Predicting Maize Agriculture among the Fremont: An Economic Comparison of Farming and Foraging in the American Southwest

Abstract

Variation in the costs and benefits of maize agriculture relative to local foraging opportunities structured variation in the relative intensity of agricultural strategies pursued by prehistoric peoples in the American Southwest. The material remains of Fremont farmers and horticulturists, long identified as the "northern periphery" of Southwestern archaeological traditions, are examined as a case representing extreme intersite variation in the economic importance of farming. New data quantifying the energetic gains associated with maize agriculture in Latin America are compared to caloric return rates for hunting and collecting indigenous foods. These data suggest that prehistoric maize farming was economically comparable to many local wild plants, but that intensive farming practices were most similar to very low-ranked seeds. The model predicts a continuum of pre-historic strategies that included horticulture within a system of indigenous resource collection and high residential mobility at one end, and at the other sedentary farmers heavily invested in agricultural activities with residences maintained near fields during a significant portion of the growing season. Differences in agricultural strategies should have been strongly influenced by the effects of local ecology on the marginal gains for time spent in maize fields and the abundance of key, high-ranked wild foods, not harvest yields per se. Increasing agricultural investments are expected with decreasing opportunities to collect higher-ranked foods, while decreases in time spent farming are expected only with increases in alternative economic opportunities.