the late archaic across the borderlands from foraging to farming oct 2005

[...]... 1995) The Borderlands therefore provide a setting within which the Late Archaic (ca 3000 to 1500 bp) is characterized by a diverse set of agricultural and foraging strategies 1 Figure 1.1 General map of the Borderlands region The concept of the Archaic is generally characterized as a post-Pleistocene mixed hunting and gathering economy, with the possible addition of cultigens during the Late Archaic. .. background, it is clear that the present book, ably pulled together and edited by Bradley J Vierra, is a significant step in furthering our understanding of Borderlands prehistory In northern Mexico and the American Southwest, the Borderlands provide a fertile “laboratory” for studying the transition from hunting and gathering to the introduction of agriculture The Arizona-Sonora area is the subject of chapters... places the Borderlands new economics into a global perspective as he presents his unique interpretation of the phenomenon in “Documenting the Transition to Food Production along the Borderlands. ” The Borderlands remains underappreciated by American archaeologists, but this is changing with the latest excavated agricultural remains The importance of the Borderlands to American prehistory will be further... studies Vierra’s Late Archaic Stone Tool Technology across the Borderlands is a first in its detailed discussion of the region’s lithic technology and qualitative and quantitative variability The subsistence resources of the Borderlands in the Late Archaic served as the basis for understanding human settlement and population dispersion Marsha D Ogilvie places this archaeological staple into a theoretical... culture as the source of these exotic artifacts Recent reanalysis of some of the cemetery sites (where jadeite and nonceramic trade goods have been found), however, places the emergence of the interaction back into the Late Archaic, around 1500 bc Now we have to wonder if the Olmec and related Preclassic cultures of the Mexican Gulf Coast were the first to establish trade relations with the peoples of the. .. desert economy The Borderlands cover a linear distance of approximately 1,600 km (1,000 miles) (Figure 1.1) On the west lie the arid creosote-covered lands of the Sonoran and Chihuahua Deserts, and on the east the brush country of the Tamaulipas Separating these two areas is the Trans-Pecos transitional zone, with the Plateau and Plains to the north and subtropical regions to the south The region is... advanced by the publication of this book The region took the cultural lead in the postPleistocene adaptation to a new productive environment It is doing the same again with the spread of anthropogenic ecosystems by the first food producers in the Southwest The prehistoric people of the Borderlands have always responded creatively to environmental and cultural changes and have left a rich legacy in the archaeological... Figure 1.2 illustrates the various sequences proposed for the Borderlands Archaic, as derived from Bruce Huckell (1996a); Robert Mallouf (1985, 1992, this volume); Solveig Turpin (1995); and Thomas R Hester (1995, this volume) They all generally begin by about 8500 bp during the Early Holocene, although the Late Archaic appears to terminate later in the eastern Borderlands due to the absence of agriculture... to 5420 bp at Guilá Naquitz, Oaxaca (Piperno and Flannery 2001), so it took about 1,500 years before this cultigen finally reached the Borderlands Current research has radically changed our perceptions of the Late Archaic across the Borderlands This includes a diversity of scientific approaches ranging from culture-historical to evolutionary theory The chapters in this book include both regional syntheses... at the site More importantly, Cerro Juanaqueña is not an isolated occurrence but one of several 4 b r ad l ey j v i e r r a Late Archaic trinchera hilltop sites situated along the valley of the Río Casas Grandes This new evidence changes our view of the people of the Late Archaic, from simple desert foragers to early farming communities Such large-scale systematic excavations are lacking from southern . ii 6/15/05 4:51:01 PM6/15/05 4:51:01 PM THE LATE ARCHAIC across the Borderlands From Foraging to Farming Edited by Bradley J. Vierra UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS AUSTIN T3372.indb iiiT3372.indb. of the world. This was the case across the Borderlands between the United States and Mexico, an area stretching from the Gulf of California to the Gulf of Mexico. Although the development of. with the latest excavated agricultural remains. The impor- tance of the Borderlands to American prehistory will be further advanced by the publication of this book. The region took the cultural