Aggregation and Abandonment at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona

Growth and Aggregation at Canyon Creek Ruin: Implications for Evolutionary Change in East-Central Arizona

“…What factors promoted rapid population increase at both the Canyon Creek Ruin and Grass- hopper Pueblo, as well as at several other large pueblos in this region after A.D. 1300? Enhanced agricultural productivity is implicated in this process, as I have argued elsewhere (Graves et al 1982a(Graves et al , 1982b. Agricultural improvements, however, were not the result of intensification per se, but rather were the outcome of a complex series of short-term climatic events that opened new habitat for farming by A.D. 1295 (Agenbroad 1982;Dean and Robinson 1982;Holbrook 1982).…”

“…Agricultural improvements, however, were not the result of intensification per se, but rather were the outcome of a complex series of short-term climatic events that opened new habitat for farming by A.D. 1295 (Agenbroad 1982;Dean and Robinson 1982;Holbrook 1982). The timing of these events suggests that farm productivity and population size increased coincidentally between A.D. 1300-1325 (see Graves et al [1982aGraves et al [ , 1982b). Some intensification of agricultural effort occurred during this time interval, inasmuch as numerous agricultural features are associated with contemporaneous materials and cluster around major Late Prehistoric pueblos.…”

“…Construction of three rooms by A.D. 1328 in the alcove represented the first pueblo occupation in the immediate vicinity. Thus, the groups that built these rooms moved to the locality from elsewhere, in all likelihood from dispersed pueblo settlements on the Grasshopper Plateau which was undergoing rapid population aggregation and increase after A.D. 1300 (Graves et al 1982a(Graves et al , 1982bReid 1973;Tuggle 1970).…”

“…Nonetheless, to support a growing regional population, and notwithstanding some intensification of agricultural effort, material goods were increasingly exchanged between communities in different regions after A.D. 1300 (see Graves [1982b] and Graves et al [1982aGraves et al [ , 1982b). The list of commodities circulating at this time through the mountains of east-central Arizona is impressive (cf.…”

“…Cordell and Plog 1979;Plog 1979:122;Plog 1980aPlog :126-133, 1980bTuggle 1970;Upham et al 1981;Wilcox 1981:234-235). It appears then that within and between regions community interdependence and regional symbiosis emerged, both organized by economic relations, and the latter promoted by social factors (Graves et al 1982a(Graves et al , 1982b. As a result, population increase within communities and regions would have been limited in part by regional and interregional resource availability.…”