ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a study of food and diet, with the goal of illustrates how foods, famine and climate change can affect a community. The archaeological evidence seems to verify that the community indeed was plagued with food shortages, malnutrition and protein-calorie malnutrition. The archaeological record, supplemented with a large dose of model and inference, strongly suggests that fluctuating and impoverished food resources influenced the pueblo's population patterns over several generations. The pueblo ruins overlook the deep Arroyo Hondo canyon and its stream, which is charged by mountain run-off and various springs. At Arroyo Hondo Pueblo protein-calorie malnutrition was probably a constant threat to young children, which became even more devastating during drought years. The greatest concern for prehistoric farmers would have been highly erratic frosts during the spring and fall. Bands of the small, quick ungulates travel great distances over New Mexico's grasslands, moving frequently in search of forbs.
