Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T00:45:42.470Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VILLAGE GROWTH, EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASE, AND THE END OF THE NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION IN THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES AND NORTHWEST MEXICO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2018

David A. Phillips Jr. ,
Helen J. Wearing  and
Jeffery J. Clark
David A. Phillips Jr.*
Affiliation:
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and Department of Anthropology, MSC01 1050, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA
Helen J. Wearing
Affiliation:
Department of Biology and Department of Mathematics and Statistics, MSC03 2020, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA (hwearing@unm.edu)
Jeffery J. Clark
Affiliation:
Archaeology Southwest, 300 North Ash Alley, Tucson, AZ 85701, USA (jclark@archaeologysouthwest.org)
*
(dap@unm.edu, corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the final centuries prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the southwest United States and northwest Mexico underwent two major sociodemographic changes: (1) many people coalesced into large villages, and (2) most of the villages were depopulated within two centuries. Basic epidemiological models indicate that village coalescence could have triggered epidemic diseases that caused the observed demographic decline. The models also link this decline to a global phenomenon, the Neolithic Demographic Transition.

En los últimos siglos antes de la llegada de los españoles, el suroeste de los EE. UU. y el noroeste de México experimentaron dos transformaciones sociodemográficas: (1) una gran parte de la población se incorporó en aldeas grandes; y (2) la mayoría de las aldeas se despoblaron en menos de dos siglos. Modelos básicos de la epidemiología indican que la formación de aldeas grandes pudo haber provocado epidemias que causaron una disminución demográfica. Los modelos también proporcionan un enlace teórico entre los cambios regionales y un fenómeno global, la Transición Demográfica del Neolítico.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 263 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Abbott, David R., Breternitz, Cory Dale, and Robinson, Christine K. 2003 Challenging Conventional Conventions. In Centuries of Decline during the Hohokam Classic Period at Pueblo Grande, edited by Abbott, David R., pp. 3–23. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Adler, Michael 1996 Fathoming the Scale of Anasazi Communities. In Interpreting Southwestern Diversity: Underlying Principles and Overarching Patterns, edited by Fish, Paul R. and Reid, J. Jefferson, pp. 97–106. Anthropological Research Papers No. 48. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Aufderheide, Arthur C., and Rodríguez-Martín, Conrado 1998 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Barrett, Elinore M. 2002 Conquest and Catastrophe: Changing Rio Grande Pueblo Settlement Patterns in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre 2002 Paleoanthropological Traces of a Neolithic Demographic Transition. Current Anthropology 43: 637–650.Google Scholar
Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre 2008 Explaining the Neolithic Demographic Transition. In The Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences, edited by Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre and Bar-Yosef, Ofer, pp. 35–55. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre, and Bar-Yosef, Ofer (editors) 2008 The Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences. Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Brew, J. O. 1946 Archaeology of Alkali Ridge, Southwestern Utah. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology No. 21. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Cameron, Catherine M. (editor) 1995 Migration and the Movement of Southwestern Peoples. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14:104–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Catherine M., and Duff, Andrew I. 2008 History and Process in Village Formation: Context and Contrasts from the Northern Southwest. American Antiquity 73:29–57.Google Scholar
Cameron, Catherine M., Kelton, Paul, and Swedlund, Alan C. 2015 Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2017 Plague. Electronic document, https://www.cdc.gov/plague/faq/index.html, accessed August 1, 2017.Google Scholar
Chenault, Mark L. 2000 In Defense of the Polvorón Phase. In The Hohokam Village Revisited, edited by Doyel, David E., Fish, Suzanne K., and Fish, Paul R., pp. 277–286. Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.Google Scholar
Clark, Jeffery J. 2007 Final Report for Precontact Population Decline and Coalescence in the Southern Southwest. NSF Award BCS-0342661. On file at Archaeology Southwest, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Clark, Jeffery J., Brett Hill, J., and Lyons, Patrick D. 2003 Precontact Population Decline and Coalescence in the Southern Southwest. National Science Foundation BCS-0342661. Proposal on file at Archaeology Southwest, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Clark, Jeffery J., and Lyons, Patrick 2012 Migrants and Mounds: Classic Period Archaeology in the Lower San Pedro Valley. Anthropological Papers No. 45. Archaeology Southwest, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Colton, Harold S. 1936 The Rise and Fall of the Prehistoric Population of Northern Arizona. Science 84:337–343.Google Scholar
Craig, Douglas B. 1999 Summary and Conclusions. In The Grewe Archaeological Research Project, Vol. 3: Synthesis, edited by Craig, Douglas B., pp. 141–147. Anthropological Papers No. 99-1. Northland Research, Flagstaff, Arizona.Google Scholar
Craig, Douglas B. (editor) 2011 Archaeological and Geoarchaeological Investigations along the Santa Cruz River Floodplain: The Pima County Plant Interconnect Project. Northland Research. Technical Report No. 09-47. Submitted to Pima County, Arizona. Copies available from Northland Research, Tempe, Arizona.Google Scholar
Craig, Douglas B., Wallace, Henry D., and Lindemann, Michael W. 2012 Village Growth and Ritual Transformation in the Southern Southwest. In Southwestern Pithouse Communities, AD 200–900, edited by Young, Lisa C. and Herr, Sarah A., pp. 45–60. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Curiel, Dario, and de Ochoa, Elena 1959 Statistics of Gastro-Enteritis Mortality in Venezuela. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 21:353–361.Google Scholar
Dean, Jeffrey S., Doelle, William H., and Orcutt, Janet D. 1994 Adaptive Stress: Environment and Demography. In Themes in Southwest Prehistory, edited by Gumerman, George J., pp. 53–86. School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Doelle, William H. 2000 Tonto Basin Demography in a Regional Perspective. In Salado, edited by Dean, Jeffrey S., pp. 81–105. Amerind Foundation New World Series No. 4. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Dorigo, Guido, and Tobler, Waldo 1983 Push Pull Migration Laws. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 73:1–17.Google Scholar
Engering, Anneke, Hogerwerf, Lenny, and Slingenbergh, Jan 2013 Pathogen-Host-Environment Interplay and Disease Emergence. Emerging Microbes and Infections 2 (2): e5. DOI:10.1038/emi.2013.5, accessed August 1, 2017.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fink, T. Michael 1991 Prehistoric Irrigation Canals and Their Possible Impact on Hohokam Health. In Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona: Symposium 1988, edited by Breternitz, Cory Dale, pp. 61–87. Publications in Archaeology 17. Soil Systems, Arizona, Phoenix.Google Scholar
Glowacki, Donna M. 2015 Living and Leaving: A Social History of Regional Depopulation in Thirteenth-Century Mesa Verde. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hanski, Ilkka, and Gaggiotti, Oscar E. (editors) 2004 Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution of Metapopulations. Academic Press, Burlington, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Hanski, Ilkka A., and Gilpin, Michael E. 1991 Metapopulation Dynamics—Brief History and Conceptual Domain. Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society 42:3–16.Google Scholar
Hanski, Ilkka A., and Gilpin, Michael E. (editors) 1997 Metapopulation Biology, Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution. Academic Press, San Diego, California.Google Scholar
Hill, J. Brett, Clark, Jeffery J., Doelle, William H., and Lyons, Patrick D. 2004 Prehistoric Demography in the Southwest: Migration, Coalescence, and Hohokam Population Decline. American Antiquity 69:689–716.Google Scholar
Hill, J. Brett, Clark, Jeffery J., Doelle, William H., and Lyons, Patrick D. 2010 Depopulation of the Northern Southwest: A Macroregional Perspective. In Leaving Mesa Verde: Peril and Change in the Thirteenth-Century Southwest, edited by Kohler, Timothy A., Varien, Mark D., and Wright, Aaron M., pp. 34–52. Amerind Studies in Archaeology, Vol. 5, Ware, John, series editor, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hill, J. Brett, Lyons, Patrick D., Clark, Jeffery J., and Doelle, William H. 2015 The “Collapse” of Cooperative Hohokam Irrigation in the Lower Salt Valley. Journal of the Southwest 57:609–674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, J. Brett, Wilcox, David R., Doelle, William H., and Robinson, William 2012 Coalescent Communities Database Version 2.0. Database available upon request from Archaeology Southwest, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Keeling, Matt J., and Rohani, Pejman 2008 Modeling Infectious Diseases in Humans and Animals. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Kendall, Carl 1981 Rural Honduran Health Beliefs and the Acceptance of Home-Based Oral Rehydration Theory. Paper presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Society of Applied Anthropology, Edinburgh, Scotland.Google Scholar
Kent, Susan 1986 The Influence of Sedentism and Aggregation on Porotic Hyperostosis and Anaemia: A Case Study. Man 21:605–636.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy A., Glaude, Matt Pier, Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre, and Kemp, Brian M. 2008 The Neolithic Demographic Transition in the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 73:645–669.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy A., and Reese, Kelsey M. 2014 Long and Spatially Variable Neolithic Demographic Transition in the North American Southwest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111:10101–10106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kunitz, Stephen J., and Euler, Robert C. 1972 Aspects of Southwestern Paleoepidemiology. Anthropological Reports No. 2. Prescott College Press, Prescott, Arizona.Google Scholar
Lesure, Richard G., Martin, Lana S., Bishop, Katelyn J., Jackson, Brittany, and Chykerda, C. Myles 2014 The Neolithic Demographic Transition in Mesoamerica. Current Anthropology 55:654–664.Google Scholar
McClelland, John A. 2015 Revisiting Hohokam Paleodemography. American Antiquity 80:492–510.Google Scholar
Marshall, John T. (editor) 2009 Archaeological Investigations of the Cactus Forest Site (AZ AA:3:214 [ASM]): A Late Classic Period Hohokam Settlement in the Middle Gila River Valley. Anthropological Papers No. 09-04. Northland Research, Tempe, Arizona.Google Scholar
Martin, Debra L., and Goodman, Alan H. 2002 Health Conditions before Columbus: Paleopathology of Native North Americans. Western Journal of Medicine 176:65–68.Google Scholar
Metcalf, C. Jessica E., and Lessler, Justin 2017 Opportunities and Challenges in Modeling Emerging Infectious Diseases. Science 357:149–152.Google Scholar
Mills, Barbara J., Clark, Jeffery J., Peeples, Matthew A., Haas, W. Randall Jr., Roberts, John M. Jr., Hill, J. Brett, Huntley, Deborah L., Borck, Lewis, Breiger, Ronald L., Clauset, Aaron, and Shackley, M. Steven 2015 Social Networks in the Late Precontact Southwest. Archaeology Southwest. Electronic document, http://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/what-we-do/investigations/networks/, accessed February 15, 2015.Google Scholar
Mills, Barbara J., Peeples, Mathew A., Haas, W. Randall Jr., Borck, Lewis, Clark, Jeffery J., and Roberts, John M. Jr. 2015 Multiscalar Perspectives on Social Networks in the Late Prehispanic Southwest. American Antiquity 80:3–24.Google Scholar
Morse, Samuel S. 1995 Factors in the Emergence of Infectious Diseases. Emerging Infectious Diseases 1:7–15.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G. 1998 Corn Grinding and Community Organization in the Pueblo Southwest, A.D. 1150–1550. In Migration and Reorganization: The Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest, edited by Spielmann, Katherine A., pp. 165–192. Anthropological Research Papers No. 51. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G. 2016 Uniform Probability Density Analysis and Population History in the Northern Rio Grande. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 23:95–126.Google Scholar
Park, Andrew W., Gubbins, Simon, and Gilligan, Christopher A. 2002 Extinction Times for Closed Epidemics: The Effects of Host Spatial Structure. Ecology Letters 5: 747–755.Google Scholar
Penido, H. M. 1959 Prevention of Mortality from Diarrhoeal Diseases in Brazil. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 21:368–371.Google Scholar
Phillips, David A. Jr., Wearing, Helen J., and Clark, Jeffery J. 2017 R Code for Phillips, Wearing, and Clark Essay on EIDs in the Prehistoric SW/NW. tDAR: The Digital Archaeological Record. Electronic document, http://core.tdar.org/document/437705, accessed July 19, 2017.Google Scholar
R Core Team 2017 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Electronic document, https://www.R-project.org, accessed November 29, 2017. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna.Google Scholar
Ramenofsky, Ann F. 1987 Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Rautman, Alison 2000 Population Aggregation, Community Organization, and Plaza Oriented Pueblos in the American Southwest. Journal of Field Archaeology 27:271–283.Google Scholar
Reff, Daniel T. 1991 Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518–1764. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Robertson, Bruce A., and Hutto, Richard L. 2006 A Framework for Understanding Ecological Traps and an Evaluation of the Existing Evidence. Ecology 87:1075–1085.Google Scholar
RStudio Team 2017 RStudio: Integrated Development for R. Electronic document, http:www.rstudio.com, accessed November 29, 2017. RStudio, Boston.Google Scholar
Schlanger, Sarah H., and Craig, Douglas B. 2012 Pithouse Communities and Population. In Southwestern Pithouse Communities, AD 200–900, edited by Young, Lisa C. and Herr, Sarah A., pp. 198–209. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Schlapfer, Martin A., Runge, Michael C., and Sherman, Paul W. 2002 Ecological and Evolutionary Traps. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17:474–480.Google Scholar
Schwindt, Dylan M., Kyle Bocinsky, R., Ortman, Scott G., Glowacki, Donna M., Varien, Mark D., and Kohler, Timothy A. 2016 The Social Consequences of Climate Change in the Central Mesa Verde Region. American Antiquity 81:74–96.Google Scholar
Sheridan, Susan Guise 2003 Childhood Health as an Indicator of Biological Stress. In Centuries of Decline during the Hohokam Classic Period at Pueblo Grande, edited by Abbott, David R., pp. 82–106. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Spielmann, Katherine A. (editor) 1998 Migration and Reorganization: The Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest. Anthropological Research Paper No. 51. Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Van Gerven, Dennis P., and Sheridan, Susan Guise 1994 A Biological Reconstruction of a Classic Period Hohokam Community. In The Pueblo Grande Project: The Bioethnography of a Classic Period Hohokam Population, edited by Van Gerven, Dennis P. and Sheridan, Susan Guise, pp. 123–128. Publications in Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 20. Soil Systems, Phoenix, Arizona.Google Scholar
Varien, Mark D., Ortman, Scott G., Kohler, Timothy A., Glowacki, Donna M., and Johnson, C. David 2007 Historical Ecology in the Mesa Verde Region: Results from the Village Ecodynamics Project. American Antiquity 72:237–299.Google Scholar
Whittle, P. 1955 The Outcome of a Stochastic Epidemic—A Note on Bailey's Paper. Biometrika 42:116–122.Google Scholar
Wilcox, David R., Doelle, William H., Brett Hill, J., and Holmlund, James P. 2003 Coalescent Communities Database 1.0. Museum of Northern Arizona, Western Mapping, Inc., and Archaeology Southwest. Available upon request from Archaeology Southwest, Tucson.Google Scholar
Wilcox, David R., Robertson, Gerald Jr., and Wood, J. Scott 2001 Organized for War: The Perry Mesa Settlement System and Its Central Arizona Neighbors. In Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare, edited by Rice, Glen E. and LeBlanc, Stephen A., pp. 141–194. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Wilshusen, Richard H., and Ortman, Scott G. 1999 Rethinking the Pueblo I Period in the San Juan Drainage: Aggregation, Migration, and Cultural History. Kiva 64:369–399.Google Scholar
World Health Organization 2017a Measles. Electronic document, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/, accessed August 1, 2017.Google Scholar
World Health Organization 2017b Smallpox. Electronic document, http://www.who.int/biologicals/vaccines/smallpox/en/, accessed August 1, 2017.Google Scholar
Young, Lisa C., and Herr, Sarah A. (editors) 2012 Southwestern Pithouse Communities, AD 200–900. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Zahid, H. Jabran, Robinson, Erick, and Kelly, Robert L. 2016 Agriculture, Population Growth, and Statistical Analysis of the Radiocarbon Record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113:931–935.Google Scholar