Range Limits: Semiferal Animal Husbandry in Spanish Colonial Arizona

Abstract

In North America, the introduction of livestock as part of the Columbian Exchange had profound social and ecological consequences for cultural environments, yet the landscape impacts of these animals have been difficult to identify, particularly in the first decades of sustained contact. Between 1701 and 1775, at a Spanish colonial mission near what is today Nogales, Arizona, O'odham groups and Spanish missionaries generated land management practices that wove together the needs of domesticated animals and existing Indigenous farming practices. This study proposes a set of indicators to identify animal husbandry practices in both the archaeological and historical record. Faunal, isotopic, and historical analyses from Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi provide evidence that cattle ages were loosely monitored and that cattle were culled at an older age than optimal for meat and grease extractive strategies compared to other domesticated species at the site. These findings suggest a low investment strategy in cattle, which may have helped Indigenous groups continue aspects of precontact agricultural and gathering practices and preserve their communities in the colonial period. These findings provide further evidence of the depth of animal husbandry practices among Indigenous groups in the Southwest.