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85 4 Mimbres Mogollon Farming Estimating Prehistoric Agricultural Production during the Classic Mimbres Period Michael D. Pool Agroecology is “the dynamic web of relationships that enmesh subsistence farmers, their environment, and the technological and organizational practices they employ to survive and prosper.” —John Welch (1996, 37) From AD 950/1000 to AD 1130/1150, southwestern new Mexico experienced a remarkable efflorescence of cultural development along the Mimbres River, marked by the development of masonry pueblo architecture and one of the most distinctive and aesthetic traditions of pottery in prehistoric north America. Although it was certainly not a singular event in the prehistory of the American Southwest, the collapse and disappearance of the classic Mimbres culture has puzzled archaeologists for more than a hundred years. The beginning of the classic Mimbres period (AD 950/1000) is marked by the replacement of pithouse architecture with cobble masonry surface pueblos and the presence of classic Mimbres (Style III) black-on-white ceramics and Mimbres corrugated ceramics (lekson 1992). classic Mimbres people were sedentary and reliant on the cultivation of maize, beans, and squash, primarily produced by irrigation agriculture. They lived in a number of large masonry villages surrounded by many smaller secondary villages and even smaller special-use field houses (lekson 1992). There are at least 650 known Mimbres architectural sites, ranging in size from 100 to more than 200 rooms, in southwestern new Mexico (lekson 1992, 15). Fourteen large sites are located in the Mimbres River valley (Shafer 2003, 131). Since there appears to be a lack of evidence of any social hierarchy, many researchers consider Mimbres social organization to have been egalitarian, with villages politically independent of each other (Gilman 1990; ham 1989; leBlanc 1983; Shafer 2003, 105). however, harry J. Shafer (2003, 2006) hypothesizes that corporate groups (lineages) michael d. pool 86 evolved during the late Three circle phase (AD 900–1000) to maintain and operate irrigation systems. The classic Mimbres period materialized the associated technological and social organizational changes with the development of aggregated surface masonry pueblos, prestige pottery (Mimbres [Style III] black-on-white ceramics), corporate kiva organization, unique mortuary customs (interment with a “killed” bowl over the face), and lineage cemeteries. These corporate groups were hierarchically organized relative to each other and were competitive, providing a complex, integrated valley-wide network that structured management of the irrigation system around corporate-based rituals and feasting within and between villages. Founding corporate groups at a site were probably ranked higher than later-forming corporate groups, as they likely controlled the adjacent irrigable floodplain. competition took the form of feasting and the exchange of prestige items, especially Mimbres (Style III) black-on-white ceramics. From AD 1130/1150 to 1200, the Mimbres core region along the middle and upper Mimbres River witnessed substantial demographic changes. The Mimbres population abandoned the northern part of the Mimbres Valley, and in the southern part, the population substantially declined and the material culture changed. At least some of the population moved into the eastern slope of the Black Mountain range, where Mimbres culture continued until about AD 1200 (hegmon et al. 1999). Many researchers (Anyon and leBlanc 1984; Blake, leBlanc, and Minnis 1986; herrington 1979, 1982; lekson 1992; Shafer 1982b) attribute this change to a climatic shift, in particular decreases in precipitation; to overpopulation; and/or to overexploitation of the agricultural environment that led to a demographic collapse or at least a regional reorganization of a declining population. They point to increases in population size, culminating in a maximum between AD 1050 and 1100; expansion into more marginal agricultural lands; removal of all riparian trees; and utilization of all arable river-bottom land. In conjunction with these factors, either decreased precipitation or continued population growth triggered overwhelming resource stress so that large areas were abandoned or significantly depopulated. The hypothesis that either the lack of adequate precipitation or overpopulation resulted in a demographic collapse because of a nutritional deficit can be tested using dendroclimatological data and agricultural production estimates from a crop simulation model, DSSAT 3.5 (hoogenboom et al. 1999). First, population from the study area (figure 4.1) is estimated using archaeological survey data and reports. Second, maize production for the study area for the period 1958–88 is modeled using historic soil data (nRcS 1994; Parham, Paetzoid, and Souders 1983) and weather data for the period 1957–88 (ncDc 1995; noAA 1986). Third, these annual production figures are converted into sustainable population units based on one year of consumption [18.217...

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