Over 30 years ago, Paul Minnis (Reference Minnis and Ford1985) proposed the distinction between ‘pristine domestication’ and ‘primary crop acquisition’. The former refers to the initial domestication of wild plant resources and is characterised by only a dozen or so places in the world, most notably China, the Near East and Mesoamerica. The latter refers to the local integration of crops that were domesticated elsewhere and is the more common process. The American Southwest, here defined as the U.S. states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, is a classic case of primary crop acquisition. Cultigens, first maize and then squash and beans, originally domesticated in Mesoamerica, were brought north by immigrant groups who joined with local hunter-gatherer communities. The introduction of these cultigens did not initiate major immediate changes in ecological or social relationships, instead the shift to agriculture as the central subsistence practice took millennia. Just why this is the case continues to be hotly debated. The two volumes under review offer new data and valuable syntheses relevant to scholars interested in the interrelationships between the adoption of cultigens, mixed mobility strategies, and trade and exchange relationships.
In The Archaic Southwest: foragers in an arid land, Bradley Vierra brings together new understandings of the Archaic period (10 000–1500 BP). The volume is organised into an introduction (with one chapter on the history of Archaic archaeology and another on palaeoenvironmental reconstructions), regional overviews (seven chapters on the Desert Southwest and Plains regions, and five chapters on the Plateau and Mountain regions), and a conclusion (a chapter on the introduction of agriculture and another summarising the volume). Vierra (Chapter 1) begins by positioning Archaic-period research within the history of Southwestern archaeology. He rightly observes it to be a neglected time period, receiving little attention despite the fact that 99 per cent of human history has been spent as hunter-gatherers. The early archaeologists were drawn to the large ruins exhibiting monumental architecture and paid little attention to the smaller, more ephemeral sites established by hunter-gatherers. It was not until the 1940s and 1950s that research began to focus on preceramic sites as part of the search for the origins of agriculture.
Vierra attributes the first major synthesis to Cynthia Irwin-Williams. Irwin-Williams was a groundbreaking female archaeologist, a scholar whose catholic interests spanned the full range of PalaeoIndian, Archaic and Puebloan periods. In 1964, she established the influential Anasazi Origins Project in northern New Mexico. There, in the Arroyo Cuervo areas, she identified a distinctive archaeological sequence that became known as the Oshara Tradition. She then offered an influential synthesis of the Southwestern Archaic, combining four areal traditions under the name PICOSA. This label referred to a northern tradition (Oshara) of northern New Mexico; a western tradition (San Dieguito-Pinto Basin) for north-western Arizona, south-eastern California and southern Nevada; a southern tradition (Cochise) centred on the Phoenix Basin; and the south-eastern tradition (Chihuahua) in northern Chihuahua. These traditions were differentiated on the basis of projectile-point typologies, ground-stone typologies and site features.
Today, considerably more Archaic-period sites are known. This increase can be directly attributed to the proliferation of cultural resource management archaeology in the 1980s and 1990s. Numerous projects conducted in compliance with state and federal law in the context of highway, pipeline, canal and dam construction have provided valuable opportunities to evaluate otherwise unexplored areas. In the greater Tucson area alone, the Arizona State Museum site files reveal an eight-fold increase in sites with Archaic-period components since 1984. We now have a much deeper appreciation of the regional diversity, only hinted at by Irwin-Williams. There is considerable evidence of different groups adapting to local environmental conditions in a variety of ways involving flexible social groups, sophisticated residential mobility practices and mixed hunting/gathering and farming strategies.
The Archaic period was a time of broad climatic fluctuations. The general patterns are well reviewed by Stephen Hall (Chapter 2). The end of the Younger Dryas period and the beginning of the Early Holocene (11 700–7000 BP) was characterised by a warming trend. Spruce-fir forests replaced alpine tundra at the higher elevations and there was an expansion of ponderosa pine and oak on mountain flanks. This was coupled with an isolated tree die-off in the southern deserts. During the Middle Holocene (7000–4500 BP), the climate turned hot and arid. Lakes and ponds began drying up and arroyo cutting was common in many valleys. By the Late Holocene (4500–1000 BP), cooler and wetter conditions prevailed. Sagebrush steppe and piñon woodlands colonised the Colorado Plateau. During the Medieval Warm period (1000–650 BP), warm and dry conditions returned, with increased arroyo cutting. It is against this environmental backdrop that we see the establishment of villages, the development of mixed mobility strategies and an increasing reliance on agriculture.
Some of the most exciting new research has taken place in the Santa Cruz River Basin of southern Arizona. Here, numerous agricultural hamlets dating to the Early Agricultural Period (4000–1800 BP) have been identified. These hamlets, situated on the alluvial plain and adjacent terraces, are relatively standardised and consist of pit houses with hearths and interior storage pits. One of these, the Las Capas site, is providing important new information on early maize and the development of irrigation agriculture (Chapter 5). Similarly, the La Playa site in Sonora has evidence for small pit houses, maize, irrigation agriculture and bordered fields and waffle gardens (Chapter 6). At its heyday (2800–1850 BP), it may have encompassed 10km2. These findings are challenging our preconceived notions about the organisation of labour and revealing different pathways to social complexity.
Of special interest are the Cerro de Trincheros sites located in the Gila River drainage basin and north-western Chihuahua. These distinctive sites perched on terraced hills date to 2500–2150 BP and seem to be linked to increasing social tension and hostilities. A good example is Cerro Juanaqueña on the Rio Casas Grandes floodplain. The site consists of a complex of 486 terraces, 109 rock rings, and associated deposits. The terraces contain household debris including heavily worn basin metates, manos, projectile points, lithic debitage, charcoal, and burned and unburned animal bone and plant remains. The overall layout indicates a degree of planning and internal spatial organisation. Kevin Hanselka (Chapter 15) speculates that this coordination may have been carried out under the direction of a recognised leader, rather than be the result of the decisions of individual family units.
New perspectives on Mimbres archaeology: three millennia of human occupation in the North American Southwest, edited by Barbara Roth, Patricia Gilman and Roger Anyon, details recent advances in Mimbres archaeology. The volume consists of 13 chapters addressing the adoption and intensification of agriculture (Chapters 1 & 8), village formation (Chapter 2), aggregation and dispersal (Chapters 2, 5, 9, 10), social identity (Chapters 4, 6, 7), and connectivity (Chapter 11). It also has a chapter on the Mimbres Foundation (Chapter 12) and concluding thoughts by Steven LeBlanc (Chapter 13).
The name Mimbres immediately calls to mind beautifully painted bowls, both geometric and representational in design, that have been justly admired the world over as among the premier examples of Native American art (see the Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD), which contains images of about 11 000 bowls). It is now even possible to identify the hand of individual artists (LeBlanc Reference LeBlanc2004). Unfortunately, the allure of these bowls has led to rampant pot-hunting and site destruction. In 1974, LeBlanc established the Mimbres Foundation, largely through private contributions, to protect these remarkable sites and sponsor systematic archaeological research.
One of the key research questions is the pithouse to pueblo transition. Current research is calling into question the idea that autonomous households were the fundamental social units for the Pithouse period. Excavations at Old Town, NAN Ranch and the Harris site reveal evidence for extended family households. Roger Anyon and Barbara Roth (Chapter 2) discuss some of this variation. They draw attention to extended corporate groups at the larger sites, and note that they are associated with great kivas that would have served to integrate families both within and across villages. It now seems clear that the shift to pueblo architecture during the Classic period has a long span of development and is connected to the changing needs linked to population growth and an increased reliance on agriculture.
Recent analyses of Mimbres pottery are providing key information on social identity, ideology and village interactions. Patricia Gilman and colleagues (Chapter 4) identify an emergent ideology during the Classic period, probably associated with Mesoamerican interaction, focusing on scarlet macaws and the Hero Twins. Darrell Creel and Robert Speakman (Chapter 6) have conducted neutron activation analysis and show that pottery acquisition was largely determined by proximity. They find evidence for considerable trade from the Mimbres Valley to the Gila Valley. During the Classic period, this trend reversed and nearly a quarter of the Gila Valley ceramics came from the Mimbres Valley. Michelle Hegmon and colleagues (Chapter 7) have examined pottery designs in their social contexts. They conclude that there is broad variability; no single site, room, age or gender has a monopoly on a particular design. This is consistent with Powell-Marti and James's (Reference Powell-Marti, James, Powell-Marti and Gilman2006) finding that while most large sites have bowls with fish and bird designs, neither motif comprises more than a quarter of all designs.
Another question is the nature of the social networks linking Mimbres to other contemporaneous archaeological traditions. During the Pithouse period, there is evidence for considerable trade and exchange, especially regarding glycermis shell bracelets that seem to have been manufactured in the Phoenix Basin. Mimbres ceramics also share certain Hohokam structural design elements. This relationship does not include ritual performance as there are no Mimbres ball courts. The Hohokam connection apparently breaks down during the Classic period, and there seems to be a general turn to the north on the basis of similarities in above-ground puebloan-style architecture. Finally, trade connections developed south into Chihuahua. Mimbres pottery has been found at Viejo-period sites near Paquimé (Chapter 11). These sites seem not to have other Mimbres characteristics and are thus interpreted not as Mimbres outliers, but rather as Paquimé-system sites.
What happened at the end of the Classic period? The answer is that there was an overall population decline and social reorganisation, possibly involving migrants. Karen Schollmeyer, Margaret Nelson and Michelle Hegmon (Chapter 9) review the evidence for continuity and change in the eastern Mimbres area. They show continuity in terms of architectural style and pottery variability, but also see a lack of continuity at sites such as Pinnacle Ruin. Similarly, Kathryn Putsavage and Matthew Taliaferro (Chapter 10) hold that the Mimbres area was not abandoned, but rather that small groups of people continued to inhabit several sites in the Mimbres Valley, while others left to establish new ones. Some of these groups may have joined with pueblo communities to the north.
The new research represented by these two volumes has implications for our understandings of Neolithic cultures worldwide. For example, the old opposition between foraging and farming is breaking down. Current research is revealing considerable subsistence flexibility whereby deficiencies in the production of cultigens can be balanced by the exploitation of wild plants. Michael Diehl (Reference Diehl2005) has proposed the term ‘farmaging’ to highlight the integration of irrigation agriculture, extensive foraging and seasonal residential mobility during the Early Agriculture Period. He suggests that agriculture was used to mitigate the risks of food shortfall. It was, however, limited by the low yield of popcorn maize and the absence of adequate storage facilities. Related to this, the standard mobility and sedentism opposition is proving to be untenable. The rise in sedentism does not necessarily equate with a decline in overall mobility. Barbara Roth (Reference Roth, Roth and McBrinn2015) suggests that communities made different commitments to place and the degree to which they were anchored by territory, infrastructure and landscape is better understood within a sedentism continuum.
The relationships between cultigens and farming economies are proving complex and variegated. Exciting new discoveries are occurring all the time, often in unexpected places. The dates for maize keep getting pushed back, and it is becoming clear that the adoption of maize and other cultigens varies significantly by region (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 15). This is causing a review of systematics, with some scholars advocating the replacement of the ‘Late Archaic period’ with the ‘Early Agricultural period’. There are several competing theses about why maize may have been adopted, given its probable low productivity. One idea is that it may have been selected for the sugar content of its stalks (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 15). The practice of making maize-stalk beer is widely distributed in Mesoamerica.
The Tucson Basin sites have now generated 22 AMS radiocarbon dates older than 3000 BP (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 5). This suggests that maize cultivation dates to at least 4100 BP, and perhaps even as far back as 5000 BP. Surprisingly, this situation does not characterise the Phoenix Basin, where there is much less evidence for Archaic settlement (Hall, The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 4). The earliest maize in the Mimbres region dates to 3925 BP (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 1). Maize does not, however, seem to have supplanted wild plants until 1800 BP in the Tucson Basin, 1350 BP in the northern Rio Grande, and 750 BP in the lower Rio Grande (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 1). This finding supports Minnis's (Reference Minnis and Ford1992) conclusion that maize did not markedly alter the lives of the early hunter-gatherers because it fitted easily within the existing subsistence strategies. The Tucson basin sites suggest, however, that the transition from mobile foraging to sedentary farming was rapid and dramatic.
Finally, ritual explanations are at last taking their rightful place in our interpretations. Previous studies of the Archaic have placed environmental adaptation front and centre, and treated religion as epiphenomenal. This emphasis can be seen as a legacy of Christopher Hawkes's famous ladder of inference. It is now appreciated that the lower rungs of the ladder (techniques and subsistence economies) are as ideologically constituted as the upper ones (social/political institutions and religious institutions/spiritual life). Myles Miller (The Archaic Southwest, Chapter 7) reminds us of this when he states that subsistence practices have both ecological and social dimensions. He provides new data suggesting that the visual expressions of cosmology first appear during the Middle Archaic in the form of rock art and mobilary art in the Jornada region, and sees it as possible evidence for place-making.
These two well-edited volumes present some exciting new developments in our understandings of the adoption of agriculture in the American Southwest and the growth of farming communities in the Mimbres Valley. They challenge our preconceived notions about the rapidity of the adoption of agriculture, and raise questions about the organisation of labour and the emergence of irrigation agriculture. Together, they demonstrate how far Southwestern archaeology has come; but in doing so, they remind us how much more there is to learn.
