Southwestern Archaeology Beyond Archaeology: Past, Present, and Future

Ingram, Scott; Gilpin, Dennis

doi:10.1080/00231940.2015.1118736

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 48 publications

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“…In recent years an increasing number of archaeologists have conducted research that is explicitlydesigned to address contemporary issues (Sabloff, 2008;Cooper and Sheets, 2012;Ingram and Gilpin, 2015;Nelson et al, 2015;Liebmann et al, 2016;Kohler et al, 2017;Hambrecht et al, 2018;Hegmon and Peeples, 2018;Jackson et al, 2018). Despite many exciting results emanating from this work, as of yet it seems to have had little impact on actual public policy discussions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Kind of Relevance for Archaeology

Ortman

2019

Front. Digit. Humanit.

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Traditional ways of doing archaeology impact the world in a variety of ways, but despite recent efforts the practical relevance of archaeology has remained limited. In this paper, I discuss why this is the case and suggest how archaeology can achieve greater practical relevance. I argue, first, that the traditional focus of archaeology on reconstructing the past is valuable but is unlikely to expand its practical relevance because the results are too context-specific. Second, I suggest traditional responses to the problem of historical contingency are also inadequate because the results are too general to connect to the specific issues and solutions society needs. Finally, I make a surprising and perhaps radical suggestion: that a productive way forward is to resuscitate and reformulate elements of the New Archaeology that were never realized by its proponents. I use the example of settlement scaling theory to illustrate that this is both possible and productive, and that additional work in this spirit would enhance the practical relevance of our field.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Kind of Relevance for Archaeology

Ortman

2019

Front. Digit. Humanit.

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Understanding Past Climate-Related Migration for Our Warming World

Ingram

Schollmeyer

2021

KIVA

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Climate and growing season variability impacted the intensity and distribution of Fremont maize farmers during and after the Medieval Climate Anomaly based on a statistically downscaled climate model

Thomson

MacDonald

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The rise and decline of many complex, pre-European maize-farming cultures in the American Southwest coincides with the warm, climatically quiescent Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, ca. 850–1350 CE) and transition to the cool, hydrologically variable Little Ice Age (LIA, ca. 1350–1850 CE). The effects of drought on early subsistence agriculture in the Southwest is well studied, but the impact of temperature stress and variability on the growth of maize crops and which areas were most resilient to such stress remain open questions. We statistically downscaled outputs from a paleo-climate model experiment (CESM1 LME) to map changes to cumulative growing degree days for maize (GDD, 30/10 °C) and precipitation over Utah between 850 and 1449 CE, and downscaled GDD changes to local Fremont Culture archaeological site occupations from radiocarbon-dated contexts mapped as spatially discrete kernel density estimates of summed probability distributions (SPDs). We then analyzed correspondences between Fremont SPDs and GDD/precipitation between 850 and 1449 CE. In general, we found (1) high Fremont occupation intensity coincident with GDD that is less volatile than the long term average, and low occupation intensity coincident with, or following, periods of volatile GDD; (2) intensified occupation of high-elevation sites during the MCA, followed by a retreat to lower elevation sites coincident with a sudden rise in annual temperature volatility and increasing drought conditions; and (3) these occupation changes occurred in spite of the greater temperatures and variability in GDD at low-elevation sites. We found evidence that increased inter-annual variability of growing seasons prior to the onset of the LIA, was likely a determinant of Fremont subsistence strategy decision making, and high-elevation site occupation. The most resilient Fremont occupations in the face of these challenges were sited where growing season lengths were least variable.

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Southwestern Archaeology Beyond Archaeology: Past, Present, and Future

Cited by 3 publications

References 48 publications

A New Kind of Relevance for Archaeology

A New Kind of Relevance for Archaeology

Understanding Past Climate-Related Migration for Our Warming World

Climate and growing season variability impacted the intensity and distribution of Fremont maize farmers during and after the Medieval Climate Anomaly based on a statistically downscaled climate model

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