The Origins of Southwestern Agriculture

by R. G. Matson

Overview

Presents a new model for the origins of Basketmaker II culture based on the evolution of maize use, focusing on the changes in maize growing rather than on the changes in, or to, the people involved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816536764
Publisher:	University of Arizona Press
Publication date:	12/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	356
File size:	12 MB
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About the Author

R. G. Matson joined the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1972, where he has served as associate professor of archaeology and curator of archaeology. His interest in Mexican domestic crops dates from a childhood in Southern California, where his family grew avocados. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 1971. A founding member of the Southwestern Anthropological Research Group, he initiated (with W. D. Lipe) the Cedar Mesa Project in southeastern Utah while serving on the faculty of Northern Arizona University. His studies in the archaeology of the Pacific Northwest resulted in The Glenrose Cannery Site, a monograph in the Archaeological Survey Papers, Mercury Series, of Canada's National Museum of Man. His interests in the Southwest and the Northwest continue to interact in surprising and meaningful ways.

Table of Contents

Contents List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Nature of the Basketmaker II 3. The Nature of the Plateau Archaic 4. The Evolutionary Model of Maize Use 5. The Age of Maize in the Southwest 6. The Three Models and the Age of Maize 7. The Mogollon Country 8. Summary and Conclusions Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

This study of the Archaic and Basketmaker periods (ca. 2000 BC-AD 400) seeks to pinpoint the introduction and diffusion of crops like maize in the desert Southwest. Matson (U. of British Columbia) disputes the theory that all such agriculture was introduced by migrating peoples from the Valley of Mexico, arguing that some cultivation was the result of independent invention by the ancestral Anasazi and Mogollon cultures. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"It represents the only up-to-date synthesis of the Archaic and early agricultural periods that considers the entire Southwest, and it should provide researchers with a much fuller picture of this complex issue than has been available before."—Science

"Should be read by any archaeologist wishing to enter [this] increasingly revitalized debate."—American Anthropologist

From the Publisher