Water uncertainty, ritual predictability and agricultural canals at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Scarborough, Vernon L.; Fladd, Samantha G.; Dunning, Nicholas P.; Plog, Stephen; Owen, Lewis A.; Carr, Christopher; Tankersley, Kenneth B.; McCool, Jon Paul; Watson, Adam; Haussner, Elizabeth; Crowley, Brooke E.; Bishop, Katelyn J.; Lentz, David L.; Vivian, Robert

doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.114

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…From a broader perspective, our observed juniper population decline coincides with a period of erosion [ 24 ] in the canyon that began around 400 BC and continued until Pueblo II times (~AD 900–1000). Furthermore, our studies detected a period of high aggradation of sediments in the canyon from AD 900–1000 followed by other episodes of erosion in the 12 th century [ 19 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The north side of the canyon ranges from 1860 to 2010 m above sea level (asl) while the southern escarpment reaches heights of 2,165 m asl at the eastern end of Chacra Mesa [ 12 ], approximately 10 km southeast of the colossal Pueblo Bonito great house. Canyon soils display varying textures both spatially and with depth but have chemical and other edaphic qualities that are conducive to the growth of a range of crops [ 13 , 19 – 21 ]. Mean annual rainfall within the canyon is 24.4 cm with average monthly temperatures varying between a low of -1.9°C in the winter to a maximum average of 22.6°C during the summer months [ 22 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecosystem impacts by the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA

et al. 2021

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The Ancestral Puebloans occupied Chaco Canyon, in what is now the southwestern USA, for more than a millennium and harvested useful timber and fuel from the trees of distant forests as well as local woodlands, especially juniper and pinyon pine. These pinyon juniper woodland products were an essential part of the resource base from Late Archaic times (3000–100 BC) to the Bonito phase (AD 800–1140) during the great florescence of Chacoan culture. During this vast expanse of time, the availability of portions of the woodland declined. We posit, based on pollen and macrobotanical remains, that the Chaco Canyon woodlands were substantially impacted during Late Archaic to Basketmaker II times (100 BC–AD 500) when agriculture became a major means of food production and the manufacture of pottery was introduced into the canyon. By the time of the Bonito phase, the local woodlands, especially the juniper component, had been decimated by centuries of continuous extraction of a slow-growing resource. The destabilizing impact resulting from recurrent woodland harvesting likely contributed to the environmental unpredictability and difficulty in procuring essential resources suffered by the Ancestral Puebloans prior to their ultimate departure from Chaco Canyon.

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Ecosystem impacts by the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA

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“…Given their relative success in several geographic regions, they were able to expand the size and density of their communities, and by 800 CE, truly spectacular Puebloan communities were established within the low‐lying Chaco Canyon setting. For at least three hundred years, the canyon was occupied by ancestral Puebloans living in a dozen great houses or modular room block “towns,” some climbing to five stories and counting more than six hundred rooms, in addition to numerous “small houses.” Recent work suggests that the limited but fundamental runoff from the flanking mesas, and perhaps the now severely incised Chaco Wash that seasonally swells, provided enough water when properly managed to accommodate perhaps two thousand people (Scarborough et al 2018)—until a devastating set of droughts led to abandonment and relocation by 1140 CE (Vivian et al 2006).…”

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What ancient landscapes contribute to climate change

Scarborough

2021

Economic Anthropology

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Input and reevaluation are greatly needed from several sources to curtail and perhaps avoid the myriad of unintended consequences excited by the "Great Acceleration" in industry and technology initiated in the last two hundred years, the most damaging consequences now apparent with the density of greenhouse gases surrounding us. In rapidly deciding which planning assessments warrant our immediate attention, archaeology via economic anthropology has a prominent place at the table of projections and potential solutions. 1 To make this case, two complex socioenvironmental examples from the archaeological record are introduced, one emphasizing a subtropical location-the ancient Maya-and the other from a semiarid setting of the ancestral Puebloans. The climatically "wet" is juxtaposed with the "dry" to illustrate the variation in environments effecting our planetary futures and demonstrating the significance of assessing past periods of both reduced population numbers and technological advancements. They reveal a less opaque and complex set of adaptations exposing the underlying set of relationships between climate and society in attempting to project today's futures. Before presenting the case studies, the connectivity between economic anthropology, archaeology, and climate change requires a brief introduction. Economic anthropology, archaeology, and climateEconomic anthropology tends to emphasize the production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services in the context of information flows. Unlike traditional neoliberal economics, which frequently undervalue ecosystem services, it favors an evaluation of the natural environment in which humans harvest or exploit by way of measuring the rate and process of its raw availability, production or refinement, use or consumption, and disposal or recycled reintroduction (Coscieme et al. 2019; see also Costanza 1991). As archaeologists, our discipline is based on the recovery and interpretation of the material record from a studied landscape associated with human activities. Strongly influenced by economic anthropology, archaeology examines and interprets things, places, and their histories within and between groups. It uses the record of past communities to reconstruct and model societal lifeways on a landscape through time.Climate change has been evaluated by archaeologists for decades to best characterize the environment in which ancient groups were able to live for extended periods. Because of preservation issues and limitations associated with dating controls, increments of centennial time have been our usual means for monitoring changes to both landscapes

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“…While Wills’s interpretation balances what seems to be limited evidence for large-scale agricultural features with the canyon’s architectural density, Scarborough et al . (2018) provide documentation of a previously unrecognised larger canal system. They conclude that this irrigation system would have required coordination and, importantly, it represented a strategy for increasing resilience in an unpredictable climate.…”

Section: Feeding Chacomentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s new in Chaco research?

Mills

2018

Antiquity

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Water uncertainty, ritual predictability and agricultural canals at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Cited by 11 publications

References 24 publications

Ecosystem impacts by the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA

Ecosystem impacts by the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA

What ancient landscapes contribute to climate change

What’s new in Chaco research?

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