essay

Land tenure, archaeology, and the ancestral pueblo social landscape

Journal of anthropological archaeology • 15 • Published In 1996 • Pages: 337-371

By: Adler, Michael A..

Abstract
Adler examines changes in land tenure and land use as it can be inferred from the archaeology in the region around Mesa Verde. Adler first examines land tenure systems with cross-cultural data from a world-wide sample of food-producing societies, examining "the amount of labor invested in resource exploitation by a group and then the land tenure concepts influencing the group's social access to the resource." (page 341). He then presents a land tenure model that predicts the type of primary access group one should find based on several factors. Adler finds that as the amount of labor put into agricultural fields increases the size of the community also increases. However the size of the primary resource access group first increases, then decreases as labor intensity grows. Prior to the 12th century people in the Mesa Verde region lived near the most productive lands and lived in relatively small communities, households were fairly mobile, occupation of settlements averaged 34 years, and agriculture was land-extensive. Resource access groups were likely households. During the 12th and 13th centuries, as the population increased and the climate became more unreliable, mobility decreased, settlements became aggregated and were occupied for longer periods of time, and agriculture became more labor intensive with terracing, erosion control, floodwater diversion, and use of more permanent agricultural facilites such as field houses and storage facilities.
Subjects
Real property
Settlement patterns
Land use
Tillage
Community structure
Labor and leisure
tradition
Early Anasazi
HRAF PubDate
2012
Region
North America
Sub Region
Southwest and Basin
Document Type
essay
Evaluation
Creator Type
Archaeologist
Document Rating
4: Excellent Secondary Data
5: Excellent Primary Data
Analyst
Sarah Berry; 2011
Field Date
no date
Coverage Date
1100-700 BP (AD 900-1300)
Coverage Place
southwestern Colorado, United States
Notes
Michael A. Adler
Includes bibliographical references (p. 366-371)
LCCN
82644021
LCSH
Indians of North America--Antiquities