Book
The origins of southwestern agriculture
University of Arizona Press • Tucson • Published In 1991 • Pages:
By: Matson, R. G. (Richard Ghia).
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
'This work is an investigation of the current status of [the author's] information and ideas about the beginnings of agriculture in the Southwest. The focus is upon the Basketmaker II culture, which represent the earliest widely recognized agricultural culture on the Colorado Plateau.' (page xi). Matson presents two theories on the origins of the Basketmakers and then describes the various archaeological data that supports and doesn't support the theories. The first speculates they developed from yet to be discovered hunter-gatherers living on the Colorado Plateau. The second proposes that the Basketmaker II people migrated onto the Colorado Plateau once they were agriculturalists. Matson then present a third hypothesis that emphasizes that maize and maize horticulture had to evolve in order to be able to grow successfully on the Colorado Plateau. Matson describes his own work on Cedar Mesa and provides a cultural summary of Basketmaker culture.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Historical reconstruction
- Cereal agriculture
- Culture summary
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Sociocultural trends
- traditionCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Basketmaker
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2010
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southwest and Basin
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Sarah Berry; 2009
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1972-1974
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 4000-1600 BP (2000 BC-AD 400)
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Colorado Plateau; Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah; United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- R.G. Matson
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-350) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 91014054
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Pueblo Indians--Agriculture
- Agriculture, Prehistoric--Southwest, New
- Corn--Southwest, New--History
- Pueblo Indians--Antiquities
- Southwest, New--Antiquities