11/4 lecture

the fremont frontier (maize)

• 0-1300 AD

• paper authors use a geographic, spatial approach to understand changes over space and time

centers of early food production

• maize = central Mexico, then spread up to Canada and down south America

  • socially important, and very rich and nutritious too

  • corn (maize) first domesticated around 4300 BC, but the first evidence for settled agricultural villages is 2000 BC.

• gourds used as early as 8000 BC as well

  • you can hollow it and use it to hold water, for example

• beans, squash, and. chenopodium, amaranth small grains) were also used

Fremont cultural area

• modern day Utah

• known for their rock art

• fremont villages used higher altitude areas

  • lots of good hunting area but not farming

    • decent farming spots are really far apart

  • snow affects farming too

• experimental corn crops

  • archaeologists tried to do this

  • instead, they should’ve used local natives

reading

• methods

  • “we rely on site records and cultural resource reports hosted by the cultural resource information systems in Nevada (NVCRIS) and Utah (Sego) with permission from the respective State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO).”