Prespanish Human Ecology in the Southwestern Deserts

Richard B. Woodbury
Department of Anthropology
The University of Arizona

The following remarks do not represent final conclusions on the complicated subject of interrelationships between man and his environment in the arid Southwest, but rather are speculative and programmatic. It should also be mentioned at the outset that human ecology is fundamentally different from plant or animal ecology because of the important fact that man can change his behavior systems rapidly and profoundly through changes in his culture--the infinitely adaptable learned patterns of action that distinguish human activities from those of all other organisms. Therefore, human behavior is not a near-constant in its relation to a given environment, but can change radically and almost instantaneously.

The Southwestern desert is a particularly promising area for human ecological analysis. This promise derives from the fact that research into prehistoric periods has already provided the general outlines of a long span of human occupation. 1 Furthermore in historic times and even to the present day, some of the descendants of the desert-dwelling population have survived and their cultures are known in far more detail than could ever be known through the archeological record. 2 By inference from these recent data, it is possible to sketch in man's past in the area with some confidence.

In order to understand the ecology of the past it is convenient to divide the known span of human occupation into several phases or periods each characterized by cultural attributes distinct from those of the other periods and derivable from the evidences of the archeological record or from other disciplines. For our purposes it is fortunate that subsistence techniques comprise an aspect of human activity that archeologists are usually able to define in some detail, since they also are basic to understanding man's relationship with his environment. For convenience, the following four large time periods can be defined for the Southwest.

1. Period of hunting big game from the time of man's first arrival in the area more than ten to twelve thousand years ago to about 6000 B.C.
2. Period of gathering food from wild plants (with hunting continuing on a limited scale), from about 6000 B.C. to about 2000 B.C.
3. Period of initial agriculture (with hunting and gathering both continued), from about 2000 B.C. to about A.D. 500.
4. Period of developed agriculture (with hunting and gathering continuing), from about A.D. 500 to the present.

Since the changes in subsistence patterns were gradual, with older techniques persisting together with the new, these periods merge at the boundaries. Also, agriculture could never be practiced as widely as could the gathering of wild foods, so that the third and fourth periods also involve a smaller area, with older techniques persisting in marginal areas.

In order to make valid inferences about the human ecology of these four periods, the following classes of information are needed:

1. Data on the environment of each period, and on the resources available to man--regardless of how they were exploited.
2. Data on the subsistence basis or bases of the human population in each period, including details of the foods used and the techniques by which they were acquired, stored, and prepared.
3. Data on the localities preferred by the human population for each period, for its subsistence activities and its dwellings. This would include information on movements of a seasonal or long-term nature, and on settlement patterns.
4. Estimates of population density in each period.
5. Evaluation of the effects on the environment of human activities in each period.

Although we are far short of having all these data for each period, we can proceed to a consideration of the human ecology of the region, using such information as is available and recognizing the uncertain nature of some of the guesses with which facts must be supplemented.

Period of Big Game Hunting

Data from the Naco (Haury, Antevs, and Lance, 1953), and Lehner (Haury and others, 1959) sites in Arizona indicate that large grazing animals, particularly the mammoth, were regularly hunted and killed. A single mammoth would feed a family or band for a couple of weeks or more, assuming that techniques were known for drying and curing the meat to retard spoilage. We cannot be sure, however, to what extent these hunters also made use of the many wild plants of the region; it is probable that the hunting of big game was the focal point of their life but that a very important part of the diet was vegetal. At the Lewisville site in Texas (ignoring the controversial nature of its chronological assignment) seeds of the hackberry tree and a large assortment of small animals were used to judge from the hearth and refuse material (Crook and Harris, 1958). Similar evidence will probably be found in the Southwest, if a camp-site, rather than a kill-site, should ever be discovered.

The climate of this period was cooler and more moist than at present, (Miller, 1958) so that a sizable population of large game animals could be supported. A human family or band probably had a number of favorite and habitual camping areas convenient to the streams and ponds where they knew that game could be found. In addition, it undoubtedly roamed over a considerable area in search of berries and seeds, and with an intimate
knowledge of the area and its resources could arrive at each productive locality at the particular time its plant products were ripe. 3

Population density can only be estimated in the roughest way. If the southern half of Arizona has largely grassland, supporting herds of herbivores, we can assume a population at least as dense as that of the Caribou Eskimo of inland Canada, whose mainstay was the large caribou herds. The Caribou Eskimo density was about one person per 100 square miles, (Kroeber, 1939: 134) which would permit a population of 500 to 600 people in a region the size of half of Arizona. Since vegetal resources were greater in the Southwest than on the tundra, temporary fluctuation in animal population would have a less drastic effect on human inhabitants, and the regularly available food supply would be more varied and abundant. Thus a density three to five times greater is not unreasonable; the buffalohunting Kiowa and Kiowa Apache had a density of about seven per 100 square miles, (Kroeber, 1939: 139), but the exact figure is less important than the fact that small groups of people were very widely scattered, therefore having minimal contacts. Also, the mobile way of life with a simple technology prevented the development of large groups, thus inhibiting social complexities and technical specializations. Therefore, over a long period, few innovations in the way of life would be expected, and these few would spread only slowly.

Finally, considering the effect of man on his environment, there is little doubt that man at least hastened the extinction of such large animals as the mammoth, bison, and horse, (Sellards, 1952, 115-16; Jelinek, 1957; Williams, 1957) even though the reduction of grasslands and water supplies as a result of climatic change may have been the more important cause. As desiccation became more severe, culminating in the Altithermal, the dwindling herds may have been quite rapidly killed off by man--a drastic and irreversible change in an aspect of his environment that was of a particular importance to him.

Period of Gathering Food From Wild Plants

Whether gradual or rapid, the extinction of the major game animals necessitated a profound readjustment in the life of mankind in the area of the Southwest that was developing into the modern desert. Whereas plant foods had formerly been a supplement, they were now the major dietary resource. Hunting of small animals continued, and in restricted areas where large game lingered a bit longer the old life-ways could have continued. However, technological innovations may have also influenced man in his shift to greater use of plant food; many kinds of small seeds available in quantity are palatable only after proper preparation, and the discovery of these techniques was essential. Seeds with a hard exterior will pass through the human digestive system unmodified, but after parching (by deftly rolling a few hot coals among the seeds for example) they are a quite satisfactory food. Over the centuries the potentialities of each plant came to be known, through experimentation motivated sometimes by curiosity and sometimes by the threat of starvation, and the result was more and more complete use of the total plant resources of the region. Castetter (Castetter, 1935) has listed 210 native wild plants used by the Southwestern Indians, of which a large number were available and used in the desert area.

Archeologists have recently applied the term "Desert Culture" to this way of life, recognizing its importance as the basis of a number of later locally elaborated patterns of culture (Jennings and Norbeck, 1955; Jennings [ed.], 1956). In Southern Arizona the Cochise Culture, studied in detail for the past quarter century by several archeologists (Sayles and Antevs, 1941), is now seen to be a manifestation of this widespread Desert Culture. The characteristic remains of Cochise camp-sites are large grinding stones, used in the preparation of many kinds of vegetal food. But in the earliest stage of the Cochise sequence, the Sulphur Spring stage, hunting was still a relatively important activity, as indicated by the presence of bones of mammoth, horse, dire wolf, and camel, as well as deer, rabbit, and coyote. In later stages the emphasis on plant foods steadily increased, however, and from Central Mexico to the Columbia Plateau, life was primarily focused on the search for fruits, seeds, roots and shoots.

With surface water much more scarce than in the previous period, man's movements were quite closely controlled by his need for drinking water at frequent intervals and by his lack of large-scale or permanent storage facilities. A pitch-lined basket or a gourd could at best give a family only a few sips of water, and weight would preclude the carrying of water in quantity any great distances. With knowledge of the seasonal characteristics of all the streams, springs, and seeps in its neighborhood, a group could move confidently over a well-planned annual circuit in order to make maximum use of plant resources. The modern Papago exemplified such a life until recently, except for his partial dependence on agriculture (Castetter and Underhill, 1935; Castetter and Bell, 1942). Tribes of the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada, prior to recent acculturation, provide a closer analogy; their numbers and movements have been reported in detail by Steward (Steward, 1938, see especially 14-49, 230-7, and 258-62) who states that a typical range for a family was about 20 miles in all directions from their winter camp. Local topographic and vegetation conditions would cause variations from this average figure, but it is important to realize that "free wandering" is probably a figment of the imagination (see Meggers [ea.), 1956). Nevertheless, each group would be able to move over terrain that offered a variety-of resources which the gradually elaborating technology would provide means for using effectively.

On the basis of Steward's figures for the Great Basin (Steward 1938, 46-9) and Kroeber's summary (Kroeber, 1939, 136-7) of Mooney's estimates, a population density of five or six people per 100 square miles is probably the minimum figure for the less attractive parts of the Southwestern deserts, and in some regions as many as twenty-five per square mile may have lived successfully. The increase in population density can be regarded as a reflection of man's more effective use of his environment, plant food being more widely available and often more plentiful in a dietary sense than game animals ever were.

The effect of the desert cultures on their environment was relatively slight. A widely dispersed population using a great variety of plant foods would not cause the extermination of any species, and indeed might disperse it more widely, even though a particularly popular plant might be temporarily scarce in a few localities.

Period of Initial Agriculture

Archeological evidence for the first stages of agriculture is slight, but several cave sites with C-14 dates suggest that by 2000 B.C. a few groups of people were growing maize, squash, and the bottle gourd. 4 These plants, however, were probably insignificant in food value and unimpressive in size, in comparison with their descendants today, and they were also probably grown only in small numbers, so that initially they formed only a minor supplement to the numerous wild plants in use.

It should be noted in passing that there is great difficulty in deciding whether a group practiced agriculture, unless the lucky accident of preservation in a dry cave plus indentification by a botanist provide sure evidence of domestic plants. With the introduction of agriculture, the assortment of grinding tools, basketry trays, collecting baskets, and so on changed little, and so gradually, that artifact types are not a safe basis for assuming the presence of domestic plants except in much later times. In reporting on caves in Tamaulipas (at the twenty-fourth annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City, April 30 - May 2, 1959) MacNeish commented that milling stones were so scarce in levels with radiocarbon dates of 5000 to 6000 B.C. that he would have inferred a hunting economy were it not for the presence of domestic peppers, pumpkins, gourds, and beans.

Gradual as it may have been, the introduction of agriculture eventually permitted (and required) groups who came to depend on it to spend much of the year at a place where moisture and soil made the growing of crops possible. Between planting and harvesting, most of the group could move away in search of wild plant foods, but the stored harvest could not easily be moved more than a short distance and would require a less mobile life. It was in these small groups which exploited agriculture effectively that cultural diversity and complexity developed most rapidly, as each adapted to a chosen locality.

The preferred areas for agricultural life would have been the mouths of small arroyos where moisture from the mountains spread over flat, silty areas, and also narrow strips along the permanent streams, the Gila and Salt, where spring flooding or abundant underground moisture permitted a crop to mature (Bryan, 1922 and 1929). It is important to realize that these favorable localities made up only a small fraction of the entire area-a nonagricultural life was the only possible existence for many groups depending on the perhaps 99 per cent of the region not included in these favorable localities. Because the area of farming was so small, the overall increase of population was probably slight, in spite of the concentrations that were beginning in favored areas. Likewise, man's effect on his environment in this period was little different from before, with the introduction of new species proceeding slowly and not involving the widespread distribution of weeds that characterizes present-day farming. (However, compare Anderson, 1952).

Period of Developed Agriculture

Up to this point the development in the Southwestern desert was little different from the developments that were occuring in much of the New World-slow and rather slight technological changes and the gradual development of somewhat larger, more settled groups in a few favorable spots. (See, for example, Willey and Phillips, 1958, 151-5). But from here on, highly distinctive cultural developments occurred, resulting in the unique cultural complex that has been termed the Hohokam, situated along the Gila and Salt and their tributaries and desert flanks.

The basis for intensive agriculture here was a suitable water supply and its control. Although the term "irrigation" is generally used for the techniques by which water is brought to the crops in arid regions, it is too specific a word for our discussion here, and implies certain techniques that may or may not have been used by particular prehistoric groups. Therefore the general term "water control" is preferred, with its implication of management of water regardless of the special techniques.

Water control in general may be considered as serving three main purposes: first, the diversion of excess water, to protect crops from flood damage in much the same fashion that protection from wind damage is accomplished in arid areas; second, the improvement of water distribution and retention on areas already being farmed, through the use of small spreading ditchess simple terracing, and small impermanent diversion structures in stream channels--all of this usually carried on by a single farmer during brief periods of rain or run-off; and third, the transport of water to areas otherwise not arable, by means of larger and more permanent ditches or canals. Very simple techniques would suffice for the first two purposes, and may have been practiced with the initial introduction of domestic plants from the south; in fact, in the Great Basin area simple water distributing techniques were used to improve the growth of wild plants, by people raising no domestic crops at all (Steward, 1929). The third kind of water control presumes an increasing dependence on agriculture, so that the need for additional farm land would justify the building of sizeable canals; it also presumes a population sufficiently large and socially unified to plan, build, and administer the program of agricultural expansion.

Archeological evidence for small scale, temporary water control systems will be almost impossible to secure. By analogy with modern Indian groups, such systems can sometimes be assumed, but their extent and details will be unknown. In Southern Arizona our first certain information on large scale canal building comes from the cross section of the Snaketown canal, dated to the Santa Cruz phase of the Colonial period, about A.D. 800 (Gladwin and others, 1937, 50-58). It is reasonable to assume that canals of possibly lesser extent were being built as early as A.D. 500, since the Snaketown canal is a large and complete structure, over ten miles long, and dug to a depth of about two meters, and a width of over three meters. If this canal provided water for a strip of fields extending a quarter of a mile each side of the main channel, it would have watered approximately 3000 acres. Many other canals as large as this have been recorded, although all were not contemporary (Halseth, 1932; Hodge, 1893).

Away from the Gila and Salt, major canal systems were impractical, but smaller systems of channels were developed to collect and distribute water from mountain slopes or ephemeral streams and to water farm plots a few acres in extent. Where possibilities for agriculture were limited, the gathering of wild plant foods continued as a major activity, so that a great variety of subsistence patterns was possible, each adjusted to a local situation (Castetter and Bell, 1942; see also Withers, 1944).

Population in the areas of intensive water control undoubtedly grew quite rapidly, although the large Hohokam towns were always rather widely dispersed. At its peak the population probably equalled and may have exceeded the figure of 10,000 estimated for the Pima and Papago of recent decades. In peripheral areas only slight increases over the previous period can be assumed.

In the areas of most intensive agriculture there may have been a major, and ultimately disastrous, effect on the soil, due to water-logging and the accumulation of minerals (Hayden, 1957, 113-15). Direct evidence of this is lacking, but comparable effects occur today. The decline in population which began by the fifteenth century may have been due in large part to the damage to farm lands that continuous irrigation brought about. Technological means were inadequate for bringing water to new and unaffected areas or for restoring the damaged fields, and agricultural productivity must therefore have declined sharply.

In summary, two major changes in man's adjustment to and exploitation of the Southwestern desert region have taken place, the first with the disappearance of large game and the climatic change to more arid conditions, the second with the development of elaborate water control techniques and the consequent great increase in production of food crops. This second change was made possible by an increasing population without which the division of labor, specialized technical skills, and necessary man power would have been lacking. At the same time, population growth and its social and technological concomitants were possible only with the water control techniques that have been briefly discussed. Thus a delicate balance between environment and cultural development grew up, only to be upset when man produced a change in his farm lands that he was powerless to prevent.

Two important questions have been omitted, mainly because they cannot be satisfactorily answered at present. First, what water control techniques were introduced from Mexico, either with the first domestic plants, or later to initiate the period of intensive agriculture? Studies of prehistoric irrigation in central Mexico have only recently been begun, (for example, Millon, 1957; Palerm, 1954 and 1955) and northern Mexico is still a major gap in our knowledge of water control. Second, how far were the techniques of water control that we have discussed for the desert area common in the mountain and plateau areas to the North? A partial survey of archeological literature suggests that canal, terrace, and ditch systems were more widely used in the Southwest than has been realized, and further research should make it possible to appraise desert farming techniques in the larger perspective of the entire prehistoric agricultural west. 5

Footnotes

1. Convenient summaries will be found in Wormington, 1947, 118-47;Haury, 1945, 204-13; Haury, 1950, 3-21; Haury, 1957; Gladwin and others, 1937, 247-69. A somewhat divergent interpretation of the data is presented in Di Peso, 1956, 559-68. The shortcomings of ecological analysis in an area lacking such full prehistoric data are illustrated well by Rochefort, 1957. [Back to text]
2. See, for example, Spier, 1933 and 1936; Gifford, 1933; Underhill, 1939; Spicer, 1949; and Russell, 1908. [Back to text]
3. Such inferences are based on aboriginal groups in many parts of the world; see, for example, Howitt, 1904; Spencer and Gillen, 1927; Okada, 1955; Peabody Museum, 1958; Marshall, 1958; and Thomas, 1959. [Back to text]
4. Cutler, 1952; Mangelsdorf and Smith, 1949; Dick, 1954; Whitaker, Cutler, and MacNeish, 1957; MacNeish, 1955 and 1958. complex that has been termed the Hohokam, situated along the Gila and Salt and their tributaries and desert flanks. [Back to text]
5. Such an appraisal was begun by the Soil Conservation Service, but has not been followed up by anthropologists; see Stewart, 1940, and Stewart and Donnelly, 1943. [Back to text]

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