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The Short, Unhappy Use Lives of Early Agricultural Period “FoodStorage” Pits at the Las Capas Site, Southern Arizona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael W. Diehl  and
Owen K. Davis
Michael W. Diehl*
Affiliation:
Desert Archaeology, Inc., 3975 N. Tucson Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85716
Owen K. Davis
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85720 (odavis@email.arizona.edu)
*
mdiehl@desert.com
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Abstract

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

¿Eran los cultivadores de maíz del período de Agricultura Temprana (2100a.C.–50 d.C.) en el sur de Arizona sedentarios o forrajeadores-agricultoresque se desplazaban estacionalmente? Los análogos etnográficos y la teoría derango medio derivada etnográficamente apoyan ambas afirmaciones. Unargumento a favor del sedentarismo ha sido la abundancia de pozos grandes dealmacenaje subterráneo. Muchas veces, se supone que éstos se utilizaban parael almacenaje de alimentos a largo plazo. Este estudio de esporasindicadoras de humedales recuperadas de aquellos pozos señala que los pozosestaban frecuentemente saturados y no se podían haber utilizado para elalmacenaje de alimentos a largo plazo; estos resultados apoyan la afirmacióngeneral que los cultivadores de maíz del período de Agricultura Temprana sedesplazaban estacionalmente e intentaban hacer caber la agricultura tempranadentro de en un régimen de subsistencia enfocado en los alimentossilvestres.

Information

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 333 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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References

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