Animal Resource Use Related to Socioenvironmental Change among Mesa Verde Farmers

Frameworks derived from evolutionary ecology are often applied to hunter-gatherers but less often to societies representing the transition to agriculture. Our case study of Mesa Verde subsistence utilizes optimal foraging theory models from evolutionary ecology to study small animal resource use during the Pueblo II to Terminal Pueblo III periods. Turkey and lagomorph indices have been used extensively in the Southwest, but these measures can be more explicitly tied to foraging theory. We frame these indices as measures of changing patch exploitation using faunal data from eleven sites in the McElmo Dome area of the Mesa Verde region and contextualize our results within the greater regional assemblage. Our results indicate that turkey husbandry became increasingly important at the same time that wild game populations were depressed by harvest pressure. Just before the region was depopulated, however, turkey and lagomorph populations declined, possibly as a result of deteriorating environmental conditions.