A Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan Languages

9: Can Proto-Uto-Aztecan Culture Be Reconstructed?

218 CHAPTER 8 uto-aztecan and the spread of corn agriculture Because Uto-Aztecan is the only language family extending from Mesoamerica into the American Southwest, the spread of cultural traits northward from Mexico could have been via UtoAztecan -speaking networks. The Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis (Bellwood 1968; Diamond and Bellwood 2003; Bellwood and Renfrew 2002) holds that each case of the spread of agriculture correlates with the population expansion of a single language family. Romney (1957) proposed that the PUA speech community had agriculture (‘planting stick,’ ‘mano,’ ‘metate,’ two words for ‘corn,’ ‘planted field’), pointing to a Mexican origin for the family. Jane Hill took up Romney’s position in view of the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis. This chapter will review and critique her proposals. Although Hill’s application of the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis has been disproven, a compromise exists in the work of Merrill. Merrill (2013a) proposed a Southern UA intermediate ancestor on the basis of two soundchangessharedbyallSouthernUAsubfamilies(Tepiman,Tarahumaran, Opatan, Cahitan, Tubar, Corachol, Nahuan). Merrill (2013b) then suggested that the Proto–Southern UA speech community practiced incipient corn agriculture (corn agriculture without the addition of beans, squash, and chiles), as opposed to corn-complex agriculture (the complete triplex of corn, beans, and squash). It is possible that UA varieties were involved with the spread of corn agriculture into the American Southwest, but in a more complicated way than proposed by Hill. Merrill and colleagues (2009) proposed an early date for the breakup of Uto-Aztecan (ca. 6900 BC), with the homeland of PUA in the UTO-AZTECAN AND THE SPREAD OF CORN AGRICULTURE 219 Great Basin. In their scenario, as the climate dried, speakers of UA languages migrated south into Mexico, subsequently diffusing corn agriculture northward into the American Southwest via existing UA language networks. It is worth noting that genetic evidence does not support speakers of UA languages as the main agent in the spread of corn agriculture into the American Southwest. Kemp and colleagues (2010) evaluated the hypothesis that speakers of Uto-Aztecan spread corn agriculture into the American Southwest from Mexico with a large-scale study of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA variation in native populations of these areas. These data showed that Uto-Aztecan dispersal of corn agriculture was “unlikely” (Kemp et al. 2010:6759). In the American Southwest, mtDNA haplogroup A is rare, but it is common in Mesoamerica. In the Southwest, mtDNA haplogroup B is of moderate frequency, but it is very rare in Mesoamerica. The mtDNA sampling of Kemp and colleagues showed that mtDNA variation across the Southwest and Mexico “strongly correlated with geography and not with language family” (Kemp et al. 2010:6763), and again: “the vast majority of subclades within the networks [of mtDNA] were specific to regions but not language families. In particular, few UA specific mtDNA clades were seen in the networks, contrary to the expectations of FLDH [Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis]” (2010:6761). Complicating this scenario is the early agriculture at Zuni (Damp 2007) and the appearance of agriculture in the adjacent western Basketmaker culture from 2900 to 2500 BP (= 900–500 BC; Matson 1991). Coinciding with the transition to fully sedentary agriculture (AD 50–500) is the appearance in late western Basketmaker II of sandals unique in fabric structure and design (Teague and Washburn 2013). These sandals are similar to sandals found farther south in Mexico. This connection could represent UA-speaking people (s) coming up from Mexico (despite the genetic evidence), but there is still a problem. There is a long span of time between the appearance of agriculture (900 BC) and the transition to sedentary agriculture (AD 50). The eastern Basketmaker II tradition, next to the western Basketmaker II culture in the San Juan River drainage of northern New Mexico, developed from a local indigenous base in the Archaic and only gradually adopted agriculture (Coltrain et al. 2006). If the eastern Basketmaker II culture was (in part) Tanoan-speaking (Ortman 2012), then language must have been an ethnic marker at that early date, with few UA words for cultivated plants (or little else, for that matter) being borrowed into Tanoan (see below). CHAPTER 8 220 uto-aztecan and the spread of agriculture: bellwood applied Before presenting Jane Hill’s application of the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis to Uto-Aztecan, it is worth noting Hill’s perspective on the methodology of linguistic anthropology. In an essay called “The Refiguration...