Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:51:17.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alternative Cultural Models for Demographic Change: Southwestern Examples

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2018

George J. Gumerman
George J. Gumerman*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two prehistoric Southwestern societies, the Black Mesa Anasazi and the Winslow Tradition of the Hopi Buttes, are used to demonstrate different types of adaptation to an increasing population.

I indicate that changes in population density can be used to better understand the structure of society, as well as to investigate culture change. The role of demography, however, must be seen in the perspective of a single sub-system within the entire cultural and natural system. Viewed in this way, population pressure is a single part of the human ecosystem and not a simple cause or effect of culture change.

The holistic approach of cultural ecological studies in anthropology has, in the last decade, proven to be a generally successful means for helping to understand the structure of cultural systems and also for elucidating some of the processes of culture change. The ecosystem concept is important to anthropology because of its holistic and synthetic characteristics; nevertheless anthropologists, for a variety of reasons, have used the ecosystem approach on a relatively simplistic, mechanical level which has limited the success of even the better studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology , Volume 30: Population Studies in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology: A Symposium , 1975 , pp. 104 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Deetz, James J. F. 1965 The dynamics of stylistic change in Arikara ceramics. Illinois Studies in Anthropology 4.Google Scholar
Douglas, Charles L. 1972 Analysis of faunal remains from Black Mesa: 1968-1970 Excavations. In Archaeological investigations on Black Mesa: the 1969-1970 seasons, by Gumerman, George J., Westfall, Deborah, and Weed, Carol S., pp. 212–225. Prescott College Studies in Anthropology 4.Google Scholar
Eggan, Fred 1950 Social organization of the western Pueblos. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.Google Scholar
Euler, Robert C. 1972 Attributes of prehistoric Pueblo settlement patterns on Black Mesa, Arizona. Atti del XL Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti, pp. 77–81. Tilgher, Genova.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1972 The cultural evolution of civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3:399–426.Google Scholar
Ford, Richard I. 1972 Barter, gift, or violence: an analysis of Tewa intertribal exchange. In Social exchange and interaction, edited by Wilmsen, E. N.. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers 46:2146.Google Scholar
Forde, Daryll C. 1963 Habitat, economy, and society. E. P. Dutton, New York.Google Scholar
Gumerman, George J. 1968 Archaeology of the Hopi Buttes district, Arizona. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Gumerman, George J. 1970 The origin of regional variations: an example from the Anasazi Southwest. Paper presented at the Thirty-ninth International Congress of Americanists, Lima.Google Scholar
Gumerman, George J., and Alan Skinner, S. 1968 A synthesis of the prehistory of the central Little Colorado valley, Arizona. American Antiquity 33:185–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumerman, George J., Deborah Westfall, and Carol S. Weed 1972 Archaeological investigations on Black Mesa: the 1969-1970 seasons. Prescott College Studies in Anthropology 4.Google Scholar
Hack, John T. 1942 The changing physical environment of the Hopi indians of Arizona. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Papers 35(1).Google Scholar
Jennings, Jesse D. 1966 Glen Canyon: A summary. University of Utah, Anthropological Papers 81, Glen Canyon Series 31.Google Scholar
Kunitz, Stephen J., and Euler, Robert C. 1972 Aspects of Southwestern paleoepidemiology. Prescott College Anthropological Reports 2.Google Scholar
Longacre, William A. 1970 Archaeology as anthropology: A case study. University of Arizona, Anthropological Papers 17.Google Scholar
Odum, Eugene 1971 Fundamentals of ecology. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Phillips, David A. Jr. 1972 Social implications of settlement distribution on Black Mesa. In Archaeological investigations on Black Mesa: the 1969-1970 seasons, by George J. Gumerman, Deborah Westfall, and Carol S. Weed. Prescott College Studies in Anthropology 4:199–210.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1972 Population, agricultural history, and societal evolution in Meso-America. In Population growth, edited by Spooner, Brian, pp. 101–154. MIT Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Service, Elman R. 1971 Primitive social organization. Second edition. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, Philip E. L. 1972a Changes in population pressure in archaeological explanation. World Archaeology 4:5–18.Google Scholar
Smith, Philip E. L. 1972b Land-use, settlement patterns and subsistence agriculture: a demographic perspective. In Man, settlement and urbanism edited by Ucko, Peter J., Tringham, Ruth, and Dimbleby, G. W., pp. 409425, Schenkman, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Swedlund, Alan C., and Sessions, Steven E. n. d. A developmental model of prehistoric population growth on Black Mesa, northeastern Arizona. In Papers on the archaeology of Black Mesa, Arizona, edited by Gumerman, G. J. and Euler, R. C.. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale (in press).Google Scholar
Titiev, Mischa 1944 Old Oraibi: a study of the Hopi Indians of Third Mesa. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Papers 22(1).Google Scholar
Tuggle, David Harold 1970 Prehistoric community relationships in east central Arizona. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Vivian, Gordon, and Reiter, Paul 1960 The great kivas of Chaco Canyon and their relationships. The School of American Research, Monograph 22.Google Scholar
Woodbury, Richard 1961 Climatic changes and prehistoric agriculture in the Southwestern United States. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 95:705–709.Google Scholar
Zubrow, Ezra B. W. 1971 Carrying capacity and dynamic equilibrium in the prehistoric Southwest. American Antiquity 36:127–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar