The Long Term Effects of Animal Introductions on the Ecology of Central New Mexico

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Emily Lena Jones, of the University of New Mexico, will investigate changing social-environmental networks in the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico between AD 1300 and 1945. When Coronado led an expedition of Spaniards into New Mexico in 1540, he entered a complex socioenvironmental network in which indigenous communities worked with (and occasionally against) each other to survive in an environment characterized by unpredictability, variability, and patchy resources. This Prehispanic system (documented through a variety of archaeological work as well as through Spanish documents) was fundamentally altered by the biological agents the Spanish brought with them (domestic plants and animals from Spain) as well as by cultural agents (global trade networks, the mission system, the Spanish colonists themselves). This alteration, famously dubbed the "Columbian Exchange" by Alfred Crosby (1972), had ramifications across the globe and set the stage for the world in which we now live. In particular the research will provide insight into the factors which shaped and continue to affect Southwestern USA environment today. This has the potential to develop effective management tools. The project will also provide educational and training opportunities for students. In this project, Dr. Jones and University of New Mexico archaeology students will analyze fauna from archaeological sites to assess changes in people's use of animal resources in central New Mexico from the late Prehispanic period (ca. A.D. 1300) through the early 20th c. Activities will combine identification of archaeofaunal collections with analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen bone isotopes to (1) establish a baseline diet for central New Mexico in the late Prehispanic period; (2) understand the nature and timing of the adoption (and eventual dominance) of introduced animals of Spanish origin, namely domestic sheep, cattle, and pigs as well as the replacement of the region's Prehispanic domestic taxon, the domestic turkey; and (3) test for evidence for widespread environmental change resulting from the introduction of domestic taxa of Old World origin to central New Mexico. This project will therefore make use of existing collections to contribute new data to significant questions in archaeology, environmental history, and ecology. Dr. Jones and students will add primary data (both archaeofaunal and isotopic) relevant to a variety of disciplines to the record, allowing other large-scale landscape analyses to take place.