The determinants of settlement patterns among prehistoric agriculturalists of the Colorado Plateau: A case study from the Lower Zuni River valley, Arizona

The objective of this study is to understand to what extent the changing distribution of fixed resources, in this case agricultural fields, affected the prehistoric settlement distributions of the Lower Zuni River valley of east-central Arizona between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1540. The approach taken differs from previous settlement pattern studies in that the primary focus of analysis is past environmental conditions, not the prehistoric settlement distributions.;The study begins by providing a comprehensive appraisal of prehistoric and historic agriculture on the Colorado Plateau. A dear, concise picture of past environmental conditions in the study area is provided. Geographic Information Systems analysis is used to generate potential agricultural field locations for the area from the environmental information and the modeled attributes of desirable field locations. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction is the basis for developing precise arguments regarding which areas were likely used for prehistoric agriculture during the various occupation periods. The observed settlement distributions for each occupation are then examined with regard to type and size of the prehistoric fields available within a one kilometer catchment radius as well as areas outside this arbitrary boundary.;Study results indicate that settlement locations of prehistoric agriculturalists on the Colorado Plateau were determined to some extent by the location of two fixed resources, potable water sources and agricultural field locations. The environment-culture relationship is the baseline from which the determinants of settlement patterns are defined. Combinations of factors such as environment, socioeconomic organization, and adaptive strategies, can override the desire to be located near fixed resources and, in fact, can entice people to move from favorable farm lands to areas of larger population concentration and less desirable field locations.;Additional conclusions challenge the conventional wisdom that optimal agricultural fields are in proximity to archaeological sites and question why certain floodplain environments or arroyo mouths cannot be considered desirable field locations. While not intended other results include a clearer understanding of pre-A.D. 1000 settlement patterns in the Zuni area and the proposed occurrence of the earliest example of Puebloan aggregation in the Southwest.