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Antiquity
Vol 78 No 300 June 2004
Cultural response to
demographic and environmental stress during the Classic Mimbres period (AD
1000-1130/40), Southern New Mexico: the cook-stone evidence
Classic
optimisation theory predicts that diet breadth should increase during
times of stress, as more costly and less preferred resources are added to
the diet. For agriculturalists, low crop yields may result in the addition
of non-cultivated plants to the diet. In south-western New Mexico along
the Mimbres River, massive settlement reorganisation and depopulation of
aggregated villages (pueblos) around AD 1130/40 is well documented (Shafer
2003). Causal factors such as degradation of riparian vegetation, soil
depletion through agriculture practices, cyclical moisture patterns and
periods of drought, and overall population pressure may have played a
cumulative role (Blake et al. 1986; Minnis 1985; Sandor 1992). In the
centuries leading up to the AD 1130/40 depopulation in the Mimbres River
Valley, the region was characterised by steady population growth from the
Late Pithouse Period (AD 550-1000) to its peak during the Classic Mimbres
period (AD 1000-1130/40) (Blake et al. 1986).
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