ABSTRACT
Many semi-arid to arid areas are the heartlands of agriculture, and the lessons learned from millennia of food production in these often difficult environments can provide critical information for understanding the past. Perhaps as importantly, we can use knowledge of the astounding range of prehistoric agricultural strategies and their ecological effects to build a more sustainable future, especially where food production expands into unfamiliar and unfavourable locations. Here I outline the types of agriculture used by the ancient peoples of the region now encompassed by the southwestern part of the United States and northwestern Mexico, for convenience termed here the North American Southwest (Fig. 15.1). This region is an excellent location in which to address issues of prehistoric human ecology, because it is one of the most intensely studied dryland regions in the world, so we have in some locations surprising precision in paleoenvironmental reconstruction and awareness of the region’s prehistory. The chapter’s focus then shifts to the anthropogenic effects of farming and, finally, to discussion of the role agriculture played in the historical dynamics of the region.
