Large Mammal Relative Abundance in Pithouse and Pueblo Period Archaeofaunas from Southwestern New Mexico: Resource Depression among the Mimbres-Mogollon?

Abstract

Archaeologists working in western North America have recently demonstrated temporal declines in the relative abundances of large mammals in archaeofaunal assemblages and have argued that these declines indicate resource depression, or reductions in the prey capture rates of prehistoric human hunters resulting from increases in harvest pressure. In the Mimbres-Mogollon region of southwestern New Mexico, evidence for resource depression has been controversial. Here, I employ a larger number of assemblages from this area than has been considered previously and show that large mammals are significantly more abundant at sites located in more mesic, wooded habitats. By taking this spatial patterning into account and by employing a model from foraging theory which indicates that temporal increases in large mammal relative abundance might also result from local resource depression in certain situations, I show that sites with samples large enough to produce statistically significant results do show temporal trends in large mammal relative abundance that are consistent with the hypothesis that they are due to changing intensities of human harvest pressure. This research has important implications for our understanding of prehistoric human impacts on biotic communities and may help to explain the increased reliance on agriculture that developed in the Mimbres-Mogollon region during the Pithouse and Pueblo time periods.