Harrod. Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence PDF

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Anthropology and Ethics
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Ryan P. Harrod • Debra L. Martin
Bioarchaeology of Climate
Change and Violence
Ethical Considerations
1 3
Ryan P. Harrod Debra L. Martin
Department of Anthropology Department of Anthropology
University of Alaska Anchorage University of Nevada Las Vegas
Anchorage, Alaska Las Vegas, Nevada
USA USA
ISSN 2195-0806 ISSN 2195-0814 (electronic)

ISBN 978-1-4614-9238-2 ISBN 978-1-4614-9239-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9239-9
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This book is dedicated to
Stephanie, Kael, Amara, Anne, and Nicole
(RPH)
George A., Juj, Deb Jr., Mike, Dode, Lira,
Lola, Juniper, Little Bear, and Hushpuppy
(DLM)
v
Foreword
Harrod and Martin put forth the Biocultural Model for Multicausal Pathways to
Increased Violence which assesses the relationship between climate change and
warfare. Their findings shed much needed light on pre-contact Amerindian life-
ways while also uncovering important factors influencing human behavior. Using
a multidisciplinary approach, the authors show that Ancestral Puebloans were not
passively adapting to environmental perturbations but rather, they actively respon-
ded to shifts in climate.
Harrod and Martin focus on the relationship between climate change and warfare
among Ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest. Specifically, the authors
examine the Climate–Conflict Model which posits a direct cause–effect relation-
ship between climate change and violence. The researchers concluded that when
confronted with climate change, humans react by employing any of the following
strategies: (1) engaging in activities that mitigate how this shift is affecting society,
(2) migrating to a more favorable location, or (3) eliminating competitors via war-
fare. In the case of Ancestral Puebloans, all three responses were employed.
The Black Mesa population for example, responded to climate change by increa-
sing their social networks, redistributing resources, by trading across microenviron-
ments, and eventually leaving the mesa in an orderly fashion at the height of the
drought in A.D. 1180. Residents of the San Juan Basin’s Chaco Canyon migrated in
response to shifts in climate. The Mesa Verde inhabitants of southern Colorado re-
acted to climate change by waging war and may have even engaged in cannibalism.
Mogollon peoples may have incorporated captives into its society as a response to
climate change. Therefore, the relationship between climate change and violence
among Ancestral Puebloans was complex.
The wide range of Ancestral Puebloan responses to shifts in climate (that in-
cluded migration, cultural reorganization, increased networking, redistribution of
resources, and warfare) demonstrates that warfare is not the inevitable outcome of
climate change. In addition, the authors’ review of Canary Island, Atacama, Patago-
nia, aboriginal southern California, Germany, and China data provides little support
of the Climate–Conflict Model.
Most importantly, this research exposes the hazards of invoking the deterministic
Climate–Conflict Model which negates individual agency. These findings should
vii
viii Foreword
give pause to those who invoke simplistic mono-causal explanations of human be-
havior. This publication will undoubtedly prove helpful to anthropologists, socio-
logists, historians, political scientists, environmentalists, economists, ethicists, and
policy makers concerned with understanding the nature of conflict and its relation-
ship with climate change.
Dr. Richard J. Chacon

Series Editor for Anthropology and Ethics
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Winthrop University
Rock Hill, SC, USA
Preface
Anticipating that there will be an increase in violence as a response to global war-

ming and environmental degradation has ethical implications that are addressed
in this book. Using an anthropological approach, the limitations associated with
reducing complex human behavior to this cause–effect model are illuminated. By
reviewing a number of case studies and deconstructing the study of climate change
and its relationship to conflict, the authors suggest that a much more complex and
nuanced biocultural model must be used for understanding the consequence of ma-
jor climate change events. The value of the biocultural model is that it accentuates
the importance of considering multiple factors. This is important because a cross-
cultural analysis of violent encounters reveals that migration plays a significant role
in the presence or absence of violence and that it is often outsiders who are targeted
during times of stress. There have been cases where shifts in climate could have
caused increases in violence but alternatives were used instead. Thus, to understand
what leads to violence, it is imperative to develop a more accurate database by ex-
amining how groups in the past adapted to long-term changes in the climate. These
factors (ethnic identity and social fragmentation, inequality, environmental degra-
dation, migration, and fear) interact with each other in complex ways depending on
the culture, environment, and constitution of the population under study. Arguing
for inevitability in how humans will react downplays the alternative choices they
have as a species to deal with an unstable and changing climate.

Anchorage, Alaska, USA Ryan P. Harrod
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Debra L. Martin
ix
Contents
1 The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence:

A Temporal and Cross-Cultural Approach.............................................. 1
1.1 The Value of a Bioarchaeological Approach �� 1
1.2 Climate Change and Humans �� 3
1.2.1 Climate Change Research �� 3
1.2.2 Anthropogenic Climate Change �� 4
1.3 Climate Change and Violence �� 5
1.4 The Climate-Conflict Model �� 6
1.5 Ethics and Climate Change �� 7
1.6 Bioarchaeology: The Importance of Comparative
and Temporal Studies �� 8
1.7 Summary �� 8
References�� 9
2 The Science of Climate Change................................................................. 13

2.1 Assessing Climate Change: Difficulties
and Limitation �� 13
2.2 Measuring Climate Change �� 14
2.2.1 Types of Data �� 14
2.2.2 Looking Beyond Climate to Understand the Environment �� 19
References�� 20
3 Culture and Resilience................................................................................ 23

3.1 Culture and Adaptation to Climate Change �� 23
3.2 The Human–Environment Interaction �� 23
3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate �� 24
3.3.1 Mitigating Against Climate Change �� 25
3.3.1.1 The Role of Subsistence �� 26
3.3.2 The Role of Migration �� 28
References�� 30
xi
xii Contents
4 Climate Change, Social Control and Violence

in the US Southwest.................................................................................... 33
4.1 The Role of Climate Change in the US Southwest �� 33
4.2 Methodological Approach �� 34
4.2.1 Sacred Water: A Drought-Prone Southwest �� 35
4.2.2 Conflict and Collapse: Violence and Migration
in the Southwest �� 36
4.3 Ancestral Pueblo �� 37
4.3.1 Kayenta of Black Mesa �� 37
4.3.2 Chaco of the San Juan Basin �� 41
4.3.3 Mesa Verde of Southern Colorado �� 44
4.4 Other Cultures in the Southwest �� 45
4.4.1 Mogollon �� 45
4.4.2 Sinagua �� 47
4.4.3 Navajo �� 48
References�� 52
5 Beyond the Southwest: Is There a Relationship Between

Climate and Violence?................................................................................ 59
5.1 Climate Change and Violence Worldwide �� 59
5.2 Bioarchaeological Case Studies �� 59
5.2.1 Canary Islands �� 59
5.2.2 Atacama and Patagonia �� 60
5.2.3 Southern California �� 61
5.3 Historic Case Studies �� 63
5.3.1 Germany �� 63
5.3.2 China �� 63
5.4 Climate Change Without Violence �� 64
References�� 66
6 Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model

of Climate Change and Violence................................................................ 69
6.1 A Revised Model of Climate Change and Violence �� 69
6.2 Lessons from the Past for Policy Makers
of the Future �� 70
References�� 71
Index................................................................................................................... 73
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 A biocultural approach to the interaction between humans

and their environment.......................................................................... 2
Fig. 1.2 Climate-conflict model......................................................................... 6
Fig. 2.1 Climate change and ice ages. Modified from Wikimedia
Commons (Webb 1991)....................................................................... 16
Fig. 3.1 Model for how resource stress leads to different behaviors
among cultures..................................................................................... 25
Fig. 4.1 Culture areas of the Ancestral Pueblo (Harrod 2013, p. 34).
Original image adapted from Morris (1927, p. 134)............................ 37
Fig. 4.2 Seasonal fluctuations in Chaco Canyon. Left Fajada Butte
covered with snow. Right Fajada Butte before a summer
storm (Harrod 2013, p. 7). Original photos courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons........................................................................... 42
Fig. 4.3 Reconstructions of climate change events during and after
the Chaco Phenomenon using dendrochronology (Harrod
2013, p. 53). Climograph adapted from Benson et al. 2007,
p. 194. Permission to reproduce the figure by Climate Change.......... 43
Fig. 5.1 Model of how climate change can lead to violence (Zhang
et al. 2007, p. 19214). Permission to reproduce the figure by PNAS..... 64
Fig. 6.1 A more complicated model for the interaction between
climate and conflict.............................................................................. 70
xiii
List of Table
Table 4.1 Bioarchaeological reconstruction of biocultural identity.

Modified from (Harrod 2013, p. 64)�� 34
xv
Chapter 1
The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change
and Violence: A Temporal and Cross-Cultural
Approach
1.1 The Value of a Bioarchaeological Approach
Bioarchaeology is a subdiscipline within biological anthropology that has become

an indispensable tool for identifying the biological effects of challenging envi-
ronmental and social processes on health and mortality. Studies focused upon the
human remains of ancient and historic populations have revealed such things as
differences in social status (e.g., Powell 1991; Ambrose et al. 2003; Harrod 2012),
health and nutritional disparities by both age (e.g., Baustian 2010; Hinkes 1983;
Martin 1994) and sex (e.g., Hager 1997; Hollimon 2011; Martin et al. 2010), varia-
tion in activity frequency and duration (e.g., Havelková et al. 2011; Merbs 1983;
Stefanović and Porčić 2013), and evidence of violence and warfare (e.g., Lambert
1994, 2002; Martin and Frayer 1997; Martin et al. 2012; Milner et al. 1991; Milner
1995; Walker 1989, 2001).
The value of the discipline of bioarchaeology is that as researchers have con-
tinued to analyze the various things that human remains can convey, an array of
groundbreaking new studies have been produced that have helped to reconstruct the
lives and social relations of people in the past. This is possible because bioarchaeol-
ogy incorporates methods from a range of other disciplines in order to situate human
remains within the broader cultural context. Additionally, bioarchaeology incorpo-
rates a broad and holistic biocultural perspective that integrates biology (data from
human remains) and culture (data from archaeological reconstruction of material
remains) within the larger environmental context (data from the geomorphology,
climate, and biota of a region). A biocultural approach provides an integrated way
of exploring the means by which humans have adapted to and survived in an array
of environmental contexts (see Fig. 1.1).
In addition to being integrative, bioarchaeology affords a comparative approach,
where cross-cultural data sets can be examined to understand variation in how hu-
mans have responded to environmental challenges. It also provides long temporal
spans with which to investigate the ways that individuals and communities respond-
ed to stressors in the environment. Thus, the interdisciplinary nature of bioarchaeol-
ogy offers a means of developing a cross-cultural comparison of the way nutrition,
R. P. Harrod, D. L. Martin, Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence, 1

SpringerBriefs in Anthropology and Ethics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9239-9_1,
2 1 The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence: A Temporal …
Fig. 1.1 A biocultural approach to the interaction between humans and their environment
health, activity, and violence map on to shifts in environment, changes in social

structure, or periods of upheaval. The reality is that bioarchaeology is very useful
in the establishment of a time depth that is not possible with other disciplinary ap-
proaches.
The focus of this book will be the utilization of bioarchaeological analyses to un-
derstand the relationship between human adaptability, climate change, and violence
with particular interest on a portion of the Greater Southwest typically referred to as
the American or US Southwest. The cultural area known as the Greater Southwest
is huge and, as such, it covers large portions of both the USA and Mexico. The US
Southwest, as its name suggests, is the northern portion of the Greater Southwest con-
tained within the modern boundaries of the USA that spans from eastern New Mexico
to eastern Nevada and the border of Mexico to the southern portion of Colorado (Reed
1951, p. 428). The US Southwest is an arid landscape that has experienced a series
of well-documented and often severe droughts. While the impact of climate change
events will be considered with a number of the cultures found in the US Southwest,
the focus here is primarily on the ancestors of the modern Pueblo cultures (e.g., Hopi,
Zuni, and Tewa-speaking people of the Rio Grande). The reason for concentrating
more on the Ancestral Pueblo is that this culture happens to be at the center of both the
development of archaeology and climate research in the USA and as a result is one of
the most extensively researched cultures in North America with sites that have some
of the most detailed climatic reconstructions in the world.
The approach taken in this study will be to test the notion that climate change is
often a catalyst for violent behavior. This is accomplished by mapping changes in
environmental conditions, such as shifts in climate, droughts of long duration, or
catastrophic events on to population adaptations before, during, and after the events.
Increases in trauma and violence will be coordinated with the timing of climatic
events to see if there is a cause–effect relationship.
1.2 Climate Change and Humans 3
1.2 Climate Change and Humans
Climate change, especially in reference to the modern concept of global warming,

is arguably one of the most discussed and researched topics today. While this is a
topic of particular interest to researchers from numerous disciplines, bioarchaeol-
ogy may offer a unique perspective for understanding why violence occurred in the
past and continues to be present today because it is especially well suited to tracking
violence through history. Walker (1989, 2001), Lambert (1994, 2002), Milner et al.
(1991), Milner (1995, 2007), Martin and Frayer (1997), and Martin et al. (2012)
have shown that bioarchaeology methods can identify violence in past societies.
Combined with data from other aspects of these societies as outlined in Fig. 1.1,
interpretations can be provided that link environment, biology, and culture. The
value of a bioarchaeological approach to understanding climate is exemplified in
the recent work by Gwen Robbins Shrug in India during the late Holocene (Robbins
Shrug 2011).
1.2.1 Climate Change Research
Climate change is a topic of interest to people beyond academia, especially in the

last few decades. Hollywood has spent untold amounts of money producing movies
depicting the role that climate change will play in the decline of humanity or end
of the world, and politicians have made such scenarios part of their campaign plat-
form. Yet, the topic of climate change has likely been discussed since the beginning
of language in Homo sapiens. People are interested in the weather because of the
challenges it presents when it proves to be unpredictable, and this is especially true
with the origin of agriculture. Why agriculture? The answer to that question lies
in the fact that to successfully plant and harvest crops, people need to know when
it will be warm enough and there will be sufficient rain, as opposed to when the
ground will freeze and water will be scarce.
Looking at the US Southwest, even these relatively small agricultural societies in
ancient North America show signs of being obsessed with mapping the crucial ele-
ments of seasonal and annual cycles related to when to plant and harvest crops, such
as cycles of the sun and changes of the seasons. For example, this type of planning
is evident in the architectural and landscape design of Chaco Canyon, a concentra-
tion of sites in the arid deserts of the San Juan Basin in the north central portion of
the Southwest. Research by Sofaer (1997, 2007) indicates that the Pueblo sites are
an ideal group to consider when discussing the importance of understanding the
way that people in past agrarian societies mapped their culture onto the markers
of seasonality and solar events (the importance of tracking the celestial world is
discussed in greater detail in Chap. 2).
Looking at the Hopi of northern Arizona and extant Pueblo people, it is apparent
from their oral traditions that agriculture is more than a means of obtaining food and
intimately tied to their identity. The primary staple of the Hopi and for all Pueblo peo-
ple is corn. Wall and Masayesva (2004, p. 436) describe corn as the thing that binds
the Hopi people together, suggesting that it becomes part of their flesh, so it is part of
them. It is a reciprocal relationship where “the Hopi people sustain the corn and the
corn sustains Hopi culture” (p. 437). The importance of this crop is somewhat surpris-
ing, given that agriculture is not a simple, or necessarily a fruitful, endeavor in the
US Southwest. Ethnographic information and archaeological reconstructions suggest
that in this region most of the crops have to be cultivated through planting along the
floodplain or using a technique known as dry farming. The problem with floodplain
farming is that there is always the risk of unpredictable flooding that destroys that
year’s crops, a fact supported by archaeological reconstructions of sites throughout
the US Southwest (Anderson and Neff 2011). Yet, while dry farming is not necessarily
at risk for flooding, it is still problematic. Dry farming is constrained by the precipita-
tion that falls or does not fall each season (Wall and Masayesva 2004, p. 441). Despite
the limitations associated with both of these techniques, agriculture in the US South-
west thrived for hundreds of years, and the people within this region centered their
lives around ensuring its success. This is amazing because the Pueblo culture clearly
illustrates that humans are constrained by, and have to respond to, climatic conditions.
Nevertheless, even when times are especially hard, certain behaviors are selected and
maintained not only because of their intrinsic value (i.e., subsistence) but also because
they are an important part of the group’s ideology.
The reality is that humans often continue to engage in behaviors that are det-
rimental to their survival because the behavior is part of their collective identity.
The importance of this is that many of the cultural behaviors and actions of human
groups can, and do, have a significant impact on climate, a process known as an-
thropogenic (human-caused) climate change.
1.2.2 Anthropogenic Climate Change
There is a long history of people recognizing that our tendency to modify our en-
vironment results in changes in the local climate. Neumann (1985) has shown that
both the ancient Greeks and Romans were aware that human activity could affect
climatic conditions in a particular region. Regional impacts on climatic conditions
are also evident in the excavation of the late period at Cahokia. Researchers study-
ing the soil deposits in the alluvial fan area of the Mississippi River discovered that
these early agriculturalists were cutting down the surrounding forests, leading to an
increased runoff that inevitably caused a significant amount of soil erosion (Milner
1998). Some argue that deforestation and resource eradication were problems for
this society because there was a disconnect between the people and their surround-
ing environment, which is the same argument made for why there is such opposition
to accepting and addressing global warming today.
In terms of climate change on a global scale, our understanding of how humans
could affect the world’s climate was not understood until shortly after the Industrial
Revolution. During this time the first scientific endeavors to understand climate
change were carried out by researchers such as John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, Ar-
vid Högbom, and James Croll (Weart 2008). However, it took over half a century of
1.3 Climate Change and Violence 5
research before there were sufficient data to suggest that humans had a direct effect
on global climate change. In the 1950s, Charles David Keeling of the California
Institute of Technology conducted studies on atmospheric carbon and provided the
first scientific support for the revelation that humans do affect the world’s climate
(Weart 2008). The consequence of this early work and subsequent studies on an-
thropogenic climate changes was an increased understanding of the ways that hu-
mans can impact the environment (Weart 2008).
The consequence of linking human activity, such as driving automobiles, using
hair spray, or simply having fires, with large-scale negative changes to the world’s
atmosphere and climate was profound. It led to an explosion of research among
members of the scientific community that resulted in a number of changes in public
policy (e.g., emissions laws, banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and seasonal
bans on burning wood and coal).
There is no denying that recognizing the relationship humans have with the envi-
ronment is a good trend. We should not forget that just because a relationship exists
does not mean that a particular set of actions or behaviors can be predicted to occur
or that this relationship is clearly understood. It is often simply assumed that climate
change will inevitably lead to conflict.
1.3 Climate Change and Violence
The link between climate change and violence is often viewed as a cause–effect
relationship. There are problems with this notion, however, as the assumptions and
interpretations of the data are used to link climate change directly with increasingly
violent interactions among and between groups. The importance of resources and
a willingness to go to war to protect these resources is grounded in evolutionary
theory. For example, research by Wrangham and Peterson (1996) found that among
chimpanzees, the desire for access to resources motivates males to establish male
coalitions and conduct intergroup raids against rival groups. In order for groups to
continue to survive in an area, they need to maintain sufficient access to resources
to sustain a viable population size.
Researchers opposed to this argument point out that humans have more options.
Humans can choose to forgo violence and to assist one another through the hard
times. Salehyan (2008) suggests that violence is not only dependent on the climate
conditions or resource availability but also is an outcome of some sort of failure
in the sociopolitical systems that have been established. Ember and Ember (1992)
used ethnographic data detailed in the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) to look
for correlations between environmental problems and increased violence. Their
study purported to show that it was not simply changes in the climate but something
more complex, where prolonged resource scarcity as well as the perceived threat of
future hardship were correlated with increases in interpersonal violence.
Despite the argument that the relationship between climate change and conflict
is not as simple as has been proposed, the model still persists. Numerous studies
Fig. 1.2 Climate-conflict model
looking at contemporary cultures and archaeological samples conducted around the

world seem to reaffirm this relationship (Theisen 2008; Diamond 2006).
1.4 The Climate-Conflict Model
Models proposed to explain the connection between climate change and violence
generally follow the same basic template where climate change, resource scarcity,
and increases in warfare are interrelated in a cyclical feedback relationship. First,
there is documentation of long-term climate changes that present challenges to the
status quo. Second, these changes are viewed as impacting the carrying capacity
of a particular environment through the reduction of available resources. Third,
because resources become scarce, there is a greater demand and price for them (i.e.,
competition for food and water). Finally, violence increases as people compete for
resources.
Zhang et al. (2007) have provided one such model that further suggests that these
variables create a negative feedback loop where the increase in violence further
impacts the available food resources or carrying capacity, leading to more warfare.
Figure 1.2 is a simplified model we designed to provide a mental template for how
this cycle works.
This model is often used in studies involving populations in the US Southwest.
Shifts in climate and environmental degradation in general are believed to cause
population density changes and increase violence. This is especially true of popula-
tions that were experiencing growth or were already large (Benson et al. 2007; Ben-
son 2010; Blinman 2008; Dean and Doyel 2006; Dean and Van West 2002; Dean
et al. 1994; Wright 2010).
Yet, the problem with this model is that buffering against the unknown is at the
heart of what it means to be human. In fact, some research in paleoanthropology
1.5 Ethics and Climate Change 7
argues that the threat of climatic instability was a key factor that hominid species
had to deal with, and the success, and survival, of the genus Homo was due to our
ability to adapt to the unpredictable fluctuations in our environment (Potts 1996,
1998; Vrba 1993).
Here, we will be looking for alternative explanations for why violence might
appear to increase around times of climate variability and understanding that the
perception of scarcity is as important as scarcity itself in shaping people’s responses
(Ember and Ember 1992).
1.5 Ethics and Climate Change
Bioarchaeological approaches to climate change and its effects on groups provide a

necessary time depth and comparative cultural perspective to explore how humans
have responded to major climatic changes. Having baseline data on diet, health, and
levels of violence before, during, and after the climatic event provides a better mea-
sure of the range of human responses to climate in different settings. This provides
an important corrective to the assumption being made today that humans always
turn to violence when climate changes limit their livelihood and resources. In this
case study from the US Southwest, it is demonstrated that violence is only one of
many possible outcomes.
These kinds of data are important because they illuminate the range of possi-
bilities for how indigenous groups in underdeveloped regions of the world may
respond to current global warming and its attendant changes in climate. From news
reports to public policy, there has been a tendency to assume that tribal people and
small-scale farmers in Africa, China, and India will react with escalating violence.
This kind of unsupported assumption has ethical implications for how international
and national policies will be instituted. Instead of sending military troops to places
where resources are dwindling, it might be better to support grassroots initiatives
based on the needs of the local people. There are possible political ramifications
for making a correlation between changes in the climate and violence as a result of
fear of unpredictable resources. If it is argued that there is a basic human motiva-
tion for needing to establish reliable access to resources and a willingness to kill if
this cannot be achieved, it may be possible that violence is inevitable. The problem
with inevitability is that options are no longer considered. Deudney (1990) argues
against there being a simple relationship between these variables, as the very act of
going to war or engaging in any conflict puts more strain on the available resources.
He cautions that making the link between climate change and conflict could have
severe consequences on future world policies. For example, perhaps it will motivate
wealthy industrial countries to decrease the supply of goods to the environmen-
tally unstable countries or to fortify their own borders and redirect their attention
to improving technological innovations that can increase yield of agricultural crops
on their own unproductive land. The result of this sort of approach would be an
economic collapse of the countries already under stress due to the changing envi-
ronment.
1.6 Bioarchaeology: The Importance of Comparative and

Temporal Studies
The implications of these ethical considerations is that it is imperative that research

analyzes more than one variable and that data on violence and its association with
climate change be tested and validated numerous times before any government ac-
tions are taken and policies are implemented based on these conclusions. This is
why bioarchaeology is so valuable, because it offers methods that are crucial for
analyzing and critiquing arguments that changes in the level or intensity of violence
are associated with certain climatic conditions.
Using the US Southwest as a case study, bioarchaeological data will be used
in conjunction with archaeological and environmental data to show the variability
in response to a major climatic event that occurred in A.D. 1100. Being a desert
farmer, as the inhabitants of the US Southwest have been for hundreds of years, is
difficult and fraught with long periods of drought and other challenging climatic
events. Building on a large published database about the exact climate changes and
what excavation of the archaeological sites provides in terms of information about
human responses to those changes provides a nuanced scenario based on scientific
evidence.
1.7 Summary
The general layout of the rest of the book is to introduce the reader to what climate
change is and how it is recorded (Chap. 2) before discussing some of the ways
that humans react to climate change and the factors that influence how they act
(Chap. 3). Then we will discuss our work and the work of other anthropologists
in the US Southwest as a case study that illustrates the complexity of climate
change and its relationship to violence (Chap. 4). Following the chapter on the
Southwest, we will briefly point out some other cultures from around the world
and through time that researchers have used as examples of how climate change
has led to violence (Chap. 5). The focus is on discussing the different types of vio-
lence that occurred, the level of impact that the violence had on the cultures, and
alternative explanations for why violence might have occurred despite changes
in the climate. We conclude with a discussion of why it is important to consider
the consequences and ethical considerations associated with correlating climate
change with violence (Chap. 6).
References 9
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ences in diet at mound 72, Cahokia, revealed by isotopic analysis of bone. Journal of Anthro-
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Anderson, Kirk C., and Ted Neff. 2011. The influence of paleofloods on archaeological settle-
ment patterns during A.D. 1050–1170 along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Arizona,
USA. Catena 85:168–186.
Baustian, Kathryn Mary. 2010. Health status of infants and children from the Bronze Age Tomb at
Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
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Chapter 2
The Science of Climate Change
2.1 Assessing Climate Change: Difficulties

and Limitation
Climate change is not an easily understood concept, especially since it is often

defined differently by researchers and misunderstood by the popular media. The
phrase “climate change” can mean a multitude of things. To understand variations
in climatic conditions, there are several aspects that need to be understood, such as
the scale of time being used, the length of time for which it has been monitored,
and the measures that are being used to identify the changes. This is accomplished
by investigating whether or not there is a perceived shift in weather patterns over
the past few decades or whether the change being measured has lasted much longer.
What exactly are researchers measuring to determine that there is a shift in the cli-
mate (e.g., temperature, precipitation, sunlight, or something else)? Are they look-
ing at the changes in climate on a regional or worldwide scale? These are important
questions because climate change is often proposed as if the term were universally
known and accepted, but the reality is that very few of us understand what climate is
and how we track its changes. The purpose of this section is to introduce the reader
to the term “climate”means, how we go about measuring its fluctuations, and what,
if any, effect it has on human populations when it varies.
The term “climate,” as it is presented in many introductory textbooks, is simply
defined as the environmental conditions of a particular area over a long period;
typically, at least 30 years (Gabler et al. 2007, p. 110). This definition is important
because it differentiates climate from the concept of weather. Weather is what is
happening in the environment of a region at a particular moment. Thus, weather can
change from day to day or even from hour to hour, while climate is the average of
the weather in a region over several decades.
One complication with this definition is that it makes it seem as if the average
estimation of weather is an impartial estimate. According to Lucarini (2002), there
are some major limitations associated with the estimation of climate that are often
not discussed. First, the climatic indicators being compared are average fluctua-
tions of multiple indicators of weather that are highly variable at any given time.

14 2 The Science of Climate Change
Depending on when they are measured and how often, the estimated climate might
be fairly representative or it might not. Second, different researchers collect climate
data using different methods, so data compared over a region or over multiple re-
gions may be incongruent.
As Lucarini (2002, p. 414) states, “Due to the complexity of the system, climate
dynamics is chaotic and is characterized by a large natural variability on different
temporal scales that would cause non-trivial difficulties in detecting trends in sta-
tistically relevant terms, even if the observational data were absolutely precise.” He
cautions, however, that this does not mean that climatic science is a flawed science,
but that as with any other science (e.g., bioarchaeology), it is important to recognize
the limitations that may be associated with the findings.
Recognizing the limitations of the definition and estimation of climate, another
issue that is essential to address is the concept of climate change itself. The term
“climate change” is typically associated with the notion of global warming, which
has come to be shorthand for the recent and future changes in the climate that are
resulting in higher average temperatures worldwide. This typically involves fo-
cusing on mapping shifts in anthropogenic (human) activities (e.g., the Industrial
Revolution, the development of the automobile industry, or globalization) and the
impact these activities have on long-term changes in the weather conditions of a
particular area. However, there are a number of ways in which researchers attempt
to understand the relationship between humans and their environment. For example,
some scientists map climate change by evaluating historic measurements of weather
conditions and how the shifts in weather over time (i.e., climate) affected human
productivity. Other researchers, compare aspects of the ancient environment against
modern conditions to show major shifts or climate events, such as the Last Glacial
Maximum, Younger Dryas or Medieval Warm Period, and Little Ice Age.
2.2 Measuring Climate Change
In looking to reconstruct past climates to study the changes over vast periods of
time, scientists use various techniques to obtain ancient or paleoclimate data. How-
ever, researchers measuring climate in the past (paleoclimate) are not able to di-
rectly measure the specific climatic conditions of an area, but instead, rely on either
mathematical projections of what was likely or use what are called proxy data.
In terms of mathematical modeling, most of the data are based on astronomical
changes of the Earth in relation to other objects in space.
2.2.1 Types of Data
There are three ways in which the Earth changes to cause a shift in the climate:
eccentricity, obliquity or tilt, and axial precession or procession of the equinox.
2.2 Measuring Climate Change 15
Together, these processes create what are known as the Milankovitch cycles (Sny-
der 2010, p. 414). Eccentricity is the fluctuation of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun
in relation to how far apart they are at different times of the year. The distance varies
as the orbital trajectory alternates between being more circular or elliptical (Rohli
and Vega 2012, p. 278; Desonie 2008, pp. 25–26). The second process Milankov-
itch found was the changes in obliquity, a gradual shifting in the tilt of the Earth
over time; it can vary between 2.4° and 2.6° (Rohli and Vega 2012, p. 278; Desonie
2008, p. 26). The final process is the axial procession, which is typically described
as the process where the rotation of the Earth is said to wobble like a spinning top
(Rohli and Vega 2012, p. 279; Desonie 2008, p. 26). The wobbling or deviation
away from a perfect rotation is the result of the gravitational pull of the Sun and the
Moon (Freedman et al. 2011, p. 34). The importance of the Milankovitch cycles is
that they have been suggested to be the cause of major climate change events, such
as the Pleistocene or Quaternary ice ages (see Fig. 2.1) (Desonie 2008, pp. 27–28;
Hays et al. 1976, p. 1131).
The problem with using the Milankovitch cycles to explain climate change is
that these are slow events that span tens to hundreds of thousands of years. So, it
is difficult to identify precise climate conditions of a region at a specific time. Ad-
ditionally, there is the problem of how these cycles affected a group’s lived experi-
ence. Were they even aware of the shifting cycles of the Sun? Looking at popula-
tions in the US Southwest, it could be argued that people in the past were aware of
at least some aspects of the Milankovitch cycles.
Among the Ancestral Pueblo associated with the Four Corners region of the US
Southwest, there is evidence that astronomical events were especially important
to the people. A number of sites were constructed with a cosmological orientation
focused on the solstice and cardinal directions (Lekson 1999; Munro and Malville
2011; Sofaer 2007; Sofaer et al. 1989). The earliest and the largest of these sites
are located in Chaco canyon in North Central New Mexico. One site in particular
is noteworthy for its astronomical alignment, Pueblo Bonito, which is the largest
architectural building in the canyon that was initially constructed around A.D. 860
(Lekson et al. 2006; Windes 2003; Windes and Ford 1996).
Symbolism is extremely important at Chaco canyon as it seems to be at the
heart of the road system and is reflected in the fact that many of the sites and struc-
tures are aligned along astronomical and cardinal orientations (Sofaer 1997, 2007).
Munro and Malville (2011) argue that the importance of the astronomical alignment
was that it was a means for the elite to demonstrate their ability to predict the move-
ments of the heavens above them, and that the architecture built on the landscape
may have functioned as a form of veneration. Yet, it may be that while these other
functions were important, the Pueblo people could also have been tracking and at-
tempting to understand changes in the seasons. It has been proposed that other past
cultures, like the Maya, may have developed a complex means of tracking changes
in the Milankovitch cycles (Melchizedek 2012, pp. 32–33). It is possible that the
drought-prone people of the Southwest may have been interested in mapping these
cycles as well because their livelihood was tied to tracking their local climate condi-
tions.
Fig. 2.1 Climate change and ice ages. Modified from Wikimedia Commons (Webb 1991)
Yet, despite attempts to predict the astronomical cycles and their potential im-
pacts, these changes are unlikely to have affected the day-to-day lives of people
in the past. What is more pertinent is the impact of catastrophes like earthquakes,
volcanoes, and cycles of changes to the environment. To reconstruct these types of
changes in the past requires the use of proxy data.
Proxy data includes using both the abiotic (all nonliving aspects that make up
a particular environment) and biotic (plant and animal life) characteristics of the
landscape. The most common proxies utilized to track changes in the climatic con-
ditions of a region are the differences in tree-ring size (i.e., dendrochronology), and
the variance in the isotopic signatures derived from ice cores, lake sediments, shell,
and animal or human bones.
Speer (2010, p. 2) suggests that dendrochronology is the most accurate of the
proxy data used to record climate change (e.g., ice cores, lake sediment, and pollen).
Dendrochronology is the science of recording annual shifts in precipitation within
a region by measuring the diameter of new tree growth as evidenced by a series
of concentric rings. According to Martinelli (2004, p. 129), the reason why den-
drochronology is the preferred proxy measure of climate change is that it provides
both short- and long-term intervals of change. Given dendrochronology is one of
the earliest and most reliable proxies for reconstructing past climates it has become
a cornerstone of much of the archaeology that has been and is being, conducted in
the US Southwest. Beginning with the work of Douglass at the turn of the twentieth
century, dendrochronology was applied at a multitude of archaeological sites in
the US Southwest (Douglass 1929). By dating the timber used in the construction
of the multiroom architecture, researchers are able to recreate the environmental
conditions around the time when there was an increase or decrease in construction
at sites. For nearly half a century, most climate reconstructions in the US Southwest
have relied on shifts in precipitation, typically using the Palmer Drought Severity
Index. The result is that the Ancestral Pueblo is one of the best climatically docu-
mented cultures in the world with reference to precipitation. In fact, it has been sug-
gested that modern climate models based on precipitation can be improved by using
the dendrochronological reconstructions in the US Southwest, such as the North
American monsoon and its long-term effects (Leavitt et al. 2011).
According to Burke et al. (2009), however, there are problems with simply ana-
lyzing precipitation alone. They argue that it is a growing trend in modern climate
studies to focus on proxies beyond precipitation, and of particular interest are those
measures that identify variations or fluctuations in temperature. The reason for the
shift from precipitation to temperature is twofold. First, it is less complicated to
model temperature changes in the future and more accurate than predicting shifts
in rainfall or cycles of oscillation, allowing for the development of more precise
models of climate change (Burke et al. 2009). Second, the effects of precipita-
tion changes in a particular area are variable depending on other geomorphologi-
cal features of the landscape, and as a result, the impact of precipitation is highly
unpredictable.
The fact that precipitation is variable is problematic not only because it is dif-
ficult to find patterns but also because cultures tend to adopt ways of dealing with
mild and moderate fluctuations in rainfall and runoff. Wolf et al. (2003, p. 6) argue
that “the entire causal relationship between hydroclimatology and water-related po-
litical relations, however, is certainly complex and strongly dependent on socioeco-
nomic conditions and institutional capacity as well as the timing and occurrence of
changes and extremes in a country and basin.” The reality is that there is no simple
relationship between the presence or absence of water and violence, and instead a
researcher must consider many other factors that could correlate with how a culture
will react (i.e., violence) to a change in the climate. The logic for questioning any
explanation that relies solely on drought is best articulated by Wills (2009), who
says there are inherent problems with correlating the fine chronological sequence
provided by paleoclimatological measures with the more abstract, archaeologically
obtained chronologies.
There are problems with all estimates of climate change because most math-
ematical models are too broad, and despite the fact that proxy data can reveal cli-
matic conditions, they are also potentially affected by other variables. Buchdahl
(2010) describes the limitation of these proxies using the analogy of a signal and
the noise, suggesting that while proxy data provide a signal, this signal is often hard
to discern because of the noise that is associated with it. Besides the other factors
that could potentially be contributing to the changes in proxy data, Moberg et al.
(2006) argue that proxy measures often only represent specific climate areas and
not the entire region. The unique geomorphology of each area within the larger
region could potentially have a number of other factors that are contributing to the
climate. The problem is that the research focuses solely on indicators of climate
and does not look at all of the other aspects of the environment that people interact
with and are affected by, which results in either overlooking or ignoring of other
indicators.
One approach is to use multiple proxies that measure changes of different aspects
of the climate (i.e., precipitation and temperature) to establish the broader, more in-
clusive baseline for the region. There are, however, researchers who argue that there
are inherent limitations to constructing models that incorporate multiple proxies as
well. According to Bürger and Cubasch (2005), one limitation of utilizing multiple
proxies is that it increases the error rate of the climate estimates due to calibration
issues. However, they note that this is something that can be overcome by utilizing
precise mathematical methods and regularization schemes to reduce the error rate
(Bürger and Cubasch 2005). The best approach to recreating the climate of a par-
ticular region is to use multiple proxies and accurate modeling of the geomorphol-
ogy of the region under study (e.g., topography, elevation, and vegetation). This has
been demonstrated in the US Southwest by Benson et al. (2013), who found that to
accurately reconstruct the maize productivity of a particular region, it is imperative
to understand the role of soil productivity and depth, elevation, and the growing
season in addition to the traditional temperature and precipitation reconstructions.
As Benson’s study suggests, climate is just one of the many features of a particu-
lar environment and ecology. The environment and ecology describe the physical
landscape and climatic pattern of a region. Additionally, environment and ecology
can also be utilized to explore the role of the humans in the environment.
Drought is not the only external factor that needs to be considered when contemplating
motivations for migration. Temperature (that is, the strength of winters and the changing
length of growing seasons) is undoubtedly important as well. A host of non-climate factors
of a sociological nature must be considered also. We cannot be sure what such factors were
and whether they involved significant violence (e.g., raids by neighbors or by nomadic
tribes) but we can be quite sure that any sociological factors will be much more difficult to
reconstruct and quantify than those related to climate. (Berger 2009, p. 14)
2.2.2 Looking Beyond Climate to Understand the Environment
Even with the exclusion of the most unpredictable factors, humans and their cultural
innovations, it is very difficult to accurately recreate the environment of a particular
region. It requires an understanding of variations in other factors beyond the climate
that also play a role, such as elevation, geomorphology of the landscape, vegetation,
and latitude. Mapping periods of violence against all of these other factors, makes
it more difficult to map human behavior over large geographical regions. Environ-
mental factors are typically separated into two categories: abiotic and biotic features
of the landscape.
Biotic factors include all of the living things on a landscape. Abiotic features
are the nonliving aspects of a particular environment including climate, geomor-
phology, and soil type and distribution. Geomorphology is defined as “the study
of the classification, description, nature, origin, and development of landforms and
their relationships to underlying structures, and the history of geologic changes as
recorded by these surface features” (Bates and Jackson 1984, p. 208). Geomorphol-
ogy is crucial because shifts in climate within a region differ according to changes
in the terrain. In fact, the interaction between the landscape and climate is crucial
to the development of biotic communities. The geomorphology of the landscape
directly affects the vegetation as a result of differential interactions between annual
precipitation and soil accumulation, and the type of vegetation determines animal
populations found in the region.
The impact of vegetation on the carrying capacity of a region is especially cru-
cial to understanding when the role humans play in the modification of the envi-
ronment is considered. Even in the past, there is evidence of humans significantly
modifying their natural environment. In the US Southwest, for example, Pool
(2013) looks at the Classic Mimbres culture to argue that cultural practices were
increasing the effects of climate change. His research shows that in the past, agri-
cultural societies were probably having an impact on their environment; they did
so, by engaging in intensive agriculture that resulted in changes to the ecological
nature of the landscape. One possible human-caused change that could have hap-
pened in these cultures, according to Pool, was that there was a loss of nutrients and
minerals in the soil as well as extensive soil erosion. With intensive agriculture in
ancient societies, crop rotation and movement of fields was not always practiced.
These findings are supported by Minnis and Sandor (2010), whose analysis of soil
productivity in the Mimbres Valley over the past 1,000 years revealed evidence
that the soil has yet to fully recover from being overused by the Mimbres culture
in prehistory.
2.3 Summary
The intent of this chapter is to illustrate that measuring and identifying the effects of
climate change can be an arduous endeavor, and despite the scientific nature of the
findings, interpretation is not always a straightforward process. Even when humans
are taken out of the picture, it can be difficult to know exactly what happened in a
particular environment and to determine how these changes may have necessarily
impacted the ecological context. Yet, there is a wealth of information that can be
generated by carefully scrutinized climatic data that, in conjunction with archaeo-
logical reconstructions, can provide important information on the interactions be-
tween the natural and cultural environment in the past. In fact, this collaborative
work has important implications for understanding the role of humans in climate
change events. Because of the long periods of time that archaeologists work with,
long chronological sequences of climate data can be used to reconstruct human
activities before, during, and after events such as long droughts, volcanic eruptions,
or periods of cold and dry weather, all of which affected the various cultures living
in the US Southwest.
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Chapter 3
Culture and Resilience
3.1 Culture and Adaptation to Climate Change
Assuming that climate change, global warming, and unpredictability in weather

patterns cause human groups to be more violent is, largely, an untested proposi-
tion. While some reports and commissions use data derived from the past decade to
examine the relationship between, for example, rising temperature and rising crime
rates, it is difficult to actually know if these associations are correlated only with cli-
mate change directly, indirectly, or not at all (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
news/2010/03/100324-global-warming-violence-aggression/). As anthropologists,
we see the use of these kinds of studies as a proxy for what might happen as climate
change unfolds creating both ethical and practical problems. Policy makers are us-
ing these climate change and violence studies as possibilities for what could happen
without taking into consideration the much longer term and cross-cultural data on
human behavior that the anthropological literature offers.
3.2 The Human–Environment Interaction
Humans have been adapting and responding in a wide variety of ways to climatic
shifts and changes for over a million years. While there are certainly long-term
genetic changes that have been selected in some extreme environments such as
high altitude, many of the ways that humans adapt are behavioral and cultural. This
perspective is embodied in the theoretical approach known as historical ecology.
Historical ecology grew out of cultural ecology, which was conceptualized in the
1950s. It is the notion that humans can adapt and do adapt to the various stressors
posed by specific environments (Steward 1955). However, unlike cultural ecology,
which proposes that humans will be challenged by various constraints posed by any
environment in which they live, historical ecology builds off of the work by Bennett
(1993) by arguing that humans are not only affected by the environment but also
cause significant changes to it. Essentially, the existence of culture gave humans
the power to not only survive in but also redesign the natural world. Looking at
24 3 Culture and Resilience
climate change through a biocultural lens is especially effective because it reveals

that people can adapt to climate change both as individuals and as a group. So, while
the environment provides a set of conditions that promote certain types and ranges
of cultural activity that are required for survival, the people are still actors upon this
stage who can create their own pathway for survival.
According to Balée (2006), understanding how humans are affected by and react
to changing climate conditions requires an in-depth consideration of sociopolitical
conditions, regional interactions, burgeoning or declining ideologies, and dramatic
shifts in the demography and/or population density. This anthropological approach
to examining how humans have responded to climate change is likely to yield a
more complex picture, but one that is more realistic on a global level. Without tak-
ing a broadly cross-cultural and temporal approach, predicting what humans might
do during climate change will be nearly impossible.
3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate
Using a wide variety of ways to collect data on human adaptation and climate,
we have indicated that a simple correlation between climate change and increas-
ing violence does not exist. For example, when summarizing the options available
to human populations living in China between A.D. 1000 and 1900, Zhang et al.
(2007, p. 19214) suggest that the behavioral responses to fluctuations in the climate
include an array of behaviors, such as migration, technological adaptation, shifts
in the socioeconomic system, expansion of trade relations, and intensification of
within-group resource allocation.
An anthropological perspective is of particular value because, by its very na-
ture, the discipline and researchers within it actively seek out ways to identify the
multitude of variables that affect the interaction between humans and their social
environment. More specifically, bioarchaeology is especially useful for exploring
how people react to a changing environment because to understand how to inter-
pret the body of someone long dead requires an ability to look at numerous lines
of evidence. Also, because bioarchaeology is centered around the people, not their
material remains, it is informed by both biological and cultural factors that shape a
person’s life and their role within a particular group and environment. Combining
bioarchaeological data with a historical ecology approach provides insight into the
relationship between climate change and violence as well as the costs and benefits
of various behavioral strategies in the face of human-mediated disturbance.
A review of climate change and how it affects humans indicates that, in gen-
eral, there seem to be essentially three responses to climate change that humans
can adopt. These responses include people in the culture employing a strategy that
allows them to mitigate or reduce how much the changing climate affects their so-
ciety. Second, they choose to leave or migrate out of the region being impacted to
an area of more abundant resources; the final strategy being that they can attempt
to secure and decrease competition for resources by eliminating competing groups
3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate 25
Fig. 3.1 Model for how resource stress leads to different behaviors among cultures
(i.e., warfare) or taking resources away from others (i.e., raiding). Chapter 4 ex-
plores archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence that suggests that people in
the US Southwest might have adopted all of these strategies at one point or another,
suggesting that the relationship between violence and climate change is complex.
We propose a model for why resource stress does not always lead to violence; but
instead, there are a number of potential factors that may influence why people select
one behavior over another (Fig. 3.1).
3.3.1 Mitigating Against Climate Change
When considering how individuals within a particular culture can or cannot miti-
gate against fluctuating climate conditions there are a number of important factors
to consider about the culture itself. Smit and Wandel (2006) discuss these factors
as the adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities that each individual within a group
as well as the culture as a whole possesses. The adaptation of individuals within
a society is possible because people are active agents involved in the ways they
will cope with the stress associated with changing conditions. However, despite the
agency of each individual, the adaptive capacity of individuals and their actions are
still constrained by the actions of other members in their group, the worldview that
they espouse, and the values they hold (Adger et al. 2009, p. 344; Smit and Wandel
2006, p. 284). Thus, to understand what actions will result from dramatic changes
in the climate (i.e., if violence will occur), it is important to consider the individual,
as well as how they are shaped and constrained by the larger social group.
In the US Southwest, the role of the larger group is particularly evident. The dry
arid landscape has always put stress on people inhabiting the region, and individuals
have had to develop ways to adapt to this stress. However, it is likely that the devel-
opment and subsequent reliance on agriculture there placed even greater stress on
the populations. As mentioned in Chap. 1, corn was especially important to the peo-
ple living in the US Southwest. Given that it was an integral part of their ideology,
corn would have remained the primary crop even when there were severe droughts
as the Pueblo agriculturalists could no longer simply switch to a new resource. The
consequence of this continued reliance on corn, a precipitation-dependent plant,
would have resulted in greater stress as water had to be procured to support both the
people and the crop.
3.3.1.1 The Role of Subsistence
The notion that a group’s way of procuring their resources, especially food, directly
impacts how they will or will not adapt to shifting climatic conditions is an integral
component of the historical ecology approach. Given its importance, it is critical
to highlight how different subsistence regimes present a different set of adaptive
capacities and vulnerabilities.
Foraging is the process of acquiring food through hunting, fishing, and gathering
resources in the environment in which you live. The importance of this subsistence
is that, traditionally, foragers are characterized as highly adaptable to environmental
conditions because they are able to shift their focus from one resource to another
that is more readily available in the altered environment. The adaptive nature of
foragers is especially evident among groups that inhabit the harshest and most in-
hospitable environments, such as tropical, arctic, and subarctic regions of the world.
For example, looking at cultures inhabiting the arctic and subarctic, which are ar-
guably two of the harshest or most marginalized environments in the world, there
are groups who have developed survival strategies that have permitted them to sur-
vive and thrive in the Late Dorset period in the Canadian High Arctic, which is the
area north of 75° north latitude (Darwent 2002). The Late Dorset culture developed
around A.D. 500 (cal.) and lasted until the arrival of the Thule, around A.D. 1200
(cal.). The shift from what archaeologists describe as the Early and Middle Dorset
to the Late Dorset was marked by not only migrations north but also dramatic shifts
in settlement, trade, and mobility. The reason for the shift seems to be a change in
environmental conditions as temperatures increased with the Medieval Warm pe-
riod (Darwent 2002). The difference between Late Dorset and the Early and Middle
Dorset is that in addition to constructing highly mobile tent house structures they
also build more permanent stone and sod houses and congregate in larger villages
during particular seasons.
While similar to foraging, pastoralism differs in a number of significant ways.
First, in terms of the food, pastoralists, unlike hunter-gatherers, rely on a narrow
subsistence base, and as such, they have a higher risk of famine during periods of
drought and of disease among the livestock. Additionally, most cultures that are
pastoral in nature are not strictly egalitarian like most hunter-gatherer societies,
3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate 27
and some even have a sociopolitical organization wrought with inequality and dif-
ferential access to resources (Mulder 1999). For example, the Turkana, a collection
of regional groups that identify themselves according to a shared cultural ideology
and language in East Africa, offer an interesting example of pastoral subsistence.
Galvin and Little (1999) describe the Turkana as a pastoral group with an especially
high reliance on livestock for subsistence even when compared to other African
pastoral groups. Leslie and Little (1999) suggest that the importance of this is that
the Turkana live in an arid region of sub-Saharan Africa that is consistently af-
fected by drought. Some researchers have suggested that one consequence of these
droughts is the establishment of a system of active raiding where individuals invade
the territory of neighboring groups to acquire cattle and capture new wives (Fleisher
2000; McCabe 2004). The use of violence to mitigate against drought is supported
by Tornay, who analyzed violence among the neighboring Nyangatom people in the
early 1970s and found that the reason for the raiding was not due to social factors
but correlated with periods of ecological stress and subsistence shortages (Dyson-
Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980). Thus, one reason that violence may be a viable
outcome for the Turkana and other pastoral groups in East Africa is that their subsis-
tence relies on a narrow resource base that is centered on cattle. Thus, similar to the
agricultural groups in the US Southwest, people not only have to allocate resources
for themselves but also to support the cattle. However, unlike agriculture crops, the
cattle are still mobile, so when environmental conditions are really bad, violence is
not the only option as people can still migrate to new regions.
Finally, there is agriculture, which as Diamond (1987) argued has been histori-
cally considered the world’s greatest technological advancement. Agriculture has
been seen as an advancement of humanity because it provided an efficient way to
nourish the previously famished foragers of the world that spent the majority of
their time hunting elusive animals and gathering scarce resources Wei (2012). The
earliest researchers even used agriculture as a means for delineating between ad-
vanced and primitive societies or people of varying levels of cognitive advancement
(Barker 2006). These same researchers held a number of beliefs about the perceived
benefits of agriculture, which included providing the only mechanism for popula-
tions to establish permanent settlements, rapidly expand, and work less for a higher
return. The problem with these early notions of agriculture is that ethnographic, os-
teological, and archaeological data seem to suggest that an agrarian subsistence ac-
tually requires a greater amount of work, is a more risk-prone subsistence strategy,
and is characterized by the development of disease and warfare (see the volumes
by Cohen and Armelagos 1984 and Pinhasi and Stock 2011). It is often argued that
the reliance on fewer resources among agrarian societies is associated with greater
degrees of social stratification and inequality, which puts a society at greater risk for
violence when times are hard. The logic is that as people become more sedimentary
and remain in one area, they begin to develop a sense of territory and ownership.
The notion of ownership or the belief that this is mine is further enforced if rival
cultures move into nearby territory and the available amount of resources for each
group could potentially be depleted (Ember and Ember 1992). As fewer resources
become available, it is reasonable to believe they would begin to compete for access
to especially rich areas, and since it requires leaders to organize large fortification
projects and manage armed warriors, agrarian cultures would have greater political
inequalities and conflicts.
The problem with citing subsistence as to whether or not a culture can adapt to
climate change is problematic because it is only one of many factors present in a
culture that contribute to the possibility of mitigation. Additionally, not all forag-
ers, pastoralists, and agriculturalists are created equal. First, in terms of agrarian
cultures, in Chap. 4, several groups of the Southwest are discussed and the way that
drought affects them is not necessarily the same. Second, there is also abundant
evidence that there was violence and social inequality about some hunter-gather-
er groups (e.g., Northwest Coast cultures, Chumash, and Calusa). The Northwest
Coast cultures, the Chumash of southern California, and the Calusa and Guale of
Spanish Florida all developed into complex societies as a result of their exploit-
ing the abundant fishing and marine resources for subsistence (Ames 2001; Ar-
nold 2001; Johnson 2007; Thompson and Worth 2011; Widmer 1988). The hunter-
gatherer groups are considered complex because their sociopolitical and economic
structure shifted and became more hierarchical and a form of class system devel-
oped that included both the elite and slaves. In contrast, research on the Fremont,
who traditionally lived in the transition region between the US Southwest and Great
Basin, has suggested that farming may not necessarily lead to a poorer quality of life
(Barlow 2002). Finally, Wossink (2009, p. 146) suggests that the in Mesopotamia,
agriculturalists were able to adapt to changing climate conditions better than pasto-
ralists because they had more established relations with their neighbors compared
to the less sedentary herders in the region.
3.3.2 The Role of Migration
In general, migration is essentially the movement of groups of organisms across

the landscape, and it has always been an important part of the history of human-
ity. Humans are unique among primates because of their ability and propensity to
migrate great distances, into unknown territories with unforeseen dangers, all while
leaving behind the land that they are familiar with. This pioneering spirit or explorer
mentality is most highly accented in the emergence of Homo erectus, who, within a
relatively short time, spread out of Africa and occupied nearly the whole of the Old
World. Since this mass exodus from Africa, researchers have been trying to under-
stand what motivates migration. Today, the dominant perspective on why people
migrate is typically that movement is related to resource procurement strategies. For
example, the migration of Homo erectus is typically associated with moving herds
of megafauna, which are the main subsistence source for early foraging hominins.
One argument is that they followed the megafauna species that left Africa as the
climate changed and grasslands expanded. Thus, Homo erectus left Africa as they
followed the migrating herds.
The notion that the way in which cultures obtain their food seems to predict how
mobile they tend to be is illustrated by the assumptions about subsistence-related
mobility. The common belief is that there are three basic groups, more mobile for-
3.4 Summary 29
agers, semisedentary, less mobile horticulturalists, and sedentary agriculturalists

with little or no mobility. The pattern of low mobility among agriculturalists is
important because the migrating groups, under evaluation here, are agrarian farm-
ers with complex architectural settlements in the American Southwest that should,
for all intents and purposes, have a fairly stable settlement pattern. The problem is
that there seems to be a significant amount of mobility among these groups, at least
for approximately 400 years (A.D. 900–1300), which suggests that something other
than resource procurement is motivating the people to move.
The evidence for migrations of past peoples must be inferred through the analy-
sis of changes in their material remains. To identify migration, it has been suggested
that by analyzing the technological design of material remains (Dobres 2000; Heg-
mon 1998; Sofaer Derevenski 2000), as well as the spatial organization of sites
and material within sites (LeMoine 2003; Lowell 2010; Roth 2010), it is possible
to track the movement of small social groups. Cultural identity is established by
evaluating shifts in stylistic changes to the material remains (Sackett 1990; Wash-
burn 1995; Wiessner 1983; Graves 1982), the maintenance of or divergence in ar-
chitectural style or site layout (Duff and Schachner 2007; Cameron and Duff 2008;
Cordell 1998), and patterns in the remains related to subsistence strategy and ex-
change networks. This final characteristic is the most problematic trait to use to
establish identity because the patterns may overlap with the culture of other local
groups because of the fact that they share things like environmental conditions and
trade networks.
Kothari (2002) identifies several types of migration based on the pace and du-
ration of the change in climatic conditions. The possibility of different types of
migration events as a result of climate change is important because Raleigh et al.
(2008) suggest that the type of migrant community affects whether or not violence
will occur. They state that people who migrate under distress will be very unlikely
to lead to conflict, for two main reasons: (1) distressed populations are extremely
marginalized and weak compared to nonmigrants in host areas, and (2) distressed
migrants attempt to merge with ethnic groups within host areas, relying on social
capital or relief efforts to merge populations. Thus, migrants are at risk if they move
into an area and are seen as a burden on the existing group because they are rivals
for the limited amount of resources available in the region (Reuveny 2007). It is rea-
sonable to believe they would begin to compete for access to especially rich areas,
and this requires organization, fortifications, and conflict.
3.4 Summary
Understanding this reciprocal relationship between humans and their environment

is critical to offering an alternative to the assumption that climate change and global
warming will bring about increased levels of aggression and violence. Predicting
what humans will do in a wide range of environments practicing different subsis-
tence activities is not going to be an easy task. Anthropological studies can reveal
a more robust and an applicable way of approaching how humans may respond.
Without incorporating the cultural and historical context, the research currently be-
ing used to examine the future impact of climate change relies too much on environ-
mental determinism, on the one hand, and on crime statistics, on the other.
Mitigation, migration, and violence are the typical responses adopted by humans
when faced with extreme shifts in the climate because the only other option is that
they do nothing and as a result die due to famine in the form of starvation, dehydra-
tion, prolonged malnutrition, or disease. This outcome is improbable for humans,
given our ability to adapt to and modify our surrounding environment, but it is a
very real outcome for animals under climatic stress (Zhang et al. 2007). While it is
unlikely that humans will do nothing and succumb to starvation when faced with
extreme resource stress, the reality is that famine and malnutrition are still very real
consequences.
Famine is an outcome that must be considered when climate change is a factor.
This is especially apparent considering the large death toll in both the potato famine
in Ireland (1845–1952) and the Great Leap Forward famine in China (1959–1961)
that resulted from famine, not warfare (Gráda 2009). Examining the effect of large-
scale droughts on the Mayan of Mesoamerica that were very similar to those in the
US Southwest, Gill (2000, p. 120) suggests that the reality is that famine is a much
more common outcome than violence and warfare during climatic change or cul-
tural changes that deplete the resource base. The reason for this is that other options
such as migrating away from the area or raiding one of their neighbors’ food sup-
plies to secure resources may not be viable. Perhaps the neighboring population is
too large or more efficient at warfare, or maybe there simply are no inhabited areas
where they can migrate to. Whatever the reason, the point is that climate change, no
matter how bad, can lead to people working together, seeking out resources, going
to war with their neighbors, or simply failing to thrive in the environment. The goal
of good research is to use data, like that obtained from human skeletal remains, to
try to reconstruct what happened and provide a nuanced explanation for why it hap-
pened that way.
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Chapter 4
Climate Change, Social Control and Violence
in the US Southwest
4.1 The Role of Climate Change in the US Southwest
The US Southwest (primarily Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico) is argu-
ably a region defined by marginality for human habitation due to high- and low-
altitude deserts, droughts, unpredictable rainfall, and a short, tight growing season
for crops (see Baldridge 2004, p. 213–243). One of the startling facts about this
region is that it was considered home for hundreds of distinctive indigenous groups
prior to contact and colonization in the 1500s. Even today, many tribal groups live
in the Southwest, and some are still practicing desert agriculture. Archaeologically,
the ancient inhabitants have been referred to in the scientific literature as the Ances-
tral Pueblo or Anasazi as well as the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Sinagua groups (see
Cordell and McBrinn 2012). We have chosen this region to carefully examine the
possible interrelatedness of climate change and violence, because there is excellent
archaeological and bioarchaeological data on precontact populations that go back
hundreds of years (Plog 2008). There is also an abundance of ethnographic and
ethnohistoric data to corroborate the possible relationship into the present (Trim-
ble 1993). The Hopi, Zuni, and other Southwestern groups are illustrative of the
complexities of factors that underlie how individuals and communities respond to
negative changes in climate. Being desert farmers at the mercy of rainfall, frost-free
days during the summer growing season, and daily temperatures, a close look at
how humans have dealt with climate change is very productive and possibly useful
for future planning. While these cultures differ from each other in some ways, what
they all share is a series of adaptive responses that have permitted them to survive
over the millennia, thus providing important lessons about what to look for in con-
temporary desert situations headed for negative climate changes.

34 4 Climate Change, Social Control and Violence in the US Southwest
Table 4.1 Bioarchaeological Biocultural identity

reconstruction of biocultural
Nutrition and health Stature
identity. Modified from
Enamel hypoplasia
(Harrod 2013, p. 64)
Porotic hyperostosis
Cribra orbitalia
Periosteal reactions
Activity-related changes Robusticity
Entheses or musculoskeletal markers
(MSMs)
Trauma Antemortem (nonlethal) trauma
Perimortem (lethal) trauma
Repeat trauma (injury recidivism)
4.2 Methodological Approach
The approach taken to clarify the relationship between climate change and violence
in this chapter is to examine biocultural characteristics of the people inhabiting the
ancient and historic Southwest and compare these findings with the reconstructions
of the past environmental conditions. A bioarchaeological approach (analysis of hu-
man skeletal remains) facilitated not only in the reconstruction of the people at the
population level but also provided a means of identifying the roles of various indi-
viduals within each population. Both individuals and populations can be analyzed for
markers left on the bone as a result of the person’s lived experience (Harrod 2013).
The value of generating the identity for individuals and populations in the Southwest
is that it provides a means of identifying the effects of stress. Stress as it is defined
in this project is the notion that there are external factors in the environment that
are impacting the health and well-being of people to a sufficient degree to cause
a physiological disruption (Goodman et al. 1988, p. 177). The skeletal markers of
stress that are of particular interest include indicators of nutrition and health, activity-
related changes, and evidence of trauma (see Table 4.1). These markers are used by
bioarchaeologists to provide multiple lines of evidence regarding the health status
of individuals at the time of death (see for examples Cohen and Armelagos 2013).
In terms of human health in marginal environments such as deserts, drought
is one of the more important factors to examine. Stanke et al. (2013) conducted a
metastudy to better understand the correlation between droughts and human health
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682759/). What they discovered
was that at least 50 million people were affected by droughts in 2011, and poor
health effects were primarily in the form of malnutrition and lack of adequate food,
water and vector borne pathogens ( E. coli, malaria, cholera), dust-related illnesses
(valley fever) and problems related to wildfires, the effects of out-migration, and
an inability to maintain infrastructural needs of communities. Although trauma and
injury data were collected, there was not an overriding correlation of droughts with
increased violence. The authors state that the relationship between drought and con-
flict has not been studied or described in the literature but that migration has been
4.2 Methodological Approach 35
linked to both poor health and increased conflict. Thus, what contemporary stud-
ies of drought (as one consequence of climate change) have shown is that while a
variety of adjustments and adaptations can be made to increasing dryness, there are
health impacts that are demonstrable. However, in these studies, conflict and vio-
lence are not the primary behavioral changes associated with climate change (see
Scheffran et al. 2012 for a review of the difficulties in making correlative predic-
tions). Evidence in the subsequent sections from the precolonial past corroborates
these findings and work to counter the claims that the biggest fear regarding climate
change (in this case, drought) will be increasing violence. That simply does not
seem to be the case for regions most at risk for drought, that is, desert regions.
4.2.1 Sacred Water: A Drought-Prone Southwest
The reconstruction of environmental stress in the Southwest is based on the wealth

of data obtained over the last century on precipitation cycles through the science
of dendrochronology. As mentioned in Chap. 2, the Southwest was essentially the
birthplace of dendrochronology, and because researchers were able to record the
passage of time and map shifts in available precipitation using tree rings, this region
is well dated with a long chronology of information on climatic conditions.
Beyond dendrochronology, this region is also well understood in terms of the
occupation and social interaction of various groups. Written documents have re-
corded the lives of people in the Southwest since the arrival of the Spanish in the
New World when it was still thought to be home to the seven cities of gold known
as Cibola. In addition, the region is crucial to the development of anthropology as a
discipline, as much of the archaeological and osteological analysis was conducted
in this region at the turn of the twentieth century (Hrdlička 1908; Pepper 1909).
The Southwest has always fascinated anthropologists because of the discovery
of the indicators of social complexity, such as the elaborate multistoried architecture
known as Pueblos, in an arid region where Linda Cordell says there is more or less
“a drought a minute” (personal communication, 2012). The result is that there are
countless archaeological reports, ethnographic accounts, and historic records about
the people, past and present, in the Southwest. This includes information about the
biological profiles of individuals, chronologies of habitation, and environmental
reconstructions. The study of human demography and health and climatic condi-
tions has offered important insights into the ways that humans were able to adapt to
an environment that was continually fluctuating, had marginal resources, and was
characterized by political centralization.
Relying on these reconstructions of climate and health, researchers have argued
that the repeated droughts in this region have had negative consequences on the
people. One consequence was that the scarcity of resources and the inhospitable en-
vironment forced entire groups to migrate away to find areas where water was more
readily available (Benson et al. 2007; Blinman 2008; Dean et al. 1994; Dean and
Doyel 2006). A second proposed consequence is that the droughts led to conflict
within and among the cultures of the US Southwest (LeBlanc 1999; Billman et al.
2000). However, our reanalysis of the data suggests that this scenario is far too
simple and does not capture the nuance in human capability for adaption and in-
novation.
4.2.2 Conflict and Collapse: Violence and Migration in the

Southwest
Long-term shifts in precipitation and temperature may be indirectly correlated with

increases in migration, which itself may be indirectly correlated with an increase
in violence. But to understand these potential associations and what they mean for
humans on the ground, archaeological and bioarchaeological research suggests that
other factors were also important and must be included in any interpretation of
how humans respond to climate change. For example, Lekson (2002) suggests that
climatic changes are going to have more of an impact when there are lingering psy-
chological effects of past climate change events still in the cultural memory. This is
certainly the case for many indigenous groups with a long history of habitation in
one region. In the Southwest it has been well documented that droughts came before
large-scale population migrations, particularly in the San Juan Basin and Northern
San Juan regions around A.D. 1150.
The fluctuating climate meant that ancient groups were constantly dealing with
the fear of recurring droughts along with actual episodic resource instability. A
heightened vigilance to protect limited resources might have been one of several
responses by groups in the region. While this could have intensified conflict and
augmented social stratification, other issues such as political alliances, social con-
nectivity through trading and marriage, and redistribution of existing resources also
were behavioral options. The increase in raiding and warfare seen during these pe-
riods could have led to a persistent fear of attack as indicated by the presence of
defensive architecture (Benson et al. 2007; Dean and Doyel 2006; Douglass 1929).
Some archaeologists have suggested that if people are afraid of unpredictable
events, such as weather changes or pending attacks, they are more likely to attack
their neighbors to obtain more resources as a form of buffering against the unknown
(LeBlanc 1999). However, there is more compelling data to suggest raiding and
warfare are not the immediate adaptive strategies put into place during droughts in
the Southwest. The implications of the ethnographic findings by Ember and Ember
(1992) and archaeological reconstructions by Lekson (2002) are that even if soci-
eties survive moderate to extreme climatic events that cause droughts or famines,
there is a good chance that they will migrate from a region or resort to conflict if
they feel that the climate might change again. Thus, in any predictive scenarios
about what humans will do before, during, and after climatic shifts such as droughts,
adaptations at the local level, and migration out of the region are as important if not
more important to consider than warfare, raiding, and violence.
4.3 Ancestral Pueblo 37
Fig. 4.1 Culture areas of the Ancestral Pueblo (Harrod 2013, p. 34). Original image adapted from
Morris (1927, p. 134)
4.3 Ancestral Pueblo
While the Ancestral Pueblo are often considered a single culture, there are a number
of regional differences that have led to researchers identifying four major cultural
areas known as the Virgin, Kayenta, Mesa Verde, and Chaco branches of the An-
cestral Pueblo (Fig. 4.1). All of these groups lived on what is referred to as the
Colorado Plateau or the Four Corners Region of the Southwest.
4.3.1 Kayenta of Black Mesa
The Kayenta branch is the group of Ancestral Pueblo, living primarily in northern
Arizona and southern Utah. Archaeological sites excavated on Black Mesa show
that there was a significant population living there from around A.D. 900–1150.
Black Mesa is especially relevant because it is considered a marginal environment
for agriculture, yet population size increased over the centuries that Ancestral Hopi
people lived there. The habitation areas, artifacts, and burials recovered from the
region suggest that although agriculture was an important part of the subsistence
strategy, the groups remained fairly flexible in that they also ate wild plants and
animals regularly. They also moved their villages to exploit microregions that had
better water resources than other areas. As climate change became increasingly a
stress over that period, eventually the area was abandoned with individuals presum-
ably moving off the mesa and into the Kayenta region (Martin et al. 1991, p. 22).
In this section we will explore archaeological and bioarchaeological data in order
to understand how the people on Black Mesa were able to adapt to changing con-
ditions, why this adaptation eventually failed, and what role violence played. The
careful analysis of all archaeological and bioarchaeological data from the Black
Mesa area permits an in-depth look at how various factors interacted to force people
to adapt, die, or leave a region hit by droughts. At Black Mesa, there is a pattern of
flexibility and resilience that is not often seen in other committed agriculturalists
(such as the Maya or Aztec). The Black Mesa people never become totally seden-
tary as many other agricultural groups did elsewhere in the Southwest.
Between 1967 and 1983, a multidisciplinary approach to archaeological exca-
vations was undertaken at Black Mesa (see Martin et al. 1991 for details). This
approach is not unique in the Southwest. For example, excavations at Grasshopper
Pueblo (a prehistoric Mogollon site complex in Arizona) was also excavated and
studied and produced a wealth of archaeological and bioarchaeological material
(e.g., Allen et al. 1985; Baustian et al. 2012; Ezzo 1994; Lowell 2010; Reid and
Whittlesey 1999; Riggs 2001). Point of Pines, another Mogollon site complex, also
involved a long-term excavation program (15 years) and has yielded a sizeable
amount of data derived from the analysis of material and skeletal remains (e.g., East
2008; Bennett 1973; Breternitz 1959; Haury 1989; Stone 2000).
In recent years, the archaeological data procured from Black Mesa have been
used to address many issues related to biocultural adaptation and survival. For
example, the organization of procurement systems and the development of social
networks and exchange systems have highlighted the ways that the keystone in
understanding how groups survived was through adaptive flexibility and innova-
tive ways of integrating groups over time and space. Thus, a recent emphasis of the
Black Mesa Archaeological Project is to use the abundant collected data to unravel
complex questions concerning human interactions and activities taking place 1,000
years ago on Black Mesa and to relate the findings to events in other areas.
Degree of sedentism, subsistence regime, and demographic composition are ma-
jor factors for understanding the adequacy of the diet and the availability of high-
quality nutrients for subgroups that are most vulnerable. Likewise, changes in the
relative proportion of cultigens and wild plants have bearing on the availability
of the full range of micronutrients necessary for optimal health. For example, the
suggestion that there was an intensification of corn agriculture on Black Mesa over
time has implications for both nutritional and disease status.
Through archaeological reconstruction, many of the variables important in the
interpretation of health (such as food resources, water, settlement patterning, hous-
ing, trade, cultural buffering) are available. Dean (1988), Karlstrom (1988), and
Hevly (1988) provide dendroclimatic and hydrological data documenting precipi-
tation, temperature, climate, and related ecological conditions present during the
occupation of Black Mesa. Black Mesa experienced a major period of dryness that
peaked around A.D. 890 and later had a period of wetness and general moisture that
peaked at A.D. 1145. Between these two extremes, the climate and precipitation
was extremely variable. It is proposed that, in general, the Mesa has a long history
of unpredictable climatic events with periods of dryness and insufficient rainfall
followed by periods of wetness. Unlike other regions, Black Mesa did not become
deforested or undergo irreversible trends in dryness (Powell 1983). The fluctuating
frequency of rain and the variation in temperature (which was periodically favor-
able or unfavorable depending on the intensity of the changes) suggest that drinking
water was patchy in distribution and variable in amount.
Ford’s (1984) analysis of ethnobotanical remains from Black Mesa suggests that
natural vegetation was exploited throughout the occupation. In general, naturally
occurring edible wild plants are low in density, widely scattered, unreliable as a
dietary staple, and unpredictable in caloric contribution. Cultigens on Black Mesa
(primarily maize, gourds, and beans), Ford argues, that they are aggregated, non-
random in distribution, and predictable in location, yield, and caloric content. But
given the climatic constraints, annual productivity of the crops was uncertain and
probably was a labor-intensive activity (Powell 1983). Given the storage facilities
found on the sites, it is conceivable that several years’ worth of maize was grown
during the good years and used to get by during the seasons with crop failures.
Land cleared for agricultural use can attract a variety of “pioneer annuals” that
are edible and may have contributed to the dietary base on Black Mesa (Ford 1984).
These plants, which include Chenopodium, Portulaca, and Amaranthus, are partic-
ularly attracted to newly cleared and planted plots of land. Older, abandoned fields
attract Indian ricegrass and cactus, both of which are edible. On Black Mesa, these
plants would be found in dense patches that are localized and could have provided
a predictable addition to the diet.
The analysis of wild animals as a food source on Black Mesa suggests that deer
were important during the Basketmaker II period and that rabbits were increasingly
exploited in later Pueblo periods. In general, wild animals on Black Mesa were
patchy in distribution, were unreliable as a staple food source, and were an ener-
getically high-cost subsistence strategy. Semé (1984) demonstrates that the activity
of gardening creates new niches that attract animals into an area in greater quanti-
ties (primarily rodents and rabbits). Although these animals may not be ordinarily
hunted as a food source (especially rodents), their high numbers in human-made
fields may have contributed a predictable and localized protein source to the diet of
the Ancestral Pueblo of Black Mesa (Linares 1976).
Taken together, environmental constraints and limiting resources on Black Mesa,
as we understand them, are suggestive of a marginal and unstable ecosystem punc-
tuated by periodic food shortages and crop failures. The Black Mesa ecosystem
with its pinyon-juniper forest presents a high-altitude landscape with short growing
seasons, a variable climate, relatively few plant species, infrequent permanent water
sources, and limited large game.
The environmental constraints need not be serious, however, if cultural mecha-
nisms are in place that effectively buffer the group from potential stressors. Ar-
chaeological evidence for cultural buffering suggests several strategies open to the
Ancestral Pueblo on Black Mesa (Plog and Powell 1984). There was a diversity of
food procurement strategies that included agriculture, harvesting wild plants, and
hunting. Structures for the storage of food increased in kind and number with time.
The preparation of food became more efficient with a shift to new techniques. Ba-
sin metates and one-hand manos were replaced with trough metates and two-hand
manos, suggesting that corn was ground into finer particles prior to cooking. That
may have had beneficial nutritional effects.
Demographically, there were changes in population size, distribution, and densi-
ty throughout the occupation, and they were most likely responses to variation in re-
source productivity and environmental extremes. There were changes in the degree
of mobility with a trend toward increasing sedentism (circa A.D. 1050). The shift
toward sedentism was accompanied by an increase in population size. More areas of
Black Mesa were being farmed after A.D. 1050, and many of the new farming areas
were marginal for agriculture; that is, they were located in upland areas of the mesa
instead of lowland areas (Plog and Powell 1984). Changes in settlement location
(more use of upland areas) and variability in site size are features of Black Mesa
demographic and habitation patterns that could buffer people from some stressors
but also may have provided additional stressors for people to cope with.
A variety of other cultural and behavioral responses were operating on Black
Mesa. During periods of low population density, Plog and Powell (1984) suggest
that the mating networks of given communities were probably quite large and wide-
spread. As communities became more sedentary and densely populated, social and
mating networks would have become more proximally located out of necessity.
That may have led to an intensification of cooperation and social integration within
villages; at the same time, local exchange between villages may have become more
important as an aid in buffering productive variation. Thus, as the more marginal
upland areas became the sites for sedentary communities, groups may have been
forced to organize themselves in such a way as to maintain cohesive social networks
within which food and other resources could be shared (Plog and Powell 1984,
p. 213).
Although many of these cultural and behavioral responses may have effectively
buffered the Black Mesa inhabitants during some environmental perturbations, it
could be argued that the area was marginal enough to produce stressors of a magni-
tude that could not be effectively buffered. For example, if cultigens were relied on
increasingly through time, successive crop failures would make it difficult to meet
dietary requirements. The problem would be compounded if the group size was
growing and if there were an investment in a rigid set of adaptive strategies. On the
other hand, increased sharing, storage capacity, trading, and redistribution of lim-
ited resources along with a flexibility in resource type and procurement could offset
the stress produced by crop production. Thus, reliance on cultigens is perceived as
both a buffer during ecologically favorable times and a stressor during periods of
drought.
In light of the complex interactions of ecological and cultural/behavioral fac-
tors, hypotheses concerning the biological responses to these interactions can be
generated. Dealing first with host resistance, stresses originating from ecological
and cultural stressors will most seriously affect infants, weaning-aged children, re-
productively active females, and individuals with compromised immune systems
(such as those already ill or heavily parasitized). These groups are immunologically,
metabolically, and nutritionally the most at risk during times of food shortage and
high disease loads (Population Reports 1988).
Given what is known about the environment and culture history of Black Mesa,
it is expected that a high degree of physiological disruption would be apparent.
However, the complex set of cultural buffers in place may have acted to ameliorate
the consequences for the group as a whole. Although there is some indication that
health may have been more easily maintained in the semi-mobile Ancestral Pueblo
(A.D. 800–1050) because of flexibility in response to food procurement, the effec-
tiveness of the behavioral changes in food storage, maintenance of social networks,
trade between villages, and redistribution that came about with the move toward
sedentism and upland sites may have acted to significantly reduce disease and early
deaths.
The biological impact of stress on Black Mesa was assessed by skeletal indica-
tors of growth disruption, disease, and death. Pathological alterations on bone are
assessed primarily through the systematic description of lesions. Determination of
patterns of growth and development also provide information on stress. Because
almost half of the Black Mesa skeletal series is under the age of 18, we are able to
document growth and development of both dental and skeletal tissue during criti-
cal stages and compare the data with known values for well-nourished and healthy
groups, as well as modern groups living in similarly marginal areas. Identifiable,
age-specific disruptions in growth yields important information on patterns of
childhood developmental disturbances and physiological disruption. The distribu-
tion and the frequency of specific diseases (nutritional, infectious, degenerative) are
also essential parts of the osteological analysis. The patterning and the frequencies
of nutritional diseases, such as iron-deficiency anemia, are documented for many
prehistoric populations and have obvious implications for understanding adequacy
of diet. Infectious diseases, likewise well documented for many skeletal series,
provide an indicator of demographic patterning, population density, and degree of
sedentism.
In contrast with other groups in the Southwest (based on comparative frequen-
cies of presence and severity of indicators of poor health on the human remains),
the Black Mesa individuals seemed remarkably healthy. While there were persistent
and low-level forms of infectious disease, expressions were mild in form. There was
the most morbidity and mortality in the newborn to 1 year group, which is a vulner-
able age in any agricultural group. Black Mesa people responded to climate change
by increasing their social networks, redistributing resources by trading across mi-
croenvironments, and eventually leaving the mesa in an orderly fashion at the height
of the drought in A.D. 1180. While there are few individuals who show trauma that
may have been from interpersonal violence, the low prevalence suggests that at no
time was there an increase in violence or raiding across the Black Mesa villages.
4.3.2 Chaco of the San Juan Basin
The Chaco branch of the Ancestral Pueblo are located in the San Juan Basin, in
the northern half of New Mexico and the southern corner of Colorado (Fassett
Fig. 4.2 Seasonal fluctuations in Chaco Canyon. Left Fajada Butte covered with snow. Right
Fajada Butte before a summer storm (Harrod 2013, p. 7). Original photos courtesy of Wikimedia
Commons
2000, p. Q2). Within the San Juan Basin there is a large, complex cultural tradition
that Irwin-Williams (1972) called the Chaco Phenomenon. The heart of this cul-
tural complex is centered around the cluster of Great House pueblos in the nearly
10-mile-long arroyo in central New Mexico known as Chaco Canyon. The Chaco
Phenomenon develops in the late Pueblo I and early Pueblo II periods (A.D. 850–
1150). While the exact influence of Chaco is debated, Lekson (1999, p. 51) argues
that satellite sites at least 100 km away are a part of the system. Even more debated
is the notion that there were elites or higher status individuals at the site who main-
tained and propagated the ideology that was Chaco (Harrod 2012, 2013).
Debate continues over the exact nature of what the Chaco Phenomenon was and
how much influence in the region it held, but regardless of its exact nature, it is
impressive that such a complex system developed in such an arid part of the world.
The primary water source from Chaco Canyon comes from a seasonally variable
stream called the Chaco Wash, which is highly dependent on annual snow fall and
seasonal storms (see Fig. 4.2).
As a result of these seasonal fluctuations, the inhabitants had to develop an in-
tricate system of water management to be able to sustain agricultural productivity.
By building divergence dams, canals, and reservoirs, the people living in Chaco
Canyon were able to develop a complex agrarian society based on a subsistence
that not only consisted primarily of maize but also included the cultivation of beans
and squash (Frazier 1999, p. 101; Mays 2012, p. 388). However, this system did
not always work, especially during periods of drought, which were fairly frequent
in this region.
According to precipitation models based on dendrochronology research by Benson
et al. (2007), there were several series of wet and dry periods in Chaco Canyon. The
wet periods were times of development, such as in A.D. 1050 and around A.D. 1100.
In contrast, the dry periods were characterized by the abandonment of Great Houses
in the canyon and the development of new ones outside of the canyon (Fig. 4.3).
The argument is that drought is causing people to migrate away from Chaco Can-
yon (Benson et al. 2007). In addition, since any evidence of a continued presence
in the canyon after the series of climatic events seems to suggest that the culture
Fig. 4.3 Reconstructions of climate change events during and after the Chaco Phenomenon using
dendrochronology (Harrod 2013, p. 53). Climograph adapted from Benson et al. 2007, p. 194.
Permission to reproduce the figure by Climate Change
differs significantly from the Chaco cultures that predated them, it is argued that
these people represent a shift in ideology or an actual replacement by a new cultural
group (Wills 2009, p. 290). The importance of both the migration and the develop-
ment of a new Chaco people is that it supports climate-caused change.
As the people migrated outside of the canyon, new Great Houses were built in
more fertile environments, such as Salmon Ruin along the San Juan River and Aztec
Ruins along the Animas River. Recent work, however, suggests that the migration
was not the end of the Chaco Phenomenon, because stable isotopic analysis of corn
from Chaco Canyon and the new communities of Salmon Ruin and Aztec Ruins
indicates that Chaco remained important. Analysis of cobs dating to post-A.D. 1180
seems to indicate that the corn was being brought in from three locations, which
includes the Zuni region, the Mesa Verde–McElmo Dome area, and the Totah area
(Benson 2010, p. 628). The importance of this is that the maize importation is ex-
tended beyond the area of influence present at the height of Chaco Canyon, as corn
was sent from sites that are locations where the Chacoan people migrated as Chaco
Canyon began to decline.
The implications of the remaining populations of post-A.D. 1180 Chacoans not
growing their own corn in the recently vacated area are that either they were de-
pendent on corn being supplied by their home communities or the immigrants from
Chaco were sending the corn back to their relatives who stayed behind. While it
is possible that the new emigrants to Chaco (McElmo) were continuing to receive
corn from their relatives in the north, it is highly unlikely that groups would con-
tinue to support populations that migrated away unless they were somehow special
(i.e., migrating elites similar to what Lekson argues). Benson (2010) suggests that
the maize more likely came from the Totah area because it is the closest region and
there is evidence that Chaco Canyon remained important after it was abandoned due
to environmental decline (Benson 2010; Benson et al. 2009). Suggesting that in-
stead of migrating away to somewhere better and forgetting about the place they left
behind, the people may have just enlarged their regional influence and established a
system of cooperation to mitigate against changing climate conditions.
Cooperation does not mean that people necessarily always got along. Recent
bioarchaeological analysis of the remains from Chaco Canyon and surrounding
sites including Aztec Ruins indicates that there was a fairly noticeable amount of
nonlethal violence during the Chaco Phenomenon (Harrod 2013). In addition, it
is possible that this violence was utilized to establish and maintain a degree of
social control that may have been integral in sustaining the Chaco Phenomenon
(Harrod 2012). Thus, the interaction between violence, climate, and ideology had a
direct effect on the Chaco Phenomenon. This is best summarized by Yoffee (2007,
p. 171), who suggests that the combination of its ceremonial nature and the series of
droughts starting in the 1100s eventually led to its decline. “The severe drought not
only exacerbated the problems of producing food in the canyon and the flow of sup-
plies into Chaco but also doubtless presented a theological problem for a belief sys-
tem that guaranteed the harmony of the universe and the prosperity of congregants.”
4.3.3 Mesa Verde of Southern Colorado
The Mesa Verde branch of the Ancestral Pueblo is located in the north–central por-
tion of the Southwest. While the region has been occupied for centuries, it is not
until around the 1100s that the large pueblos were built. Some have suggested that
the sites at Mesa Verde were built as the Chaco people migrated away from the
canyon (Lekson and Cameron 1995). However, architectural analysis of sites being
developed at this time in Mesa Verde and Zuni reveal differences. For example, the
site of Sand Canyon Pueblo is an aggregated pueblo made up of distinct unit pueb-
los or households and corporate groups, which is very different from what is found
in Chaco Canyon (Duff and Schachner 2007).
Climate is often linked to a unique form of violence among the Mesa Verde peo-
ple in the form of cannibalism (e.g., Mancos and Cowboy Wash in southern Colo-
rado). The notion that there were cannibals in the Southwest has been proposed and
debated for over 100 years, since the discovery of the first site where human skeletal
remains appeared to have been processed for consumption (Hough 1902; Benedict
1959/1934) through modern times (Darling 1999; Billman et al. 2000; Turner and
Turner 1999; Martin 2000; Darling 1998; Margolis 2000). Hough’s discovery, while
the first, certainly was not the last, as the Southwest is perhaps the one cultural area
in the world with the most claims for cannibalized remains in prehistory (Hough
1902; Billman et al. 2000; Flinn et al. 1976; Kantner 1999; Nickens 1975; Reed
1949; Turner 1983, 1993; Turner and Turner 1999; White 1992; Hurlburt 2000;
Rautman and Fenton 2005; Baker 1990; Smith et al. 1966).
According to Billman et al. (2000) starting around A.D. 1150, cannibalism oc-
curred in more than 20 sites in the Mesa Verde region. Several notable sites are
Cowboy Wash (Billman et al. 2000) and Castle Rock and Sand Canyon pueblos
4.4 Other Cultures in the Southwest 45
(Kuckelman et al. 2002). Though raiding was a part of the region for a very long
time, and there is evidence of several isolated massacre sites (e.g., Sacred Ridge),
these sites represent a shift toward a new approach to violence. Some researchers
suggest that the scenario of what this new level of violence represents was the pres-
ence of cannibalism.
Cowboy Wash, located in the southwestern Colorado, presents evidence of a
massacre during a drought that occurred between A.D. 1145 and 1193, which tree-
ring analysis indicates “was the second worst prolonged shortfall of corn yields in
the period from A.D. 652–1968” (Billman et al. 2000). What is unique about this
site is that the people who were massacred may not have been locals, which could
be the reason they were killed. According to Billman et al. (2000), they possessed a
Chuskan pottery style characteristic of Chaco Canyon, suggesting they were outsid-
ers living within the Mesa Verde region. It may be that when times got rough they
were seen as competition, which eventually led to their fate (exocannibalism).
Despite the claims of Turner and Turner (1999), the presence of cannibalism in
the past is difficult to establish, even though it likely existed, especially given the
discovery of the coprolite at Cowboy Wash (Billman et al. 2000; Marlar et al. 2000;
Reinhard 2006). The problem, however, is that even if cannibalism were something
that was occurring in the Southwest, it does not appear that it was the motivation
(i.e., not starvation or dietary cannibalism). Proving that there was cannibalism be-
yond a shadow of a doubt may not be possible, but perhaps that is not a concern that
archaeologists should be preoccupied with. It seems that research would be more
informative if it were focused less on the presence or absence of cannibalism and
more oriented toward trying to understand why and how these populations were
able to conduct such brutality against one another.
According to Lekson and Cameron, who were analyzing the migration at the
end of the 1200s, “Recent analyses cast doubt on older ‛drought’ theories, and the
irrigation potential of the Totah district, less directly affected by simple drought,
had barely been tapped when the area was abandoned about 1300” (1995, p. 194).
Although the droughts are not debated, a number of researchers believe that drought
was just a contributing factor and that the regions were deserted for economic and
sociopolitical reasons without needing to be an actual environment collapse (Judge
1989; Lekson 1999; Lekson and Cameron 1995; Toll 2008; Berger 2009).
4.4 Other Cultures in the Southwest
4.4.1 Mogollon
The Mogollon inhabited the far southeastern portion of the US Southwest and in-
cluded other well known subgroups like the Mimbres. While similar to the Ances-
tral Pueblo in a number of ways, Haury (1936) initially based his description of
the Mogollon on differences in ceramic traditions (e.g., red-on-brown and slipped
and polished red), pithouses (deep, rectangular structures with ramp entrances and
different floor assemblages), pueblos (crudely constructed masonry), and burial

practices (lack of cranial deformation). Another characteristic of the Mogollon is
that there appears to be a settlement pattern where smaller communities are spread
around a larger community that possesses a large ceremonial structure. The impor-
tance of these differences is that they provide a signature from which to differentiate
Mogollon people from Ancestral Pueblo.
Although numerous droughts affected the Mogollon over the centuries, the focus
is not on one drought but on how recurring droughts shaped the Mogollon inhabit-
ing the Southwest. The goal is to look at how people reacted to the droughts and
what role violence did or did not play.
Both sites were large aggregate pueblos constructed after the droughts in the late
1200s that led to the abandonment of Mesa Verde and most of the northern South-
west. They are unique because both have evidence that there were Ancestral Pueblo
people also living at these Mogollon sites. According to East (2008), both sites had
Ancestral Pueblo immigrants establishing residence during the late 1200s, which
coincides with the series of devastating droughts that were occurring throughout
the Southwest.
The difference between these sites is that migrants to the site were eventually
no longer welcome. The Ancestral Pueblo room blocks were all burned, and any
evidence of their future presence at the site is nonexistent (East 2008, p. 18). This is
a very different pattern than what is seen at Grasshopper Pueblo, where it appears
that the Ancestral Pueblo people may have been incorporated into the group and
perhaps no longer viewed as outsiders. The integration of the Ancestral Pueblo by
the Mogollon is based on the fact that material remains in some of the room blocks
suggest intermarriage (East 2008, p. 30). Also, unlike Pont of Pines, Grasshopper
Pueblo does not seem to collapse, but there appears to be a more gradual migration
away from the site (East 2008; Riggs 1999, 2001).
Why were Grasshopper Pueblo successful? It may be that they had different
types of migrants in the region. Recent analysis of the human remains indicates that
violence was also present at Grasshopper Pueblo with slightly over 30 % of both
males and females possessing traumatic injuries that are likely the result of violent
encounters (Baustian et al. 2012). The problem is, among both the males and fe-
males that were injured, there does not seem to be any patterning along ethnicity of
the violence, and the traumatic injuries were primarily nonlethal in nature (Baustian
et al. 2012). In a recent publication, the authors have suggested that perhaps there
was a system of exploitation and that violence was used as a means of social control
(Harrod and Martin in press). The lack of ethnic distinction is possibly the result of
the individuals eventually being integrated into the culture or voluntarily adopting
Mogollon cultural norms. Research on Chinese immigrants in the USA at the turn of
the twentieth century has shown that there is a tendency for immigrants to want to
fit in, and to do so they adopt the cultural material, dress, and other identifiers of the
dominant culture (Chung et al. 2005). In addition, ethnographic studies of captives
and indentured servants have shown that individuals did eventually get incorporated
into the dominant group in some cultures (Halbmayer 2004). Thus, the migrants
into the region were marginalized and not viewed as a threat. This is in contrast to
Point of Pines, where there appears to be a much larger migrant population of Kay-
enta branch Ancestral Pueblo (Stone 2000).
4.4.2 Sinagua
At around A.D. 1050 there was a large volcanic eruption or sequence of eruptions
involving Sunset Crater. The argument based on the traditional climate model is that
this disaster should result in large-scale migration or violent conflict as a way of
adapting to the increased socioeconomic stress. The problem is that when the Sina-
gua culture is closely evaluated, it appears as if people responded to this catastrophe
by adapting their culture and utilizing new regions of the landscape.
A model for how disasters lead to violence is proposed by Nel and Righarts
(2008, p. 163; Fig. 4.1). The model proposes that natural disasters lead to civil con-
flict because sudden environmental impacts result in a change in resource availabil-
ity, which causes increased competition for the available resources. According to
Nel and Righarts (2008, p. 162), volcanoes and earthquakes are the natural disasters
that pose the greatest risk for increased violence.
Among the Sinagua people of northern Arizona, it seems as if the people may
have actually prospered following the eruption of Sunset Crater. According to re-
cent research, individuals did migrate away from the area but only a little ways
away, and the culture became more socially complex once it reestablished itself
(Elson et al. 2007; May 2008). In a follow-up article to the work by Elson et al.
(2007), it is suggested that the reason for not migrating out of the region is that the
soil actually became more fertile in some areas (Ort et al. 2008).
Ort et al. (2008) found that the thickness of the deposit of tephra soil actually
can have a positive impact on the environment by retaining moisture and adding
nutrients to the existing soil. This finding has been experimentally supported by a
forthcoming article that evaluated volcanic eruptions in Oregon and the effect that
they have on the environment (Deligne et al. in press). What both research projects
have demonstrated is that the type of soil in a region prior to an eruption determines
whether an environment will rebound. Thus, to understand the impact of a volcanic
eruption, one must look beyond the disaster and evaluate the way that the volcanic
eruption may have positively impacted the environment.
In addition to the role that the environmental conditions play in determining
how the landscape is modified, the social structure and complexity of the group
itself determine how well they may or may not adapt (Gaillard 2007; Sheets 2004,
2012). Sheets (2004) argues that to understand the impact of a volcanic eruption on
people living in a particular region requires the consideration of multiple factors
other than just the magnitude or level of the eruption. In a recent chapter evaluating
groups in Mexico and Central America, he argues that there are numerous factors
or vulnerabilities that affect how a group will react, including their demographic
profile, social complexity, political structure, understanding of the landscape, and
past experiences with other environmental changes (Sheets 2012). Gaillard (2007),
however, suggests that it is not the vulnerability of the culture that predicts how it
will deal with catastrophic events but its ability to resist change or remain a func-
tioning society (UNISDR 2007).
When Sunset Crater erupted sometime after A.D.1050, it appears that people
simply moved down the slope of the volcano to the lower elevation regions, and by
A.D. 1100 there were new sites established (May 2008, p. 79). These new develop-
ments were a result of the freshly deposited ash in the soil, which actually increased
its fertility (Ort et al. 2008). The result was the establishment of large sites with
elaborate architecture, such as Wupatki. Stodder (2005) has explored the health of
the Sinagua. Looking at several Sinagua sites (Chaves Pass, Elden Pueblo, Lizard
Man village, Sundown Pueblo, Ridge Ruin, Winona, and Tuzigoot) in comparison
with burials from throughout the US Southwest, she found that the Sinagua people
were comparable to the Ancestral Pueblo in both stature and general health. The
importance of this is that it clearly shows that the volcanic eruption was not severe
enough to prevent the people in this region from reaching the complexity of their
neighbors.
Among the Sinagua, the catastrophe of the eruption of Sunset Crater was some-
thing they were resilient enough to adapt to without the need for violence or mass
migration out of the region. In fact, once they settled the lower areas, the people
cooperated to a greater extent, sociopolitical relations become much more complex,
and we see the establishment of large Pueblo communities like Wupatki. So in this
case, climatic change did not cause violence.
4.4.3 Navajo
From an anthropological perspective, when the topic of drought and its effect on
people in the US Southwest is discussed, it almost always centers around the soci-
eties that are assumed to have ‘disappeared’ or ‘collapsed’ (i.e., Ancestral Pueblo,
Hohokam, or Mimbres cultural traditions). Yet, periodic droughts were a problem
for other populations living in the region, such as the Navajo.
The general consensus among Southwest archaeologists is that Athabaskan
groups did not arrive until approximately, A.D. 1500 (Wilcox and Haas 1994;
Cordell 1997; Lipe and Varien 1999). However, recent research by Seymour (2009,
p 268) suggests that the Athabaskan groups may have arrived as early as A.D. 1300
based on “small sites in foothill settings near springs or along major rivers,” such as
the Dragoon Mountain site. Seymour goes on to say that there may be earlier sites
in the Southwest that because of sampling and testing bias (Seymour 2010) may not
be visible in the archaeological record. The fact that the early sites would be hard
to identify is supported by archaeological research among the Northern Athabaskan
(Gordon 2008).
Despite the exact date that the Navajo arrived, occupation of the region intensi-
fied between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and new structures were built,
called pueblitos. However, during the mid-1700s there may have been a series of
droughts in the region that led to it being abandoned (Marshall 1995). However, re-
cent work by Towner (2010) analyzing tree-ring data from small sites in the region
indicates that the Navajo did not completely abandon the region; instead, there was
a large migration event followed by sporadic reoccupation. In addition, dendrochro-
nology in combination with ethnohistoric accounts suggest that it was not drought
that caused people to migrate out of the region but the increasing presence of Ute
and Comanche groups who were raiding to supply captives to the Spanish (Towner
2008, p. 523). Suggesting that migration and the subsequent social interaction be-
tween groups is just as valid a consideration as climate change.
We would argue that there are always alternative explanations for why groups
behave in a particular way that go beyond climate change. For example, looking
back at the massacre or cannibalism sites among the Mesa Verde culture, one alter-
native to climate causing people to kill one another for resources is the arrival of a
new group of people, such as the Apache and Navajo. The notion of these incoming
groups raiding the Pueblos is not hard to fathom, as even during ethnographic times
there were accounts of Apache, and to a lesser extent, Navajo raids (Linton 1944;
Nielson 2010; Vehik 2002).
The question, however, is why, when these groups came into contact with one
another, they did not form peaceful relations and avoid confrontation. One insight
into why violence was preferred is to look at how the Northern Athabaskan groups
interact with their neighbors. Since the Chipewyan are the group that the Apache
and Navajo are thought to have descended from (Gordon 2008), it makes sense to
explore how they interacted with the groups around them. According to Roberts
(Roberts 2008), the relations between the Chipewyan and Inuit are equated to mod-
ern racism because of the attitude of the Chipewyan toward the Inuit. Between these
groups, peaceful interactions were extremely rare, raids were common, and massa-
cre events took place. Evidence of these massacres is provided by ethnographic ac-
counts (Hearne and McGoogan 2007), oral traditions (Great Canadian Parks 2007),
and archaeological sites (Melbye and Fairgrieve 1994).
In 1771, Samuel Hearne witnessed what he later called the “Bloody Falls Mas-
sacre,” where the Chipewyan came upon a small settlement and murdered five tents
of Esquimaux (i.e., Copper Inuit), which he estimates as 20 men, women, and chil-
dren. In describing the relationship between the Chipewyan and Copper Inuit, he
says that when the two groups encountered one another, “the strongest party always
killed the weakest, without sparing either man, woman, or child” (Hearne and Mc-
Googan 2007, p. 234).
According to Mason (2000, p. 240), oral histories are “memories or recollec-
tions of individuals who experienced or witnessed in their own lives the events
they relate.” In contrast, oral traditions “extend back beyond living memory and are
believed by their narrators to be more or less faithful renderings of the older hap-
penings to which they refer.” He says that these oral traditions are not only a source
of record according to Native Americans but also the most truthful depiction of his-
tory and that archaeology is only seen as valuable when it is assisting in reaffirming
these traditions. The following oral tradition from western Canada also provides
evidence that the migrating Athabaskans may have initially been hostile toward the
Ancestral Pueblo groups. The oral tradition is about the Naha who are thought to be
the ancestral group of the Navajo (Great Canadian Parks 2007). According to the
Dené, the Naha claimed the Mackenzie Mountains as their territory, and they were
fierce warriors, unhesitating in their attack upon anyone who camped within their
boundaries and sometimes beyond. The Great Canadian Parks website (2007) states
that the belief on what happened to the Naha is somewhat debated, as some versions
of the tradition claim that they were eventually found and killed and others claim
that they migrated south and became the Navajo. Support for the latter is provided
by the fact that the language of the Slavey Dené in Mackenzie Mountains today is so
similar to Navajo that when slave men visited the Southwest, they could converse
with minimal difficulty.
Realizing that ethnographic records can be biased and oral traditions may change
as they adopt new information, it is important to rely on archaeological records
that support there being a tradition of hostility between the two groups. The best
evidence for this is provided by the discovery of disarticulated human remains at
the Saunaktuk site (NgTn-1), where calibrated radiocarbon samples date to A.D.
1370 ± 57 (Melbye and Fairgrieve 1994). The importance of this site is that it rep-
resents a massacre site where remains thought to belong to Inuit are discovered
in relation to the Kutchin culture, which is another Northern Athabaskan group in
northeast Alaska.
The importance of there being a sense of “us” and “them” among the Northern
Athabaskan that led to warfare and occasional massacres is that at the time when
Gordon (2008) estimates the Southern Athabaskans arriving in the Southwest (i.e.,
A.D. 1100), there was an increase in general violence and massacre, sometimes
referred to as cannibalism. According to Billman et al. (2000), starting around A.D.
1150, there were over 20 sites where people were massacred in the Mesa Verde re-
gion. Several notable sites are Cowboy Wash (Billman et al. 2000), Castle Rock and
Sand Canyon pueblos (Kuckelman et al. 2002). Although raiding was a part of the
region for a very long time, and there is evidence of several isolated massacre sites
(e.g., Sacred Ridge), these sites represent a shift toward a new approach to violence.
While it is valid to argue that the Pueblo people could be doing this to one another,
and it is likely they were, the role of these extremely mobile hunter-gatherers can-
not be discounted altogether. According to Dongoske et al. (2000, p. 181), “The
Hopi word for the Navajo is Tasavu, which some Hopi translate as the ‛people who
butcher others,’” from tahu, tendon gristle, cartilage, muscle; and saavuta, chop
with an ax or hammer (Hill et al. 1998, p. 488, 568).
There are similar problems with the migration models. Using climate to predict
behavior is accented by recent research on the Kayenta Ancestral Pueblo, utilizing
computer modeling of environmental conditions in northeast Arizona at sites in the
Long House Valley (Axtell et al. 2002; Kohler et al. 2005). The focus of this re-
search is to model the villages and households as individuals, with each household
viewed as possessing a life and reproductive cycle that must be maintained by suf-
ficient subsistence resources. For example, the research by Axtell et al. (2002) sets
the parameters of the model to include things like fission rates of 15 years (when
children reach fertility), maize consumption per year (160 kg), and maize storage
length (2 years). The findings of the model suggest that environmental changes
alone cannot explain the migration away from Long House Valley at around A.D.
1300. The authors suggest that some other push or pull factors must have been influ-
4.5 Summary 51
ential. What they suggest is that it might have been either “synergistic interactions
between nutritional stress and pre-colonial epidemic disease” or “the depressed
population may simply have been insufficient to maintain cultural institutions” (Ax-
tell et al. 2002, p. 7278).
One alternative explanation for why there was such an increase in violence in
the Four Corners region, which eventually led to migration away from the area at
around A.D. 1300, is the breakdown in the social organization and ideology of the
people. This is supported by the site layout and material culture, which indicate that
the relationships between these groups differed significantly. In contrast, the Chaco
cultures are often noted for how similar they are.
Lekson and Cameron (1995, p. 192) argue that there is some evidence to suggest
that the kachina developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it is possible
that it was introduced to the region earlier than the migration out of the Four Cor-
ners region. “Eventually, however, the old order at Chaco did fail—or was drastical-
ly transformed and new orders, such as the kachina belief system (Adams 1991) and
the symbols and beliefs underlying the Salado interactions sphere (Crown 1994),
replaced it” (Yoffee 2007, p. 171). It is possible that changing ideologies at Mesa
Verde were already causing stress in the region, and the series of large droughts that
occurred was just the tipping point, causing a number of village-level massacres and
eventually leading to the abandonment of the region.
4.5 Summary
This brief overview of studies conducted in the US Southwest that take climate
change back by 1,000 years or more shows a persistent pattern that does not include
increased violence. A pattern emerges that documents a range of human responses
to climate change that include migration, cultural reorganization, increased net-
working, redistribution of resources, and in some cases an increase in raiding and
low-level warfare. Nelson et al. (2012) conducted an exhaustive analysis of the im-
pact of environmental change in the Southwest from an archaeological perspective
and suggested that it is important to consider the amount of “rigidity” or the degree
to which a culture becomes entrenched by a particular ideology, sociopolitical or-
ganization, or subsistence regime (Hegmon et al. 2008). This rigidity acts to limit
how and to what degree a group of people can adapt to changing environmental
conditions (Nelson et al. 2012; Hegmon et al. 2008).
The inhabitants at Black Mesa were extremely flexible, as their social patterns
were not entrenched in ideologies of building large permanent settlements or in
maintaining strict hierarchies and boundaries in access to resources. Instead, they
remained fairly egalitarian, flexible, and innovative in how they adapted to changes
in the climate that affected their ability to obtain food and water resources.
Why anthropological data such as these are so important today is that there is a
holistic approach that pulls multiple strands of human adaptability together for long
temporal periods. Change can be assessed over time in how humans are behaving
and reacting, which is difficult to do in contemporary settings. These longitudinal

studies ably demonstrate that there should be no jumping to the conclusion that
humans will automatically turn to violence when confronted with an increasingly
unpredictable and challenging environmental set of constraints on well-being. It
is more scientifically sound to rely on empirical data that shows trends over time
and compares different cultures within larger interactive regions than to do a short-
sighted study that has no such depth or breadth.
It is also ethically irresponsible to use popular media accounts of scientific studies
in a way that makes unicausal and unsupported associations to seem to be proof of
causation. See, for example, a USA Today report, “Climate Conflict: Warmer World
Could Be More Violent” (http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2012/10/22/
climate-change-global-warming-violence-war/1649985/).The title of this article is
completely misleading, purporting to show that a recent study showed that data
from several African countries correlated increased rain with decreased violence
and increased temperature and dryness with increased violence. However, even the
authors of the study did not come to that simplistic conclusion. The lead author,
John O’Loughlin, was quoted in the news article as saying, “Sweeping generaliza-
tions have undermined a genuine understanding of any climate–conflict link.” Yet,
the title of the article is what people will remember, not the cautionary note at the
end. In the same way, archaeological data emphasize the other dimensions of human
responses to climate change, and although violence may sometimes be a response,
there are many other pathways to adaptation and survival.
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Chapter 5
Beyond the Southwest: Is There a Relationship
Between Climate and Violence?
5.1 Climate Change and Violence Worldwide
A number of archaeological and anthropological studies have suggested that cul-

tures react violently to a lack of food by using intergroup conflict, warfare, and, in
extreme cases, cannibalism or genocide to obtain resources. In the following sec-
tion, we will explore just a sampling of the case studies that argue for a relationship
between climate and violence and then attempt to demonstrate how the violence
could be the result of something more than just climate.
5.2 Bioarchaeological Case Studies
5.2.1 Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are a group of seven islands off the coast of Africa that were
created as a consequence of tectonic activity that caused magma upwelling (Walk-
er and Bellingham 2011). They are environmentally diverse due to differences
among the islands in geomorphology as well as their relative isolation (Walker and
Bellingham 2011).
Owens (2007) examined the rate of trauma among populations inhabiting the Ca-
nary Islands before the arrival of the Spanish. The methodology of his study begins
with a brief geographical discussion of the islands, then moves on to a discussion
of their history of occupation. The populations under evaluation are referred to as
Prehispanic Canary Islanders, who are most closely related to the Berbers of Africa.
Next, Owens discusses the importance of conducting trauma studies on past popula-
tions and differentiating between accidental lesions and those caused by violence.
What is relevant to the study of the impact of climate on violence is that Owens
analyzed trauma according to geographic region because the Canary Islands are
ecologically diverse. The goal was to analyze the possible causes and social impli-
cations of the craniofacial trauma and compare it with archaeological evidence of

60 5 Beyond the Southwest: Is There a Relationship Between Climate and Violence?
the region and geographical location. Each of the remains was identified according
to sex, age, and island of interment. The cranial trauma was identified by bone,
side, extent of lesions, and antemortem tooth loss. Owens studied 1,096 specimens,
and his results showed that 106 individuals (16 %) had at least 1 lesion, and only 4
lesions (3.8 %) were perimortem or fatal. The trauma distribution, lack of facial in-
juries, and the fact that there were noticeably more males than females with cranial
trauma seem to suggest that this is not the result of hand-to-hand combat or domes-
tic abuse. The evidence suggests that there was a significant degree of interpersonal
violence on the Canary Islands before the arrival of the Spanish.
This example is important because there are notable periods of drought recorded
on the Canary Islands (Walker and Bellingham 2011, p. 107). Given the diversity
of the environment on the islands, climate-caused violence should be expected. Yet,
the violence does not seem to differ by environment but instead seems to be fairly
consistent with the expectation of more violence where there is greater social com-
plexity (i.e., the largest island).
5.2.2 Atacama and Patagonia
Atacama and Patagonia are arid geographic regions in southern Chile and Argentina
where bioarchaeological evidence of violence has been identified in conjunction
with periods of environmental change. Unfortunately, violence in this region is not
well understood because so few studies have been conducted (Prieto and Cárdenas
2007). However, by surveying the available trauma and ethnohistoric data on cul-
tures living in the region, Prieto and Cárdenas (2007) illustrate that violence is a
complex social process that involves numerous factors and cannot be explained by
climate alone. Two bioarchaeological studies are highlighted here that support the
findings by Prieto and Cárdenas (2007) that violence is these arid regions of South
America is complex.
Torres-Rouff and Junqueira (2006) utilized an agropastoral population liv-
ing in northern Chile to see if the resource stress model was a valid approach to
understanding increased violence. Evaluating trauma found on 682 crania from
six sites in the San Pedro de Atacama oases that date to the Early Intermediate
(200 B.C.–A.D. 600), the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600–950), the Later Intermediate
(A.D. 950–1400), and the Late Horizon (A.D. 1400–1532) indicated that there was
increased violence around times of resource stress. However, violence may have re-
sulted from social upheaval rather than climate change. For example, in the Middle
Horizon the development of an elite class may have led to violence, while in the
Late Intermediate the decline of prosperity due to the collapse of the Tiwanaku and
Wari led to an increase in violence as people competed for resources. Finally, there
seems to have been less violence after the Inka Empire arrived, suggesting that it
suppressed violence. This period is often referred to as Pax Incaica. Looking at a
neighboring group, the Wanka or Xauxa—a chiefdom-level society in the Andes
during the Late Intermediate Period, evidence suggests that in general the diet im-
5.2 Bioarchaeological Case Studies 61
proved and life expectancy rose dramatically (Earle 1997; Johnson and Earle 2000;
Owen and Norconk 1987). These improvements came about because Inka control
of the region permitted Wanka populations to move down from their agriculturally
marginal hilltops locations and safely occupy the fertile bottomlands previously
controlled by their more powerful neighbors (Earle 1997; Johnson and Earle 2000).
Like the Wanka, the agropastoral population living in northern Chile went
through several dramatic periods of settlement, affiliation with a large regional
power, a time of internal conflict, and a period of domination by a state-level soci-
ety. What it suggests is that recognizing changing sociopolitical relations is crucial
for understanding why violence occurred.
Gordón (2013) analyzes shifts in violence among hunter-gatherer populations
in the northeastern portion of Patagonia during the middle and late Holocene. The
research investigates whether or not there was a change associated with Medieval
Climatic Anomaly (MCA). While the anomaly was a well-documented severe cli-
mate change event in the region, bioarchaeological data suggest that it did not lead
to increased violence. Gordón (2013) suggests that cultural practices, such as the
establishment of uninhabited areas of land between the groups also called buffer
zones or no man’s land (Ferguson and Whitehead 1992; Eerkens 1999), as well as
regional trade and interaction systems allowed the culture to mitigate against envi-
ronmental change.
The researchers of both projects under analysis in this region use bioarchaeo-
logical data on trauma related to violence to support the resource stress argument,
which states that when times are tough, such as environmental change or population
increase, violence increases. In both studies, they clearly show that climate was not
the defining factor for whether or not a group engaged in violent behavior.
5.2.3 Southern California
Southern California had one of the largest populations in North America prior to
contact (Ames and Maschner 1999). As a consequence, there are a number of cul-
turally and archaeologically distinct groups located within this region that differ in
terms of demographic size, social structure, and subsistence. Arguably, the most
complex of the groups in this region are the Chumash.
Lambert and Walker (1991), Walker and Johnson (1992), Lambert (1993),
Erlandson et al. (2001), and Johnson (2007) have documented the environment
along with health and diet for the Chumash Indian groups living on the shores of the
Santa Barbara Channel as well as on some of the offshore islands. Environmental
reconstruction was also undertaken, and there is a continuous record of temperature
and climate going back as far back as the archaic period and continuing to historic
times. The archaeological data, ethnohistoric accounts, and mission documents in
conjunction with data from burials spanning hundreds of years have all been used
to understand adaptation to coastal and inland environments during periods of rapid
climate change.
During the archaic period (approximately 6000 B.C.), people were nomadic and
relied largely on shellfish and wild plants. Over time, population sizes increased
and fishing became more efficient with new technologies. Although living on is-
lands and coastal regions may seem to be a good environment for a steady diet, the
environment was actually quite unpredictable with periods of resource depletion.
Villages exploited a variety of different econiches, with some groups relying more
on acorns, some on sea mammals, and some on small fish.
Environmental reconstruction (tree rings and deep sea cores) demonstrated
that there were periodic droughts that were devastating to local populations. Be-
tween A.D. 500 and 1000 there were waves of drought conditions and a highly
unpredictable climate. The human remains associated with these waves of droughts
suggest food shortages and inadequate nutrition (Lambert 1993) . Archaeological
data suggest that elaborate trade networks were created to redistribute resources
between the island and mainland villages where slight differences in temperature
and rainfall produced uneven resources. However, Lambert (1993) documented
that these attempts to redistribute resources were not always successful, and she
showed especially that during the worst of the droughts, people suffered more in-
fectious diseases (common transmissible diseases such as staph, strep, and endemic
syphilis). Health declined, stature declined, dental health declined, and nutritional
problems increased (Erlandson et al. 2001; Johnson 2007; Lambert 1993; Lambert
and Walker 1991; Walker 1989). Using a multimethodology approach involving
analysis of a number of skeletal lesions and detailed reconstruction of the environ-
ment, Walker and his colleagues were able to show some important trends in terms
of health problems associated with droughts and food shortages.
Warfare also increased during the period of environmental unpredictability, but
with some interesting and counterintuitive findings. For example, Walker (1989)
found that nonlethal head wounds were more common among the island villages
where droughts took more of a toll. These kinds of wounds were interpreted to be
how disputes were settled with ritualized clubs and axes, and it was likely that these
were carried out by individuals with some prestige or power as a way to minimize
the damage that would be done with all-out warfare. This kind of ritualized fighting
appeared to be largely nonlethal (all of the head wounds were largely healed at the
time of death) and ended about the time that the droughts did.
However, violent conflict was evident as well with many individuals dying
from projectile injuries. Lambert (2002) documented that violence and the use of
projectiles peaked during the years when the droughts were most problematic (ca.
A.D. 500–1100), though it seems that the violence was sporadic and not necessar-
ily lethal. For example, some of the projectile points embedded in bone had partial
healing around them.
When examining patterns of violence, Walker (1997, 1989), Lambert (1997,
2002), and Johnson (2007) demonstrated that violence was sporadic and served a
purpose in the society in that it was part of a system of highly ritualized fighting
that likely acted as a mechanism for reducing more extreme conflict during times of
environmental and social stress (Lambert 2002).
5.3 Historic Case Studies 63
This example of ritualized fighting among high-status males and females and low-
level and sporadic warfare is quite nuanced and used only sporadically. Ethnohistoric
data suggests that marriage partners were obtained from distant groups, so full-scale
warfare would not make sense if you had relatives in many of the other villages. This
shows how violence is used during periods of environmental instability and that it can
vary dramatically from group to group, as seen in the California Coast data.
5.3 Historic Case Studies
5.3.1 Germany
Behringer argues that the trials and eventual killings of people suspected of witch-
craft in Germany was linked to the climate shift during the Little Ice Age (2010,
p. 132). Also, the killing seems to spike during times of environmental stress when
the agricultural production would have been the most heavily impacted (Behringer
1997, 2010).
A recent analysis of the witch killing in Germany by Durrant (2007) suggests
that climate was only one factor and that sociopolitical conditions at the time also
influenced the violence: “The effects of an unusually adverse climate may have ex-
aggerated the anxieties experienced by both the population and the authorities dur-
ing this period and I think that Behringer is correct to claim, on the basis of Chris-
tian Pfister’s work, that such natural occurrences may have influenced the course of
the witch persecutions in Germany. As I will argue below, however, it is not possible
to establish a direct link between the agrarian and related crises of this period and
the Eichstätt persecutions.” The importance of the work by Durrant (2007) is that it
demonstrates that simple correlations between climate and conflict do not exist but
that climate is part of a larger system of environmental and cultural stress.
Reviewing Behringer’s most recent book, Hulme (2009) states that this tendency
to link climate with the violence of the period is a prime example of what he refers
to as “epistemological slippage,” which is the tendency to project our modern ideals
in order to understand how past people viewed the world. He suggests that it is not
valid for researchers to assume that people living in the past would have been con-
cerned with long-term changes in the climate, especially since most of the historic
records indicate they were more interested in the immediate weather conditions.
5.3.2 China
One of the largest, in terms of geography, and most temporally expansive models of
the relationship between temperature and violence was conducted by Zhang et al.
(2007), which looked at shifts in Chinese warfare, with comparisons to Europe, from
A.D. 1000 through the 1900s. Unlike most previous studies, this study had access
Fig. 5.1 Model of how climate change can lead to violence (Zhang et al. 2007, p. 19214). Permis-
sion to reproduce the figure by PNAS
to numerous written records concerning variations in temperature and the various

conflicts between dynasties. Zhang and colleagues concluded that temperature shifts
(e.g., cold, arid periods) were correlated with a higher rate of violent conflict because
of a complex feedback system that involved climate shifts, population changes, food
production, supply and demand of the food, and warfare (Fig. 5.1). When the temper-
ature changed and agricultural production decreased, the price of food (e.g., cereal)
shot up, which disrupted resource distribution and led to violent conflict.
There are limitations to this study, however, as Tol and Wagner (2010) conducted
a study utilizing the same general methodological approach as Zhang et al. (2007)
and covering the same time period but with the focus on Europe. Tol and Wagner’s
results were identical to the Chinese study in terms of a link between temperature
and conflict, but there was one striking difference. There was a lack of conflict
during one period of cooling that contradicts the predictive nature of the model.
The reason for the deviation was the technological innovation associated with the
Industrial Revolution that allowed people to produce more resources in a period
when land productivity was reduced (Tol and Wagner 2010).
5.4 Climate Change Without Violence
Analysis of the aforementioned research clearly shows that long-term shifts in pre-
cipitation, and to a greater extent temperature, seem to set the stage for increases
in conflict. This relationship, however, is not necessarily a perfect match. While
5.5 Summary 65
this chapter highlights the cases where violence does occur, there have been many
instances where shifts in climate should have caused increases in violence but failed
to do so. Instead of reverting to violent confrontation to gain resources, there may
be alternative options, and violence may not be the most adaptive choice. In terms
of alternative options to dealing with resource scarcity, Wossink (2009) found that
among Mesopotamian populations, cooperation solved the problem because when
climate caused increase in stress, the cultures simply intensified the preexisting
exchange networks and shared more resources. This is similar to what happened in
Europe during the Industrial Revolution, where it appears that technological devel-
opment reduced the impact of a changing climate and prevented the development
of violent conflicts (Tol and Wagner 2010). From a purely economic perspective,
Deudney (1990) and Salehyan (2008) both argue that the very act of going to war
or engaging in any conflict puts more strain on the available resources, negating the
evolutionary motivation for engaging in violent actions against neighboring groups.
“Barring the defeat, subjugation, or extermination of the other party, armed conflict
by itself does nothing to resolve the underlying incompatibility over the distribution
of resources” (Salehyan 2008, p. 317).
In trying to understand the logic behind the mass killings associated with Aztec
human sacrifice, Harner (1977) suggests that ecological stress or climate change
may have been the cause. There is an argument that instability in climate threatens
the cosmology and ideology of a culture (e.g., construction halts or culture changes
because the old system offended the gods). For example, this type of line of reason-
ing has been utilized in the Southwest with the abandonment of the Great House
tradition of Chaco (Whitehouse ideology) in favor of the Kachina beliefs as a con-
sequence of something like the Great Drought. However, taking a cross-cultural
perspective, Winkelman (1998) suggests that human sacrifice was not driven by
changes in the ecology alone but also by cultural factors, more specifically popula-
tion pressure.
5.5 Summary
What do these findings suggest about the direction of future world policies? Should
the wealthy industrial countries fortify their borders, redirect their attention to im-
proving technological innovations that can increase yield of agricultural crops on
nonproductive land, and decrease supply to ensure that they can meet future de-
mands? Perhaps that is the action that should be taken, but what if, like the Mesopo-
tamians of 2000 B.C. (Wossink 2009), people can be taught how to cooperate (e.g.,
share resources, prevent further environmental degradation, and limit consumption)
and avoid the need for conflict? These questions are explored in greater depth in
the final chapter.
References
Ames, Kenneth M., and Herbert D. G. Maschner. 1999. Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their
archaeology and prehistory. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd.
Behringer, Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft persecutions in Bavaria: Popular magic, religious zealotry
and reason of state in early modern Europe, translated by J. C. Grayson and D. Lederer.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Behringer, Wolfgang. 2010. A cultural history of climate. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Durrant, Jonathan Bryan. 2007. Witchcraft, gender and society in early Modern Germany. Leiden:
Brill.
Earle, Timothy. 1997. How chiefs come to power: The political economy in prehistory. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Eerkens, J. W. 1999. Common pool resources, buffer zones and the jointly owned territories:
Hunter-gatherer land and resource tenure in Fort Irwin, southeastern California. Human
Ecology 27 (2): 297–318.
Erlandson, Jon M., Torben C. Rick, Douglas J. Kennett, and Phillip L. Walker. 2001. Dates, de-
mography, and disease: Cultural contacts and possible evidence for Old World epidemics
among the protohistoric Island Chumash. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 37
(3): 11–26.
Ferguson, R. Brian, and Neil L. Whitehead. 1992. War in the tribal zone. Santa Fe: School of
American Research Press Advanced Seminar Series.
Gordón, Florencia. 2013. Bioarchaeological patterns of violence in North Patagonia (Argentina)
during the late Holocene. Implications for the study of population dynamics. International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology. doi:10.1002/oa.2325 (article first published online: 1 July 2013).
Harner, Michael. 1977. The ecological basis for Aztec sacrifice. American Ethnologist 4 (1):
117–135.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Book review: A cultural history of climate. Reviews in history no. 925. http://
www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/925. Accessed: 11 May 2013.
Johnson, John. 2007. Ethnographic descriptions of Chumash warfare. In North American indig-
enous warfare and ritual violence, eds. Richard J. Chacon and Ruben G. Mendoza, 74–113.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Johnson, Allen W., and Timothy Earle. 2000. The Evolution of Human Societies: From foraging
group to agrarian state, second edition. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lambert, Patricia M. 1993. Health in Prehistoric Populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands.
American Antiquity 58 (3): 509–521.
Lambert, Patricia M. 1997. Patterns of Violence in Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Societies of
Coastal Southern California. In Troubled times: Violence and warfare in the past, ed. Debra L.
Martin, 77–109. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
Lambert, Patricia M. 2002. The archaeology of war: A North American perspective. Journal of
Archaeological Research 10 (3): 207–241.
Lambert, Patricia M., and Phillip L. Walker. 1991. Physical anthropological evidence for the evo-
lution of social complexity in coastal Southern California. American Antiquity 65:963–973.
Owen, Bruce D., and Marilyn A. Norconk. 1987. Archaeological field research in the upper Man-
taro, Peru, 1982–1983. Los Angeles: Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology, No. 28,
University of California, Los Angeles.
Owens, L.S. 2007. Craniofacial trauma in the Prehispanic Canary Islands. International Journal
of Osteoarchaeology 17:465–478.
Prieto, Alfredo, and Rodrigo Cárdenas. 2007. The struggle for social life in Fuego-Patagonia. In
Latin American indigenous warfare and ritual violence, eds. Richard J. Chacon and Ruben G.
Mendoza, 212–233. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
References 67
Salehyan, Idean. 2008. From Climate Change to Conflict? No Consensus Yet. Journal of Peace
Research 45 (3): 315–326.
Tol, Richard S.J., and Sebastian Wagner. 2010. Climate Change and Violent Conflict in Europe
over the Last Millennium. Climate Change 99:65–79.
Torres-Rouff, Christina, and Maríe Antonietta Costa Junqueira. 2006. Interpersonal Violence in
Prehistoric San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: Behavioral implications of environmental stress.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 130:60–70.
Walker, Phillip L. 1989. Cranial Injuries as Evidence of Violence in Prehistoric Southern Califor-
nia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 80 (3): 313–323.
Walker, Phillip L. 1997. Wife Beating, Boxing, and Broken Noses: Skeletal evidence for the cul-
tural patterning of violence. In Troubled times: Violence and warfare in the past, eds. Debra L.
Martin and David W. Frayer, 145–180. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
Walker, Lawrence R., and Peter Bellingham. 2011. Island environments in a changing world.
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Walker, Phillip L., and John R. Johnson. 1992. The effects of European contact on the Chumash
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Winkelman, Michael. 1998. Human Sacrifice: Cross-cultural assessments of the ecological hy-
pothesis. Ethnology 37 (3): 285–298.
Wossink, Arne. 2009. Challenging climate change: Competition and co-operation among pasto-
ralists and agriculturalists in Northern Mesopotamia (C. 3000–1600 BC). Leiden: Sidestone
Press.
Chapter 6
Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model
of Climate Change and Violence
6.1 A Revised Model of Climate Change and Violence
The goal of this book has not been to disregard the effects of climate changes and
the increase or decrease of violence but to identify the severe limitations associated
with only looking at these two variables. By reviewing a number of case studies
and deconstructing the study of climate change and its relationship to conflict, we
suggest that the model for understanding the consequence of major climate change
events on groups should be redesigned. What we propose is a much messier interac-
tion that we refer to as the Biocultural Model for Multicausal Pathways to Increased
Violence (see Fig. 6.1).
The value of this model is that it accentuates the importance of considering mul-
tiple factors which corresponds with what Robbins Shrug (2011) found for the cor-
relation between health disparity and climate change. A cross-cultural analysis of
violent encounters at or around periods of climatic instability reveals that migration
plays a significant role in the presence or absence of violence and that it is often out-
siders who are targeted during times of stress. The model that this research follows
is the one presented by Kantner (1996), who argues for the importance of under-
standing the role that political competition would have played in the social collapse
of the Chaco culture. “This model does not deny the importance of the physical
environment in stimulating and influencing change, but emphasizes the causal role
of human propensities rather than external conditions” (p. 93).
There have been cases where shifts in climate should have caused increases in
violence but failed to do so. Instead of reverting to violent confrontation to gain
resources, there may be alternative options, and violence may not be the most adap-
tive choice. Thus, to understand what leads to violence, it is imperative to develop a
more accurate model of the relationship between climate and conflict.
Analysis of the research on climate change and conflict clearly shows that the re-
lationship between these two variables is not necessarily a perfect match. We argue
that it is imperative to acknowledge that correlation does not equal causation. If it
is argued that there is a basic human drive to violence when changes in the climate
affect resources, it suggest that this relationship is inevitable. The problem with this
type of argument is that very little about what it means to be human is predictable,
70 6 Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model of Climate Change and Violence
Fig. 6.1 A more complicated model for the interaction between climate and conflict
so arguing for inevitability in how we will react downplays the alternative choices
we have as a species to deal with an unstable and changing climate.
6.2 Lessons from the Past for Policy Makers

of the Future
Even if we accept that environmental shifts do cause changes in behavior, there

is no reason that the behavior has to be violent. In terms of alternative options
to dealing with resource scarcity, Wossink (2009) found that among Mesopota-
mian populations cooperation solved the problem, and in Europe during the In-
dustrial Revolution it appears that technological development reduced the impact
of a changing climate and prevented the development of violent conflicts (Tol and
Wagner 2010). This may be what is taking place at Chaco Canyon when after an
earlier drought-building increased and the McElmo phase developed (Wills 2009).
This makes sense, as from a purely economic perspective Deudney (1990) argues
that the very act of going to war or engaging in any conflict puts more strain on
the available resources, negating the evolutionary motivation for engaging in vio-
lent actions against neighboring groups. This might explain why there is not much
evidence of conflict among people in the Mogollon and Western Ancestral Pueblo
during these periods of climatic change. Among the Chacoan people it may be that
the worldview of hierarchy, rigidity, and control was less apt to cooperate and more
prone to conflict.
What do these findings suggest about the direction of future world policies?
Should the wealthy industrial countries fortify their borders, redirect their attention
References 71
to improving technological innovations that can increase yield of agricultural crops

on nonproductive land, and decrease supply to ensure they can meet future de-
mands? Perhaps that is the action that should be taken, but what if, like the Mesopo-
tamians of 2000 B.C. (Wossink 2009), people can be taught to cooperate (e.g., share
resources, prevent further environmental degradation, and limit consumption)? Can
the need for conflict be avoided?
Even in modern times we fall victim to problems similar to those seen among the
agrarian societies mentioned earlier. Oil is probably the best example of an overde-
pendence on a single resource in the modern world. According to an older study by
Yeomans (2004) about 40 % of America’s energy and 97 % of the transportation is
supplied by oil. This dependence on a single resource could have disastrous conse-
quences when we realize that following this 10,000-year-old tradition of expansion
and intensification will not solve the fact that there is a finite amount of oil in the
world. Agrarian states constantly need to expand in search of more and more land
to sustain their ever-growing populations, and when they run out of room to grow,
they will declare war on one another for access to others resources.
The greatest fault of agriculture would have to be the fact that it removes people
from their natural environment, and once people are no longer part of the ecosystem
and instead creators of artificial environments, they are unable to recognize when
resources are being exhausted. Hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, are intimately
tied to the environment because they incorporate a subsistence strategy that relies
on an understanding of the ecosystem to obtain the needed resources.
There is often an implication that climate research goes unnoticed by the mem-
bers of society with power, but the reality is that a number of policies have changed
as a result of the findings of climate studies. There is no denying that this is often a
good trend. However, it is imperative that research be tested and validated numer-
ous times before any sort of government action is taken, to avoid causing more harm
than good.
References
Kantner, John. 1996. Political Competition among the Chaco Anasazi of the American Southwest.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 15 (1): 41–105.
Robbins Schug, Gwen. 2011. Bioarchaeology and climate change: A view from south Asain pre-
history. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Tol, Richard S.J., and Sebastian Wagner. 2010. Climate change and violent conflict in Europe over
the last millennium. Climate Change 99:65–79.
An example from Chaco Canyon. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16:283–319.
Wossink, Arne. 2009. Challenging climate change: competition and co-operation among pasto-
ralists and agriculturalists in northern Mesopotamia (C. 3000–1600 BC). Leiden: Sidestone
Press.
Yeomans, Matthew. 2004. Oil: Anatomy of industry. New York: The New Press.
Index
A Chaco Phenomenon, 42, 43

Abandonment, 42, 51 China, 24, 30, 63
Abiotic, 17, 19 Chumash, 61
Adaptation, 23–25, 35, 36, 38 Climate, 13, 18, 19
Agriculture, 3, 26, 27, 71 Climate change, 2–4, 13–15, 17–19, 23, 24,
Ancestral Pueblo, 37–42, 44, 45 28, 29, 33, 35–37, 41, 49, 69
Anthropogenic, 4, 14 and ethics, 7
Anthropological, 59 and violence, 5, 6
Anthropological perspective, 24 Climate-conflict model, 6, 7
Approach, 34, 38 Climate events, 14
Archaeological, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 48, 49, Climatic events, 36, 38, 43
59–62 Conflict, 35, 36, 47, 69, 70
Architecture, 15, 17 Cooperation, 44, 65
Astronomical alignment, 15 Corn, 38, 40, 43
Astronomical change, 14 Cowboy Wash, 44, 45, 50
Atacama, 60 Crop, 3, 7, 19
Atmospheric carbon, 5 Cross-cultural, 1
Axial procession, 15 Cultural, 37, 40, 42, 43, 46, 51
Aztec, 65 Culture, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29
B D
Behavioral, 35, 36, 40, 41 Dendrochronology, 17, 35, 42, 49
Bioarchaeological, 1, 2, 7, 24, 33, 34, 36, 38, Desert, 33, 35
44 Distress, 29
Bioarchaeological, 60, 61 Drought, 2, 8, 18, 33–36, 38, 40–42, 44–46,
Biocultural, 1, 34, 38, 69 48, 51, 60, 62, 65
Biotic, 19
Black Mesa, 37–39, 41 E
Eccentricity, 15
C Ecological, 38, 40
Canary Islands, 59 Ecological context, 19
Cannibalism, 44, 45, 49, 50 Ecology, 18
Capacities, 25, 26 Environment, 18, 34, 35, 37, 41, 43, 45, 47,
Cardinal alignment, 15 60–62
Carrying capacity, 6, 19 Environmental context, 1
Chaco, 37, 41, 43, 44, 51 Ethical considerations, 8
Chaco Canyon, 15, 42, 44, 45 Ethics, 7

SpringerBriefs in Anthropology and Ethics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9239-9,
74 Index
Ethnographic, 33, 35, 36, 46, 49, 50 Mobile, 26, 28

Ethnohistoric, 33, 49 Mogollon, 33, 38, 45, 46
Europe, 63–65 Multicausal pathways, 69
Evolutionary theory, 5
N
F Natural disasters, 47
Famine, 26, 30 Navajo, 48, 50, 51
Flexibility, 38, 40 Noise, 18
Flooding, 4 Nonlethal violence, 44
Foraging, 26, 28
O
G Obliquity, 15
Geomorphology, 18, 19
Germany, 63 P
Global warming, 3, 4, 7, 14, 23 Paleoclimate, 14
Grasshopper Pueblo, 38, 46 Pastoralism, 26
Patagonia, 61
H Point of Pines, 38, 47
Health, 41, 48, 61, 62 Policies, 7, 8, 65, 70, 71
Historical ecology, 23, 24, 26 Precipitation, 13, 17–19, 35, 38, 42
Hopi, 2, 3, 33, 37, 50 Proxies, 17, 18
Human-environment interaction, 23, 24 Proxy data, 16
Hunter-gatherer, 28, 71 Pueblitos, 48
I R
Ideology, 42–44, 51 Raid, 49
Industrial revolution, 4, 64 Resilience, 38
Interactions, 38, 40, 49 Resources, 5, 7, 25–29, 35–37, 39, 41, 47,
Ireland, 30 69–71
Resource scarcity, 65
K Rigidity, 70
Kachina, 51, 65
Kayenta, 37, 47 S
Scarcity, 6, 7
L Scientific evidence, 8
Landscape, 15, 17, 19 Sedentary, 28, 29
Limitations, 13, 18 Settlement Pattern, 29
Signal, 18
M Sinagua, 47, 48
Marginal, 34, 35, 37, 39–41 Skeletal indicators, 41
Massacre, 45, 49, 50 Skeletal markers, 34
Material remains, 24, 29 Soil, 18, 19, 47
Mesa Verde, 44, 45, 49–51 Southern California, 61
Mesopotamia, 65 Subsistence, 26, 28–30, 37, 38, 39, 42, 50
Migrate, 24, 27–30, 35, 36, 42, 44, 47, 49 Sunset Crater, 47, 48
Migration, 24, 28–30, 36, 43, 45, 46, 48–50
Milankovitch cycles, 15 T
Mimbres, 19, 45 Temperature, 13, 14, 17–19
Mitigate, 44 Trauma, 34, 41, 59–61
Mitigation, 28
Index 75
U W
U.S. Southwest, 2–4, 6–8, 33, 36, 45, 48 Wanka, 61
Warfare, 1, 6, 36, 50, 59, 62–64
V Weather, 13, 14
Vegetation, 18, 19, 39 Wet and dry periods, 42
Violence, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 23–25, 27–30, 33–36, Witch, 63
41, 44–50, 69
Volcano, 48
Vulnerabilities, 25

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SpringerBriefs in Anthropology

Anthropology and Ethics

For further volumes:

ISSN 2195-0806 ISSN 2195-0814 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950492

© The Author(s) 2014

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Dr. Richard J. Chacon

Anticipating that there will be an increase in violence as a response to global war-

1 The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence:

2 The Science of Climate Change................................................................. 13

3 Culture and Resilience................................................................................ 23

4 Climate Change, Social Control and Violence

5 Beyond the Southwest: Is There a Relationship Between

6 Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model

Fig. 1.1 A biocultural approach to the interaction between humans

Table 4.1 Bioarchaeological reconstruction of biocultural identity.

1.1 The Value of a Bioarchaeological Approach

Bioarchaeology is a subdiscipline within biological anthropology that has become

R. P. Harrod, D. L. Martin, Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence, 1

health, activity, and violence map on to shifts in environment, changes in social

1.2 Climate Change and Humans

Climate change, especially in reference to the modern concept of global warming,

1.2.1 Climate Change Research

Climate change is a topic of interest to people beyond academia, especially in the

1.2.2 Anthropogenic Climate Change

1.3 Climate Change and Violence

Fig. 1.2 Climate-conflict model

looking at contemporary cultures and archaeological samples conducted around the

1.4 The Climate-Conflict Model

1.5 Ethics and Climate Change

Bioarchaeological approaches to climate change and its effects on groups provide a

1.6 Bioarchaeology: The Importance of Comparative and

The implications of these ethical considerations is that it is imperative that research

2.1 Assessing Climate Change: Difficulties

Climate change is not an easily understood concept, especially since it is often

R. P. Harrod, D. L. Martin, Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence, 13

2.2 Measuring Climate Change

2.2.2 Looking Beyond Climate to Understand the Environment

3.1 Culture and Adaptation to Climate Change

Assuming that climate change, global warming, and unpredictability in weather

3.2 The Human–Environment Interaction

climate change through a biocultural lens is especially effective because it reveals

3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate

3.3.1 Mitigating Against Climate Change

3.3.1.1 The Role of Subsistence

3.3.2 The Role of Migration

In general, migration is essentially the movement of groups of organisms across

agers, semisedentary, less mobile horticulturalists, and sedentary agriculturalists

Understanding this reciprocal relationship between humans and their environment

4.1 The Role of Climate Change in the US Southwest

R. P. Harrod, D. L. Martin, Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence, 33

Table 4.1 Bioarchaeological Biocultural identity

4.2.1 Sacred Water: A Drought-Prone Southwest

The reconstruction of environmental stress in the Southwest is based on the wealth

4.2.2 Conflict and Collapse: Violence and Migration in the

Long-term shifts in precipitation and temperature may be indirectly correlated with

4.3.1 Kayenta of Black Mesa

4.3.2 Chaco of the San Juan Basin

4.3.3 Mesa Verde of Southern Colorado

4.4 Other Cultures in the Southwest

different floor assemblages), pueblos (crudely constructed masonry), and burial

1 The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence:

4 Climate Change, Social Control and Violence

5 Beyond the Southwest: Is There a Relationship Between

6 Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model

Table 4.1 Bioarchaeological reconstruction of biocultural identity.

1.1 The Value of a Bioarchaeological Approach

1.2 Climate Change and Humans

1.2.1 Climate Change Research

1.2.2 Anthropogenic Climate Change

1.3 Climate Change and Violence

1.4 The Climate-Conflict Model

1.5 Ethics and Climate Change

1.6 Bioarchaeology: The Importance of Comparative and

2.1 Assessing Climate Change: Difficulties

2.2 Measuring Climate Change

2.2.2 Looking Beyond Climate to Understand the Environment

3.1 Culture and Adaptation to Climate Change

3.2 The Human–Environment Interaction

3.3 Adaptation to a Changing Climate

3.3.1 Mitigating Against Climate Change

3.3.1.1 The Role of Subsistence

3.3.2 The Role of Migration

4.1 The Role of Climate Change in the US Southwest

4.2.1 Sacred Water: A Drought-Prone Southwest

4.2.2 Conflict and Collapse: Violence and Migration in the

4.3.1 Kayenta of Black Mesa

4.3.2 Chaco of the San Juan Basin

4.3.3 Mesa Verde of Southern Colorado

4.4 Other Cultures in the Southwest

5.1 Climate Change and Violence Worldwide

5.2 Bioarchaeological Case Studies

5.2.2 Atacama and Patagonia

5.3 Historic Case Studies

5.4 Climate Change Without Violence

6.1 A Revised Model of Climate Change and Violence

6.2 Lessons from the Past for Policy Makers