Barlow, Renee K.
2002 Predicting Maize
Agriculture among the Fremont: An Economic Comparison of Farming and Foraging
in American Southwest, American Antiquity,
vol. 67, No. 1:65-88.
This article explores the costs and benefits of
agriculture versus foraging in the American Southwest. It is looking at the Fremont people,
located at the northern most part of the southwest in Utah, eastern Nevada, and
southern Idaho. Renee Barlow is
examining material remains from the farmers and horticulturalists in the area. Material remains include decorative
ceramics, projectile points, baskets, manos and metates, moccasins, clay
figurines, rock-art, headdresses, necklaces, and earrings.
Corn cobs dating from 100-500 CE have been
found in the area. It can be
suggested that maize was a major crop in the area but distinctive Fremont
assemblages did not become major until some 600 years after maize
introduction. Some evidence of
irrigation also suggests intensive agriculture and the material and
macrobotanical evidence suggests that maize agriculture was significant in the
area. However, the material
culture also suggests a diversity of importance on maize farming and a
hunter-gatherer lifestyle. It is
hard to interpret the data because the ecology of the region and the role of
migration, local adaption, and diffusion of technology have a lot of influence
on the archaeological record.
Barlow discusses the interpretation that the
Fremont people were Puebloian and were a mix between maize horticulturalists
and hunter-gatherers. Once the
cost of foraging began to outweigh maize production, the people moved more
towards maize with an increase in sedentism around 700-1100 CE. So, Barlow believes that even though
the people were growing maize and using the crops, they were still foraging and
hunting to supplement their diet.
While the people had architecture and small villages, they were not
completely dependant and agriculture and maize production at this time. The evidence does suggest a steady
increase to maize dependency not only found in macrobotanical remains but by
looking at bone structure, ceramics, and an increase in sedentism.
Hard, Robert J.,
Raymond P. Mauldin, Gerry R. Raymond
1996 Manos Size, Stable Carbon Isotope
Ratios, and Macrobotanical Remains as Multiple Lines of Evidence of Maize
Dependence in the American Southwest, Journals of Archaeological Method and
Theory, vol. 3, No. 3:253-318.
This article does an in depth analysis on
manos size, a stable carbon isotope ratios and macrobotanical remains as
evidence of maize use in the southwest.
Even though some say that maize production had not been major until the
first millennium, there are excavations with maize as early as 500 BCE. Hard, Mauldin, and Raymond took
information from 6 regions (Black Mesa, Cedar Mesa, Mesa Verde, Southern
Jornada, Antelope Creek, and Sierra Blanca) and 16 phases in the southwest to conduct
an over all analysis of the southwest.
They found that manos size and maize ubiquity could be ordinal
measurements of agricultural dependency.
Isotope ratios can only tell if there was a little or substantial maize
use. Their results indicate that
there are three major patterns in the adoption of farming in the area. One is “early substantial use followed
by continuous increasing maize dependency.”(p. 253) The second and third are
“initial intensive dependence with little change in later periods and a long
period of minor use followed by substantial dependence.”(p. 253) This bibliography will focus on their
findings of macrobotanical remains.
The
main ways they collect their remains is from flotation and coprolite samples. When using flotation they would often
recover charred seeds. They take
into account the precise conditions that are needed to collect good plant
remains. Structures that were
burned in use are often great places to find plant remains. The study of coprolite, or human feces,
is also highlighted as a great source of data for learning more about human
diet. They are also aware of the
bias that some material is lost in the digestion process.
Their
findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between the ubiquity of
maize and manos area. They
eliminated places that had strong indications of hunter-gatherer societies with
maize production to eliminate an indication of correlation between manos and
the absences or presences of farming
Their conclusion is that the timing of maize production is different from
region to region and that manos size is related to maize utilization but other
variables may affect the correlation.
I find the dichotomy between the ways of finding the corn remains interesting. In the first article, you only mention whole cobs, whereas in the second one you mention charred kernels and fossilized excrement. I would be curious to know if finding whole cobs is the norm, or if charred seeds are the major source. Perhaps the first article only mentions cobs because it goes into so much depth on things that imply corn cobs, such as the irrigation canals that my article goes into great depth on. It would be interesting to do a comparative dating study on floral remains, such as the charred seeds, and the extra-botanical sources, such as farming implements or irrigation canals.
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