Environment and Subsistence in the Classic Period Tonto Basin, The Roosevelt Archaeology Studies, 1989 to 1998

This volume serves two purposes. It summarizes the subsistence data from the RPMS project and explores what we have learned from the subsistence-related data from the RMPS investigations, as well as the related Roosevelt Rural Sites Study and the Community Development Study.

The Roosevelt Platform Mound Study (RMPS) research design was particularly concerned with Classic period sociopolitical organization. Because platform mounds similar to those of the Hohokam were built across the basin during the Classic period, an overarching theme concerned the nature and extent of sociopolitical complexity. A number of implication for patterning in the diet and subsistence data were derived from general models concerning the behavior of aspiring elites in the basin. In particular, subsistence data were expected to inform on three aspects of sociopolitical complexity: the capacity for surplus production; the existence of a specialized economy; and the activities of elites at the platform mound sites.