Agricultural Beginnings in the American Southwest
By (author) Barbara J. Roth
Not available to order
Publication date:
12 October 2016Length of book:
200 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780759121737
How did agriculture come about in the American Southwest? What environmental and social factors led to the cultivation of plants? How, in turn, did the use of these new agricultural products affect the ancient peoples living in the region? In pursuit of answers to these questions, Barbara Roth synthesizes data from both CRM and academic research to explore the emergence and impact of Southwestern agriculture.
Roth examines agricultural beginnings across the entire Southwest, both northern and southern, and across culture groups residing there. Beyond simply addressing the arrival and widespread adoption of specific cultigens, she pays particular attention to human factors such as patterns of production andvariability in agricultural developments. Her consideration of broad social and environmental dynamics affecting forager diets and adaptive strategies sheds new light on what we know—and what we should ask—about the transition fromforaging to farming.
Roth examines agricultural beginnings across the entire Southwest, both northern and southern, and across culture groups residing there. Beyond simply addressing the arrival and widespread adoption of specific cultigens, she pays particular attention to human factors such as patterns of production andvariability in agricultural developments. Her consideration of broad social and environmental dynamics affecting forager diets and adaptive strategies sheds new light on what we know—and what we should ask—about the transition fromforaging to farming.
In this much-needed new book, Roth provides a geographically-, temporally-, and thematically-focused consideration of the pivotal beginnings of agricultural societies in the Southwest. She synthesizes the best and most relevant CRM and academic data sets to lay out what archaeologists have found, the most appropriate behavioral patterns for making sense of the findings, and the recommended paths for creating more and higher-resolution knowledge regarding why, how, and to what effect hunter-gatherers in the Southwest incorporated cultigens into their diets and lifeways.