The short, unhappy use lives of Early Agricultural period "food storage" pits at the las capas site, Southern Arizona

Michael W. Diehl, Owen K. Davis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Were Early Agricultural period (2100 B.C.-A.D. 50) maize cultivators in Southern Arizona sedentary farmers or seasonally mobile forager-farmers? Ethnographic analogs and ethnographically derived middle range theory support both claims. One argument for sedentism has been the abundance of large subterranean storage pits. These are often presumed to have been used for long-term food storage. This study of wetlands-indicator spores recovered from those pits indicates that the pits were often saturated and could not have been used for long-term food storage; these findings support the general contention that Early Agricultural period maize cultivators were seasonally mobile and tried to fit early agriculture into a subsistence regime focused on wild foods.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)333-344
Number of pages12
JournalAmerican Antiquity
Volume81
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • History
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Archaeology
  • Museology

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