Chronology

In the central Mesa Verde region, dendrochronological dates and frequent temporal changes in pottery styles allow bone assemblages from some archaeological sites to be dated to periods as short as forty years (Ortman et al. 2007), an unusually precise range for archaeological materials. Thanks to intense archaeological survey, almost all community centers of fifty or more rooms have probably been recorded (see Glowacki et al., chapter 12 this volume). Within the large, systematically surveyed portion of the study area, all surviving archaeological sites of one or more rooms have probably been recorded (Schwindt et al. 2016; Varien et al. 2007). This unusual precision allows us to examine faunal assemblages from different stages of human residence within the region, including the first substantial permanent villages, changes in population density, and the final years of residence by pre-Hispanic Pueblo farmers.

The earliest evidence of sedentary farmers in the area is from the Basketmaker III period (AD 500–750), when a pulse of immigration established the first substantial sedentary human population (Diederichs 2020; Schleher et al., chapter 10 in this volume; Schwindt et al. 2016; Varien et al. 2007). Most people lived in dispersed single-family residences, but this period also saw the establishment of small, multihousehold villages. In this chapter we generally focus on the most precisely dated assemblages from the region. However, because we lack a sample of precisely dated Basketmaker III period sites, we have included data from aggregated faunal assemblages from mid-Basketmaker III period (AD 575–660) and late Basketmaker III period (AD 660–750) contexts from a recent CCAC project (Cates 2020).

During the Pueblo I period (AD 750–900), migrants from the east and west arrived, eventually coalescing into villages of over 100 households (Johnson et al. 2005). Many of these villages were short lived, with occupations of forty or fewer years (Wilshusen 1999). Around AD 880 a large-scale southward emigration began (Judge 1989, 216). We report data from three Pueblo I period assemblages.

During the early Pueblo II period (AD 900–1060) the regional human population was low, with residence in widely dispersed households, sometimes loosely clustered into a dispersed community (Lipe and Varien 1999a; Throgmorton et al., chapter 11 in this volume). Another episode of immigration occurred in the late Pueblo II period (AD 1060–1140). As local populations increased, residences became increasingly aggregated into clusters around community centers built in the style of Chaco Canyon to the south. Our study includes faunal assemblages from four villages from the early Pueblo II period and three villages from the more populous late Pueblo II period (table 21.1), allowing us to contrast the resources used by farmers during both a more dispersed and a more aggregated period of settlement.

Table 21.1. Assemblage size and date ranges for faunal data used in this study.

The early Pueblo III period (AD 1140–1225) began with decades of widespread drought (Ryan 2010). Rapid population growth commenced with the end of the drought around AD 1180, and farmers built increasingly aggregated clusters of residences on mesa tops (Lipe and Varien 1999b). Population growth continued during the late Pueblo III period (AD 1225–1300), reaching a peak between AD 1225 and 1260 (Schwindt et al. 2016; Varien et al. 2007). Community centers became larger and more numerous, with most people living in tightly aggregated villages. Most villages were located in or near canyons rather than on mesa tops. Faunal assemblages are drawn from two early Pueblo III period villages and five late Pueblo III period villages (table 21.1). These assemblages provide information about resource use by the largest and most aggregated human populations to have lived in the area.

The end of the Pueblo III period saw a dramatic depopulation around AD 1260. Shortly after AD 1280, residential use of the region by Pueblo people ended (Schwindt et al. 2016; Varien et al. 2007). Our study includes one assemblage from Sand Canyon Pueblo that was deposited in the final few years of occupation, likely in the late 1270s.

Indices and Changes in Animal Abundance

Numerous processes can influence the relative abundance of animal bones from different taxa in an archaeological assemblage, including taphonomic, anthropogenic, and nonanthropogenic environmental factors (Schollmeyer and Driver 2013). We are most interested here in anthropogenic influences, and in taxon variability related to the resilience of taxa to those influences. We attempt to mitigate the effects of taphonomic variation by examining statistically significant trends across multiple bone assemblages, which should cancel out biases in taphonomy, sampling, and analysis associated with individual assemblages. We control for spatial environmental variation by focusing on a consistent area, the Montezuma Valley, over time. Nonanthropogenic environmental variation from climatic variability over time has been well studied in the area (Varien et al. 2007) and does not appear to be a substantial influence on the patterns discussed here. We compare the relative proportions of several orders and genera of animals in these archaeological assemblages using the number of identified specimens (NISP) identified to that order, genus, or lower taxonomic level. Comparing proportions highlights changes in the relative abundance of different types of animals over time, and how those changes are related to shifts in the size and distribution of the local human population.

Results

Artiodactyl index values decrease consistently from AD 725 to AD 1225 (table 21.2). Fisher’s exact tests comparing artiodactyl and lagomorph number of identified specimens (NISP) between consecutive periods show a significant difference between the Pueblo I and early Pueblo II periods (p = 0.04), between the early and late Pueblo II periods (p = 0) and between the late Pueblo II period and early Pueblo III (p = 0). These figures indicate substantial anthropogenic impacts on local artiodactyl populations occurred by AD 1060, considerably earlier than previously suggested (Driver 2002).

Table 21.2. NISP, index values, and the results of Fisher’s exact analysis of changes between time periods.

Note: “Lagomorph NISP” is sum of Lepus, Sylvilagus, and specimens identified only as “lagomorph.” Estimated human population densities for the McElmo subregion from Schwindt et al. (2016).

The early, late, and terminal Pueblo III period assemblages show another interesting pattern. Artiodactyl relative abundance is uniformly low from AD 1180 to AD 1225, but the late AD 1270s assemblage has a significantly higher artiodactyl index (Fisher’s exact p = 0). Kristin Kuckelman (2010, and chapter 19 in this volume) attributes this to a possible failure of maize crops that forced people to other foods shortly before the abandonment of this pueblo. However, it has also been argued that sufficient maize could have been grown to meet the needs of the population (Ermigiotti et al., chapter 4 in this volume). Several researchers have suggested hunting in distant areas was generally unsafe during the Pueblo III period (Driver 2002; Lipe 1995), and there is substantial evidence for interpersonal violence during this time (Kuckelman 2016; Kohler et al., chapter 3 in this volume). If these conditions were the case, the need for supplemental food in the last decades of this period at Sand Canyon Pueblo must have been very great, forcing people to hunt in distant places despite the danger. Alternatively, the overall reduction in regional human population in later Pueblo III period times may have taken hunting pressure off artiodactyls, making them more available to those people who did not leave the region.

Turkey index values also show considerable variability over time (table 21.2). We did not calculate the turkey index for Basketmaker III period assemblages, because most turkey specimens come from a single buried individual. A statistically significant increase occurs in the turkey index from very low to moderate levels between the early and late Pueblo II periods (Fisher’s exact p = 0), and another significant increase from moderate to high levels between the late Pueblo II and early Pueblo III periods (p = 0). It is notable that statistically significant declines in the artiodactyl index take place across these same intervals. From its peak in the early Pueblo III period, the turkey index declines significantly in the late Pueblo III period (Fisher’s exact p = 0) and again between late Pueblo III period and the terminal Pueblo III period deposits from Sand Canyon Pueblo (p = 0). This decline may be related to the crop failures suggested by Kuckelman (2010) but could also be a response to increased access to preferred artiodactyls.

The lagomorph index remains fairly stable over time, with an overall trend to an increased cottontail-to-jackrabbit ratio from the Basketmaker III period through the terminal Pueblo III period (table 21.2). Lagomorphs were sufficiently resilient to predation to remain an important food source. The relative increase in cottontail to jackrabbit could result from resource depression of jackrabbits relative to cottontails, or from habitat modification (Driver and Woiderski 2008).

Discussion

We suggest that both gradual and abrupt changes in subsistence practices are documented in the faunal record. The lagomorph index shows a gradual trend toward greater use of cottontails relative to jackrabbits. We propose that this change relates to a regional change in habitat brought about by farming and deforestation that created more favorable habitat for cottontails (see Driver and Woiderski 2008). The constant availability of lagomorphs demonstrates their resilience to predation. Zooarchaeological data do not allow us to calculate absolute quantities of animals procured, so it is difficult to determine whether the consistently high proportion of lagomorphs means an ample supply of food. However, lagomorphs remained easily accessible relative to other taxa for a long period of time, suggesting they were at least relatively resilient at this time scale. The fact that use of rodents does not increase through time (see Badenhorst et al., chapter 20 in this volume) supports the interpretation of lagomorphs as a consistently available source of food.

Artiodactyl usage was never especially high, but there was a significant and rapid decline in access to artiodactyls beginning in the late Pueblo II period and continuing in the Pueblo III period (AD 1060 to 1260). It is notable that this decline begins in the mid-eleventh century AD, when human population levels in the McElmo subregion (from which most of our assemblages are derived) experienced rapid growth (Schwindt et al. 2016), accompanied by aggregation of people around larger villages. As human populations grew throughout Pueblo III period times (Schwindt et al. 2016), artiodactyl usage declined even further (table 21.2). Archaeologists have traditionally viewed reductions in local artiodactyl populations as a gradual process, but our analysis shows substantial changes would have taken place within one or two human generations in the central Mesa Verde region after the establishment of larger villages during the late Pueblo II period. The archaeological data emphasize both how readily local reductions in access to certain taxa can occur with large-bodied, relatively slow-reproducing prey in an arid environment, and how long-lasting these initial impacts can be. Local large mammal access did not rebound until human populations declined in the late thirteenth century AD.

The use of turkey as food increased suddenly in the late Pueblo II period and became even more important in the Pueblo III period. Several researchers have suggested that turkey domestication in this area represents a response to declining protein and fat availability from large mammals as those resources became increasingly rare (Badenhorst and Driver 2009; Spielmann and Angstadt-Leto 1996), and the evidence from these assemblages supports that interpretation. Modern studies indicate that as alternative meat sources (fish and domesticated animals) become more accessible, consumption of wild game can decline (e.g., Wilkie et al. 2005). Turkey production was probably quite labor intensive, since these animals were so heavily provisioned with maize grown by farmers, and substantial use of these domesticated animals does not occur until after access to local artiodactyls declines.

Although artiodactyls became increasingly rare over time, they continued to be available in small numbers. Some of this continued access may have been via long-distance hunting trips to areas outside a village’s usual hunting territory, a pattern analogous to the long-distance hunts for large mammals documented in modern studies of areas with localized depletion of some taxa (e.g., Peres and Nascimento 2006). Individual villages varied in their access to large game, a pattern we argue elsewhere may be related to source-sink dynamics and the role of high-elevation habitats in providing animals that migrated into the heavily hunted areas around some villages (Schollmeyer and Driver 2013). The presence of refugia may have been instrumental in the regional persistence of these animals despite high hunting pressure in the areas around villages. The importance of refugia for both the persistence of animal populations and continued hunting opportunities has been highlighted in a number of contemporary studies, particularly in the tropics (e.g., Naranjo and Bodmer 2007).

Acknowledgments. We thank S. Ortman and the researchers and staff of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center for their collaboration and support. This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), and additional support was provided by Simon Fraser University and the Arizona State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Datasets used in this chapter may be accessed online via the Digital Archaeological Record, http://core.tdar.org/ and at www.crowcanyon.org for sites excavated by CCAC.

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