Local abandonments and regional conditions in the North American Southwest

The Cross-scale Interplay between Social and Biophysical Context and the Vulnerability of Irrigation-dependent Societies: Archaeology's Long-term Perspective

“…Residential stability, which is the long-term and continuous occupation of places (Horne 1993, Rocek 1996, Stone 1996, Nelson 1999, contributes to depletion of wild resources in the areas surrounding settlements. In the U.S. Southwest, settlement shifting, or what archaeologists call residential mobility, was common (e.g., Schlanger and Wilshusen 1993, Nelson 1999, Varien 1999). However, investments in physical infrastructure encourage stability and place-focused settlement, both because of the need to maintain these systems and because of the higher productivity of agricultural fields in these areas.…”

Where are the witches of prehistory?

“…Although ritual plays an epiphenomenal role in certain social theories (e.g., Binford, 1962;White, 1949), ritual acts nonetheless instrumentally shape the formation processes of the archaeological record. In the desert Southwest, purposefully burned and abandoned pit structures and pueblos appear to contain the very tree-ring specimens that make possible the region's tight chronology and detailed environmental inferences (e.g., Schlanger and Wilshusen, 1993). The many assemblages of "de facto" refuse found in these structures, so often deployed in studies of migration, household organization, and spatial analyses, may owe their existence to the regularities of prehistoric ritual abandonment activities.…”

Accumulations research: Problems and prospects for estimating site occupation span

“…If a single household occupied the site between A.D. 810 and A.D. 850, this would bring the number of household years within the point estimate range. The latter possibility seems unlikely given the evidence that Wtlshusen presents for the abandonment of the site during this period (Schlanger and Wilshusen, 1993;Wilshusen, 1986).…”