Abstract
The consequences of climate change vary over space and time. Effective studies of human responses to climatically induced environmental change must therefore sample the environmental diversity experienced by specific societies. We reconstruct population histories from A.D. 600 to 1280 in six environmentally distinct portions of the central Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado, relating these to climate-driven changes in agricultural potential. In all but one subregion, increases in maize-niche size led to increases in population size. Maize-niche size is also positively correlated with regional estimates of birth rates. High birth rates continued to accompany high population levels even as productive conditions declined in the A.D. 1200s. We reconstruct prominent imbalances between the maize-niche size and population densities in two subregions from A.D. 1140 to 1180 and from A.D. 1225 to 1260. We propose that human responses in those subregions, beginning by the mid-AD. 1200s, contributed to violence and social collapse across the entire society. Our findings are relevant to discussions of how climate change will affect contemporary societies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 74-96 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | American Antiquity |
| Volume | 81 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2016 |
Funding
Acknowledgments. This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DEB-0816400 to Tim Kohler, Craig Allen, Ziad Kobti, and Mark Varien. We thank Scott Travis, Kay Barnett, Jim Kleidon, Gay Ives, Laura Ninnemann, and Julie Bell of Mesa Verde National Park for assistance with access to electronic site data from the Park. Robin Lyle, Bonnie Hildebrand, Rebecca Hammond, Paul Ermigiotti, Josie Chang-Order, Jamie Merewether, and April Baisan collected ceramic data from Mesa Verde National Park collections; Tara Travis and Lauren Finn Hauptman provided access to these collections. The Mesa Verde Community Center Survey was made possible by DEB-0816400, an NSF-REU Supplement (1132226), a National Geographic Society CRE Grant (9100-12), and a research grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame. We thank Mario Zimmermann, Rodrigo de los Santos Alamilla, and Nora Franco for translating the abstract to Spanish. This paper is an outgrowth of a Research Team Seminar held at and supported by the School for Advanced Research in May 2014. Kohler thanks the Santa Fe Institute for intellectual stimulation over two decades and support during final edits. The VEP participates in GHEA, the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance, via the NSF Research Collaboration Network-SEES 1140106. This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DEB-0816400 to Tim Kohler, Craig Allen, Ziad Kobti, and Mark Varien. We thank Scott Travis, Kay Barnett, Jim Kleidon, Gay Ives, Laura Ninnemann, and Julie Bell of Mesa Verde National Park for assistance with access to electronic site data from the Park. Robin Lyle, Bonnie Hildebrand, Rebecca Hammond, Paul Ermigiotti, Josie Chang-Order, Jamie Merewether, and April Baisan collected ceramic data from Mesa Verde National Park collections; Tara Travis and Lauren Finn Hauptman provided access to these collections. The Mesa Verde Community Center Survey was made possible by DEB-0816400, an NSFREU Supplement (1132226), a National Geographic Society CRE Grant (9100-12), and a research grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame. We thank Mario Zimmermann, Rodrigo de los Santos Alamilla, and Nora Franco for translating the abstract to Spanish. This paper is an outgrowth of a Research Team Seminar held at and supported by the School for Advanced Research in May 2014. Kohler thanks the Santa Fe Institute for intellectual stimulation over two decades and support during final edits. The VEP participates in GHEA, the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance, via the NSF Research Collaboration Network-SEES 1140106.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| 1132226 | |
| 9100-12 | |
| DEB-0816400, 1439591 | |
| Notre Dame Seishin University | |
