Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Impermanent Versus Intensive Agriculture: Population, Mobility, and Village Formation on the Southern Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico.

在Bruce B. Huckell博士的监督下，Robert Powers将调查史前农业实践及其对快速增长的普韦布洛人农业社区的影响，这些社区现在是新墨西哥州北部的Bandelier国家纪念碑。研究的重点是从公元1150年到1400年。在这个时期，成千上万的普韦布洛移民从查科峡谷、梅萨维德和科罗拉多高原的其他地区来到这里。普韦布洛人面临着两个紧迫的挑战：如何在恶劣、干旱的环境中成功地种植玉米、豆类和南瓜，以及如何保护宝贵的农田。这些移民实行一种简单的旱地农业形式，即“刀耕火种”，即清除松树和杜松林，开垦农田。几年后，当产量开始下降时，旧田被休耕，新田被开垦。到12世纪后期，持续的人口增长和不断增加的休耕减少了可用耕地，造成了激烈的土地竞争。对简单农业社会的人类学研究表明，解决这一困境的一个办法是“强化”农业——投入更多的劳动力和技术来提高土地的生产力。许多学者认为，集约化提供了必要的经济稳定性，以发展像14世纪初班德利尔出现的那些定居村庄。另一种解释也值得考虑。美国西南部气候恶劣、干旱，因干旱而臭名昭著。如果一个可靠的水源不能得到保证，就像在班德利尔一样，额外的劳动力和简单的技术改进可能不会有效。设计一个社会解决方案可能更简单：通过减少土地的获取来减少对土地的竞争。从这个角度来看，村庄的发展更有可能是为了保护农业用地不受外来者的侵害。为了了解普韦布洛人是如何解决他们的农业危机的，我们将调查三种假设：1)简单的刀耕火种农业得以维持；2)加大对劳动力和技术的投入，农业得到强化；(3)刀耕火种农业以集约农业为补充，形成了多种耕作方式的结合。将使用现有信息和来自史前领域的新数据对这些假设进行评估，表明：1)使用的时间和长度；2)地点、规模的变化和技术的改进；3)土壤结构和养分的变化；4)土壤侵蚀的差异。这些关键特征将决定农田是用于刀耕火种还是集约化农业。将收集花粉、土壤和养分数据，以衡量农业的影响。这项研究具有学术价值和广泛影响。如果像一些研究表明的那样，刀耕火种农业被证明占主导地位，那么村庄的发展更有可能是为了保护成员的土地权利。通过重新审视农业在村庄发展中的作用，本研究将增进对普韦布洛人社会的理解，以及促进村庄演变的因素。这项研究还将帮助班德利尔国家纪念碑的国家公园管理局口译员向每年30万游客解释公园的史前历史。最后，班德利尔的许多土壤受到严重侵蚀，部分原因是普韦布洛人的耕作。对造成这种不稳定景观的农业实践的进一步了解，可能会提供治愈它所需的见解。

Under supervision of Dr. Bruce B. Huckell, Robert Powers will investigate prehistoric farming practices and their impact on rapidly growing Puebloan farming communities in what is now Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico. The research focuses on the period from A.D. 1150 to 1400. During this era thousands of Pueblo immigrants arrived from Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and other parts of the Colorado Plateau. The Puebloans faced two immediate challenges: how to successfully produce crops of corn, beans, and squash in a harsh, arid environment, and how to protect valuable farmland. The immigrants practiced a simple form of dry-land agriculture, known as "slash-and-burn," by clearing pinyon and juniper woodlands for their fields. After a few years, when yields began to decline, old fields were fallowed, and new ones were established. By the late 1200s, continuing population growth and increasing fallow reduced available farmland, creating intense competition for land. Anthropological studies of simple farming societies show one solution to this dilemma is to "intensify" agriculture -- to invest more labor and technology into making land productive. Many scholars have argued that intensification provides the necessary economic stability needed to develop sedentary villages like those that appear in Bandelier in the early 1300s. An alternative explanation also merits consideration. The Southwest has a harsh, arid climate, infamous for its droughts. If a dependable source of water cannot be guaranteed, as it cannot in Bandelier, additional labor and simple technological improvements may not be effective. It may be simpler to devise a social solution: reduce competition for land by reducing access to it. From this perspective, it is more likely that villages developed to protect agricultural land from outsiders. To learn how the Pueblos resolved their agricultural crisis, three hypotheses will be investigated: 1) simple, slash and burn agriculture was maintained; 2) agriculture was intensified by greater investment in labor and technology; 3) slash-and-burn agriculture was supplemented by intensive agriculture, resulting in a combination of farming practices.The hypotheses will be evaluated using existing information and new data from prehistoric fields indicating: 1) the time and length of use; 2) changes in location, size and technological improvements; 3) changes in soil structure and nutrients, and 4) differences in soil erosion. These key characteristics will determine whether fields were used for slash-and-burn or intensive farming. Pollen, soil and nutrient data will be collected in order to measure the effects of agriculture.The study has intellectual merit and broad impacts. If slash-and-burn farming proves dominant, as some research suggests, it is more likely that villages developed to protect member rights to land. By re-examining the role of agriculture in village development, the research will improve understanding of Puebloan society, and the factors contributing to village evolution. The research will also help National Park Service interpreters at Bandelier National Monument explain the park's prehistory to its 300,000 annual visitors. Finally, many soils at Bandelier are severely eroded, a consequence partially attributable to Puebloan farming. Improved knowledge of the farming practices which helped create this unstable landscape, may provide insights needed to heal it.