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Human Behavior, Demography, and Paleoenvironment on the Colorado Plateaus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jeffrey S. Dean ,
Robert C. Euler ,
George J. Gumerman ,
Fred Plog ,
Richard H. Hevly  and
Thor N. V. Karlstrom
Jeffrey S. Dean
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AT. 85721
Robert C. Euler
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
George J. Gumerman
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901
Fred Plog
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003
Richard H. Hevly
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011
Thor N. V. Karlstrom
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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Abstract

Archaeological and paleoenvironmental data are integrated in an investigation of culture change among the Anasazi of the American Southwest by a conceptual model of the interaction among environment, population, and behavior, the major determinants of human adaptive systems. Geological, palynological, and dendrochronological reconstructions of low and high frequency environmental variability coupled with population trends are used to specify periods of regional population-resource stress that should have elicited behavioral responses. Examination of these periods elucidates the range of responses employed and clarifies the adaptive contributions of mobility, shift of settlement location, subsistence mix, exchange, ceremonialism, agricultural intensification, and territoriality. These results help differentiate responses that are triggered by environmental variability from those stimulated primarily by demographic or sociocultural factors. These analyses also demonstrate the adaptive importance of amplitude, frequency, temporal, spatial, and durational aspects of environmental variability compared to the commonly invoked but simplistic contrast between “favorable” and “unfavorable” conditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 537 - 554
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1985

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References

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