Social Transformation and Its Human Costs in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest

Abstract

Change is inevitable, but some changes and transformations are more dramatic and fraught with suffering than others. Resilience theory suggests the concept of a “rigidity trap” as an explanation for these differences. In rigidity traps, a high degree of connectivity and the suppression of innovation prolong an increasingly rigid state, with the result that the eventual transformation is harsh. Three archaeological cases from the U.S. Southwest (Mimbres, Mesa Verde, and Hohokam) and new methods for assessing transformations and rigidity are used to evaluate this concept. They reveal the expected association between the severity of transformation and degree of rigidity, suggesting that a rigidity trap contributed to the Hohokam decline, which included significant human suffering. Possible causes of rigidity, with implications for today's world, are explored.

European Neolithic societies showed early warning signals of population collapse

“…Such critical transitions entail feedback loops that create the context for nonlinear responses to linear changes in the external driver (37). As noted above, Allee effects can trigger critical transitions, and several authors (37,47) propose that Neolithic population collapse in the US Southwest and among human societies more generally can be understood as critical transitions [see also (48)]. As resource availability steadily declines, sunk-cost effects can generate adaptive feedback loops that artificially lock humans into maladaptive strategies such as remaining in established settlements until the exogenous driver eventually forces the system across a tipping point into an alternative adaptive regime.…”

Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland

“…It is rare for a human society to collapse to the point of extinction (1). Many investigators of past human ecodynamics, thus, favor the idea of transformation over collapse and work to differentiate cases showing high human costs from cases of soft landings (2). In the few well-documented cases of painful transformation, where the end is absolute with no direct continuity with future settlement, there is a special need to better understand the factors leading to such changes, implied limitations to adaptation, and failed sustainability.…”

Synthesis: Vulnerability, Traps, and Transformations—Long-term Perspectives from Archaeology

“…This trade-off is exacerbated as people prolong their stay for cultural and aesthetic reasons, further exploiting the remaining resources (Anderies and Hegmon). Investments in infrastructure that increase attachment to place (Nelson et al 2011b), aggregation, and densification can increase rigidity (Hegmon et al 2008). In turn, this increase in rigidity is one of the primary factors preceding collapse through conflict, large scale emigration, and mortalities.…”