Actualistic Experiments in Archaeology: Farming and Storing Maize in Range Creek Canyon, Utah

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Experimental Archaeology in Range Creek Canyon, Utah" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

At the Range Creek Field Station in east central Utah, researchers have had the unique opportunity to conduct repeated actualistic experiments, under modern environmental constraints, to better understand past human behavior related to farming and storing maize. This poster summarizes the goals, expectations, methods, results, and on-going difficulties of actualistic experiments designed to collect quantitative data on the costs and benefits of growing and storing maize. The data collected under modern environmental constraints is then used to better understand the archaeological record of Fremont farmers living in Range Creek Canyon between AD 900 and 1200. While we have had significant breakthroughs in understanding the trade-offs associated with irrigating with simple tools, we have had major difficulties in other areas of our experiments including pest damage to crops (primarily grasshoppers) and pests stealing food from storage granaries (primarily squirrels and pack rats). Encountering unanticipated problems and making decisions to best mitigate these issues has significantly changed our understanding of the ways past human forager/farmers would have also modified their behavior to increase their productivity. These difficulties have been extremely informative and continue to shape our experiments and future research questions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Experimental Archaeology in Range Creek Canyon, Utah   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33157