EMAP (2002) Archaeology and Ecology on the Ladder Ranch

It's obvious to anyone who has spent time in southwest New Mexico, the west-flowing weather is stopped by the mountains. The Upper Gila and Mimbres River Valley get more rain than the Ladder Ranch and other parts of the eastern Mimbres area. The Mimbres River created a fertile and manageable floodplain, perfect for farming with prehistoric technologies. Using nothing more elaborate than stone tools and digging sticks, people in the Mimbres Valley grew fields of corn, beans, and squash, created small irrigation systems to bring water to their crops, and made beautiful pottery. But this way of life wasn't nearly as idyllic as it sounds (see Part I). And it couldn't last. When drought struck around AD 1130, many people moved out of their Classic Mimbres villages.

This book has two parts. The first explores what we know about what happened in the Mimbres Valley. The second focuses on our studies of prehistoric human impacts in the Ladder Ranch area: What evidence points to a more sustainable strategy?