1. How Maize Farmers in the US Southwest Grew and Prospered Under El Niño but Suffered Under La Niña.
- Author
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Gillreath-Brown, Andrew and Kohler, Timothy A.
- Abstract
Variability in temperature and soil moisture influenced the spread and productive potential of maize. A new low-frequency reconstruction of US Southwest summer temperatures from 3000 BC to present shows generally warmer temperatures until the first century AD. From then until AD 1000, temperatures were generally cooler, though a warming trend continuing to present begins ca. AD 400, interrupted by cooling ca. AD 900 and 1400. Proposing a “ENSO Index” for the US Southwest, we argue that El Niño-like conditions dominated much of the second millennium BC and the first millennium AD, depressing summer temperatures relative to northern hemisphere norms but providing favorable winter moisture for maize. La Niña-like conditions (much less favorable to maize) dominated most of the period from 800 BC – AD 100 and AD 1200 to ca. 1900. We connect these low-frequency trends with tendencies in how and where people lived, emphasizing developments in the ancestral Pueblo area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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