Soils, Climate and Society: Archaeological Investigations in Ancient America

Wingard, John; Hayes, Sue Eileen

Soils, Climate and Society

Archaeological Investigations in Ancient America

Edited by John D. Wingard and Sue Eileen Hayes

Publication Year: 2013

Much recent archaeological research focuses on social forces as the impetus for cultural change. Soils, Climate and Society, however, focuses on the complex relationship between human populations and the physical environment, particularly the land—the foundation of agricultural production and, by extension, of agricultural peoples.

The volume traces the origins of agriculture, the transition to agrarian societies, the sociocultural implications of agriculture, agriculture’s effects on population, and the theory of carrying capacity, considering the relation of agriculture to the profound social changes that it wrought in the New World. Soil science plays a significant, though varied, role in each case study, and is the common component of each analysis. Soil chemistry is also of particular importance to several of the studies, as it determines the amount of food that can be produced in a particular soil and the effects of occupation or cultivation on that soil, thus having consequences for future cultivators.

Soils, Climate and Society demonstrates that renewed investigation of agricultural production and demography can answer questions about the past, as well as stimulate further research. It will be of interest to scholars of archaeology, historical ecology and geography, and agricultural history.

Soils, Climate and Society

Cover

Contents

Figures

Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A User’s Guide to Soils,Climate, and Society

1: Population Estimatesfor Anthropogenically Enriched Soils: (Amazonian Dark Earths)

2: Soilscape Legacies: Historical and Emerging Consequences of Socioecological Interactions in Honduras

3: Drought, Subsistence Stress, and Population Dynamics: Assessing Mississippian Abandonment of the Vacant Quarter

4: Mimbres Mogollon Farming: Estimating Prehistoric Agricultural Production during the Classic Mimbres Period

5: So Who’s Counting? Modeling Pre-Columbian Agricultural Potential in the Maya World

6: Tilling the Fields and Building the Temples: Assessing the Relationship among Land, Labor, and Classic Maya Elite Power in the Copán Valley, Honduras

7: An EPIC Challenge: Estimating Site Population in South Coastal Peru

8: Feeding the Masses: New Perspectives on Maya Agriculture from Cerén, El Salvador

9: How Can We Know?: The Epistemological Foundation of Ecological Modeling in Archaeology

Contributors

Index

Research Areas

Recommend

Subject Headings

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