The prehistoric and historic role of the cool-season grasses in the southwest

Abstract

The Navajo Indian, always an astute observer of the natural world, called Festuca octoflora "the grass that feared the summer." We recognize this species and others as cool-season grasses, or ones that utilize winter and spring moisture to promote their growth. In the grasslands and the pinyon-juniper woodlands of the Southwest many people accept the sparsity of cool-season grasses as a condition of long standing. The present obscurity of the cool-season grasses belies a time when deer, antelope, and buffalo grazed on the more abundant blades, and people depended on the grain for sustenance. The cool-season grasses mature in early summer, a critical time of year for the hunter-gatherer and the agriculturalist. For each, stored food supplies descend to their lowest annual level. New crops are immature. The cool-season grass grain provides a ready source of abundant calories that can be immediately consumed and also stored. Harvested grain bridges the growing season until the first of the wild fruits mature in the summer. Both cliff shelters and caves in the Southwest preserve evidence of prehistoric utilization of cool-season grasses. The dry interior of Tularosa cave in westcentral New Mexico saved mutton grass (Poa fendleriana) from decay. Large amounts of chaff, piles of panicles with grains missing, and knotted bundles of