Changing Settlement and Population in the Mimbres Valley, SW New Mexico

Blake, Michael; LeBlanc, Steven A.; Minnis, Paul E.

doi:10.1179/jfa.1986.13.4.439

Cited by 51 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…In the Mimbres region, prior to the 11th century, people shifted settlements frequently (Swanson andDiehl 2003, Swanson 2009). By the beginning of the 1100s, a greater place focus emerged, with long-term settlements relatively evenly spaced along the major rivers and tributaries (Blake et al 1986, Nelson 1999. Minnis (1985) has documented a depletion of local riparian vegetation during the 11th to early 12th centuries in the Mimbres Valley, concurrent with Fig.…”

Section: Residential Stability and The Potential For Resource Depletimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The database is likely missing a large proportion of sites dating to the earliest time periods (Early and Late Pithouse periods: AD 400-1000). Thus, population estimates for the earliest periods were defined based on the rates of growth in the best-known portions of the region (Blake et al 1986).…”

Section: Potential For Population Growth and Demand On Food Supply (Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Cross-scale Interplay between Social and Biophysical Context and the Vulnerability of Irrigation-dependent Societies: Archaeology's Long-term Perspective

Nelson¹,

Kintigh²,

Abbott³

et al. 2010

E&S

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Section: Residential Stability and The Potential For Resource Depletimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Potential For Population Growth and Demand On Food Supply (Smentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cross-scale Interplay between Social and Biophysical Context and the Vulnerability of Irrigation-dependent Societies: Archaeology's Long-term Perspective

Nelson¹,

Kintigh²,

Abbott³

et al. 2010

E&S

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“…More than 6000 people may have lived in the Mimbres region at 1100 C.E., although estimates vary considerably; for example, Blake, LeBlanc, and Minnis estimate 5133 for the Mimbres Valley (:table 12) while Hegmon et al. estimate 2700 for the Mimbres Valley and 5600 for the region (2008:table 1) (see also Cordell et al.…”

Section: Identity and Belief Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…). Blake, LeBlanc, and Minnis conclude that the population reached this level with an internal growth rate of 0.3 percent (:454). However, reanalysis of Anyon and LeBlanc's () data suggests a rate of between 2.0 and 2.5 percent, indicating substantial in‐migration during the Classic period (Cordell et al.…”

Section: Identity and Belief Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

4 Experiencing Social Change: Life during the Mimbres Classic Transformation

Hegmon

Nelson

Schollmeyer

2016

Archaeological Papers of the American

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By about 1130 C.E., the end of the Classic Mimbres period, this way of life had ended; most people left the large villages, many left the region, and they no longer made the beautiful pottery. There is almost no evidence of violence or disease, and the reasons for the change are not well understood.Archaeologists have long been interested in this transformation, once viewed as a collapse and disappearance (e.g., LeBlanc 1983:158-159). More recently, based on evidence that some people stayed in the region, we described the events around 1130 as a regional reorganization (Hegmon et al. 1998;Nelson et al. 2006). In comparison to other transformations elsewhere in the Southwest, the Mimbres reorganization was milder and involved less human suffering (Hegmon et al. 2008). The Mimbres case has also been used to define a kind of change called "transformative relocation," which recognizes that there was some population continuity through a time of settlement relocation (Nelson et al. 1996;Torvinen et al. 2015).Here we consider what it was like to live during this reorganization or "transformative relocation." Specifically, we ask how the changes we see archaeologically actually affected people's lives. The first component of AHE involves the conditions of life, and that is our focus here. Some chapters in this volume (Ortman, Chapter 5; Brewington, Chapter 6; Logan, Chapter 7) take an ordinal approach to AHE, comparing conditions over time or space or between social groups. Here we take a different and complementary approach, focusing simply on whether and how the Experiencing Social Change 55conditions of life changed without judging those changes as positive or negative. We also assume that different people were affected differently by the changes, such as the end of a land tenure system or the movement out of large villages. What emerges is an understanding of what people might have experienced-for example, the need to work harder to produce the same amount of food-even if we cannot know how they felt about it. Thus our work opens avenues for archaeologists to explore the fourth component of AHE, which is concerned with the experience of the conditions of life.A brief background section sets the stage for our exploration. This is followed by sections that explore the human experience in a number of realms, ranging from diet to subsistence labor to the activities and contributions of artists. These insights are supported by multiple lines of archaeological evidence, and in some cases the same archaeological evidence is germane to several realms and thus is mentioned in multiple sections. Our focus is on the Mimbres Valley, which had the densest population during the Classic period, and on the eastern Mimbres area, where we can trace the Classic to Postclassic/Reorganization phase transition (Nelson et al. 2006). The background is written in a style familiar to most archaeologists, focusing on evidence and trends. In contrast, in the sections on the human experience we attempted, where appropriate, to make peo...

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“…Near the start of the eleventh century, the beginning of the Classic Mimbres period, people in the Mimbres region aggregated into villages of up to a few hundred individuals. These villages were built primarily along the rivers and near sections of perennial streams (LeBlanc 1983, Minnis 1985, Blake et al 1986).…”

Section: Mimbresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Small-Scale Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environments

Spielmann¹,

Nelson²,

Ingram³

et al. 2011

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For at least the past 8000 years, small-scale farmers in semi-arid environments have had to mitigate shortfalls in crop production due to variation in precipitation and stream flow. To reduce their vulnerability to a shortfall in their food supply, small-scale farmers developed short-term strategies, including storage and community-scale sharing, to mitigate inter-annual variation in crop production, and long-term strategies, such as migration, to mitigate the effects of sustained droughts. We use the archaeological and paleoclimatic records from A.D. 900-1600 in two regions of the American Southwest to explore the nature of variation in the availability of water for crops, and the strategies that enhanced the resilience of prehistoric agricultural production to climatic variation. Drawing on information concerning contemporary small-scale farming in semi-arid environments, we then suggest that the risk coping and mitigation strategies that have endured for millennia are relevant to enhancing the resilience of contemporary farmers' livelihoods to environmental and economic perturbations.

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Changing Settlement and Population in the Mimbres Valley, SW New Mexico

Cited by 51 publications

References 0 publications

The Cross-scale Interplay between Social and Biophysical Context and the Vulnerability of Irrigation-dependent Societies: Archaeology's Long-term Perspective

The Cross-scale Interplay between Social and Biophysical Context and the Vulnerability of Irrigation-dependent Societies: Archaeology's Long-term Perspective

4 Experiencing Social Change: Life during the Mimbres Classic Transformation

Sustainable Small-Scale Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environments

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