. 750 and 1050, agricultural conditions improved and populations expanded to form villages along the floodplains of local dryland streams. Did the very same conditions (i.e., decreased precipitation variability) that allowed the growth of agricultural societies make them simultaneously vulnerable to arroyo formation, a key geomorphic risk to floodplain agriculturalists? Preliminary results from Cub Creek show that rapid sedimentation punctuated by episodic arroyo formation characterized the last 2000 years. We use stratigraphic and chronological evidence formalized in a Bayesian age model to develop a set of working hypotheses that a 2.5 m-deep discontinuous arroyo formed before either A.D. 1020 or A.D. 1275. The earlier age corresponds with occupation of the Cub Creek village, while the later age corresponds with the end of Fremont agriculture in Cub Creek, and demonstrates regional synchronicity with arroyo formation across the Colorado Plateau. A second arroyo formed before A.D. 1490, indicating rapid alluvial cycling in Cub Creek. We conclude that floodplain instability and arroyo formation combined with the return of the dominant multidecadal precipitation variability regime beginning at A.D. 1050 was a key constraint on the growth potential of local populations. These findings have potential implications for the development of early Indigenous dryland agricultural systems throughout the interior of western North America. K E Y W O R D S alluvial geoarchaeology, arroyo problem, dryland agriculture, Fremont 1 | INTRODUCTION Agriculturalists in dryland ecosystems are inherently attracted to floodplains because of the seasonally available water source that either saturates alluvium or can be applied directly to crops via irrigation (Huckleberry, 2015; Mabry, 2008). While floodwater farming may make food production more robust, dryland agriculturalists face an intrinsic risk of arroyo formation, thus rendering floodwater fields unusable. The "arroyo problem" is well known in western North American geological and geoarchaeological records, where the most recent cycle of floodplain entrenchment began

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Section: Fremont As Transitional Forager-farmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fremont As Transitional Forager-farmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Arroyo formation impacts on an early dryland agricultural community in Northeastern Utah, USA

2022

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“…In contrast, the Fremont complex is represented by a mixed farming and foraging adaptation that occurred across much of the eastern Great Basin and Colorado Plateau between ~1950 and 650 cal BP (Madsen and Simms, 1998). Importantly, the Fremont are known for villages associated with maize agriculture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, a dramatic surge in human population densities occurs within the period to judge from radiocarbon date frequencies and other archeological indicators, with a peak in dates near 950 cal BP (Louderback et al, 2011; Madsen and Simms, 1998; Massmino and Metcalfe, 1999). And although adaptive diversity has been emphasized and a range of settlement-subsistence patterns appear to have operated within the period, the Fremont is associated with many large sedentary agricultural village sites with multiple, complex structures such as large semi-subterranean timber and adobe houses adjacent to public spaces, and large above ground rock-walled granaries (Madsen and Simms, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic controls and costly signaling: An integrated analysis of Holocene hunting in the Bonneville and Wyoming Basins, USA

Byers,

McGrath,

Yaworsky

et al. 2023

The Holocene

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In this paper, we explore and integrate different currencies that may underlie large-game hunting to guide a trans-Holocene analysis of variation in artiodactyl utilization using massive archaeofaunal data-sets from predominantly open-air sites from the Bonneville and Wyoming basins. The available empirical data continue to suggest that artiodactyls yield consistently higher return rates than lagomorphs allowing us to leverage predictions from both the prey choice and energetic risk-gain models that the relative importance of artiodactyl hunting should scale closely with climate-based change in their abundance on the landscape. We document with modeled climate data that seasonal variables correlated with the relative frequency of artiodactyl hunting, but that summer temperature had a significant overriding effect in both regions. Controlling for the negative relationship between summer temperature and artiodactyl abundances, we then document enhanced artiodactyl hunting in general and bison more specifically during the Fremont period that is consistent with a costly signaling hypothesis and the unique socio-ecological conditions of this context. Thus, climatic variation and its influence on artiodactyl abundances drives the overall trajectory of Holocene large game hunting variation but measurable and more subtle influences of costly signaling are also detected.

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Context of maternal lineages in the greater Southwest

Carlyle

Parr

Hayes

et al. 2000

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

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We present mitochondrial haplogroup characterizations of the prehistoric Anasazi of the United States (US) Southwest. These data are part of a long-term project to characterize ancient Great Basin and US Southwest samples for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity. Three restriction site polymorphisms (RSPs) and one length polymorphism identify four common Native American matrilines (A, B, C, and D). The Anasazi (n = 27) are shown to have a moderate frequency of haplogroup A (22%), a high frequency of haplogroup B (56%), and a low frequency of C (15%). Haplogroup D has not yet been detected among the Anasazi. In comparison to modern Native American groups from the US Southwest, the Anasazi are shown to have a distribution of haplogroups similar to the frequency pattern exhibited by modern Pueblo groups. A principal component analysis also clusters the Anasazi with some modern (Pueblo) Southwestern populations, and away from other modern (Athapaskan speaking) Southwestern populations. The Anasazi are also shown to have a significantly different distribution of the four haplogroups as compared to the eastern Great Basin Great Salt Lake Fremont (n = 32), although both groups cluster together in a principal component analysis. The context of our data suggests substantial stability within the US Southwest, even in the face of the serious cultural and biological disruption caused by colonization of the region by European settlers. We conclude that although sample numbers are fairly low, ancient DNA (aDNA) data are useful for assessing long-term populational affinities and for discerning regional population structure.

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Cited by 80 publications

References 68 publications

Arroyo formation impacts on an early dryland agricultural community in Northeastern Utah, USA

Arroyo formation impacts on an early dryland agricultural community in Northeastern Utah, USA

Climatic controls and costly signaling: An integrated analysis of Holocene hunting in the Bonneville and Wyoming Basins, USA

Context of maternal lineages in the greater Southwest

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