Cotton Production and Regional Distribution for Western Pueblo Cultural and Ritual Sustainability, 1150-1450 CE

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Multiscale Data and the History of Human Development in the US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Most archaeological research on sustainability focuses on how human groups maintained adequate access to food resources, especially during climatic downturns. In this paper, we look beyond food resources to examine evidence for cotton production and distribution and ritual textile production, which formed the basis for exchange networks that sustained cultures in the Western Pueblo Southwest despite climatic variation and demographic upheaval. By comparing areas in the Western Pueblo Southwest with cotton-growing potential, as identified in the cotton niche model developed from the PaleoCAR 3.0 dataset, to settlements in this area with architectural evidence for ritual cotton weaving, we identify where and when cotton-utilizing settlements fell outside the niche, thus likely relying on exchange to obtain this valuable resource. Using cyberSW 2.0, we then examine cotton ubiquity and ceramic data from dated features within settlements in the Tonto Basin, a likely exporter of cotton, to look at the timing and directionality of exchange with Pueblo settlements on the Colorado Plateau and in the Transition Zone. To maintain cultural sustainability, Western Pueblo cotton production and exchange was concentrated in the Hopi area when the Tonto Basin and Transition Zone were depopulated by the mid-fifteenth century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Multiscale Data and the History of Human Development in the US Southwest

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50033