Reexamining Environmental Stress in Settlement Transitions: Implications for Understanding Settlement Patterns and Socio-environmental Response on the Shivwits Plateau

Summary

Where people choose to settle can be thought of in part as a behavioral response to the ecological constraints placed on a society’s ability to meet its needs through interacting with its environment. While humans are indeed not always completely rational actors, their endeavors require either basic raw materials or environmental conditions that, when absent, either force them to seek out other regions for exploitation or adapt to new conditions. Because of this, archaeologists have long been interested in the human response to the environment, particularly in areas of elevated risk. This research seeks to address the variability in Virgin Branch Puebloan settlement patterns on the Shivwits Plateau though time as a response to socio-environmental stress. Environmental data, ceramic seriation, habitation site variation and locations, and paleo-climatic reconstruction are used to spatially examine land use patterns over time. Additionally, this paper reports on assemblage patterns that are suggestive of identifying a core production area for Shivwits Ware ceramics, and discusses the future of current research undertakings on the southern portion of the Shivwits Plateau.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20486