Winter Garden Hunting along the Rio Grande Flyway: A Case Study in the Procurement of Migratory Birds by Puebloans along the Rio Grande

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Garden hunting is a topic that has received substantial attention in archaeofaunal research over the past 30 years. However, these studies have tended to focus on hunting in active gardens during the growing season, or in fallow fields. Consequently, these past studies have often focused on the procurement of small game (rodents, leporids, and birds) who frequent active and abandoned fields. The goal of this research is to present evidence for a form of garden hunting that has not received as much attention in the literature—garden hunting of fields in the winter. The influx of Pueblo farmers and expansion of farmland along the Rio Grande floodplain during the late AD 1200s caused a significant northward shift in the overwintering grounds of migratory birds; namely, cranes, geese, and ducks. Previous researchers argued that Puebloan groups hunted these birds for use in ceremonies and for the construction of ritual paraphernalia, and were not consumed. This presentation will first present evidence to evaluate if these winter migratory birds could have been procured for subsistence. This will be followed by a discussion of the broader ramifications of birds and issues of territoriality and identity in the Eastern Pueblo region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33301