Patterns of Population Movement and Long-Term Population Growth in Southwestern Colorado

Abstract

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.

Abandonment and Reorganization the Mimbres Region of the American Southwest

“…Funding and other support for this research were provided by the Turner Foundation, the National Geographic Society ( 1. For some recent exceptions that specifically consider postabandonment developments in studies of abandonment, see Fish and Fish 1993, Iipe 1995, Schlanger 1988, and Upham 1984 2. Survey along the Palomas drainage is described by Lekson (1984,1989) and Nelson (1986, 1989, 1993a).…”

Sustainable Small-Scale Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environments

“…Population movements and residential abandonments in the prehistoric U.S. Southwest have been closely examined and correlated at some places and times with changes in climate conditions, especially multi-year dry periods (e.g., Cordell 1975, Euler et al 1979, Dean et al 1985, Minnis 1985, Gumerman 1988, Schlanger 1988, Judge 1989, Lebo 1991, Orcutt 1991, Ahlstrom et al 1995, Lipe 1995, Crown et al 1996, Adams 1998, Van West and Dean 2000, Cordell et al 2007. The importance of migration as an adaptation is highlighted by Cameron (1995:112), who argues that, "Movements of communities within a region, even when such movements have a lengthy periodicity, can be expected to be a normal part of a regional environmental adaptation that involves adjustment of a group's home range."…”

How Agriculture Took Hold in the Mesa Verde Region: A Review of Recent Research on the Late Basketmaker-Early Pueblo Periods (A.D. 500-920)

“…The 1999 research recommendations were written at a time when the first user-friendly relational database software programs were just beginning to be more widely used by archaeologists and when the results of the massive Dolores Archaeological Project (DAP) were becoming more readily available in regional and national professional journals (e.g., Breternitz 1993;Kohler 1993;Lightfoot 1988;Schlanger 1988;Wilshusen and Ortman 1999). The results (and shortcomings) of the Dolores research, along with previous work on Mesa Verde (e.g., Birkedal 1976;Hayes and Lancaster 1975) and survey work in the greater Mesa Verde region (Fetterman and Honeycutt 1987;Wilshusen and Wilson 1995), shaped many of the suggestions I made for future research.…”