Research findings on three early Native American cultures from the southwestern United States show how each responded to environmental challenges in different ways that dramatically altered their people’s futures. (David Williams/SAPIENS) Along the cottonwood-lined rivers of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona, the Mimbres people did something unique: By the year 1000, these farmers were producing stunning ceramics decorated with naturalistic images of fish, people, and rabbits, as well as magical creatures and elaborate geometric patterns. And then, rather abruptly, they stopped. After roughly a century of higher than normal rainfall, the area the Mimbres inhabited suffered a powerful drought, as indicated by the archaeological record. Big game—already scarce—became even less abundant, and it became harder to grow the beans, corn and squash that the Mimbres relied on. By about 1150 the Mimbres were no longer making their signature pottery.
The abrupt disappearance of the Mimbres people’s signature pottery, which featured elaborate naturalistic designs, is thought to be one indicator of how their culture shifted in response to environmental pressures. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) This abrupt change in pottery styles has long been considered a sign of a complete societal collapse and disappearance: Many scholars have interpreted it as evidence that when the climate shifted the society fell apart. But Michelle Hegmon, an archaeologist at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, disagrees with that narrative: “They didn’t disappear—they reorganized.” Hegmon and her colleagues have helped to uncover evidence that the Mimbres moved from their centralized villages into smaller hamlets. They let go of their formal plazas and rooms that had been dedicated to ritual purposes. Their material culture became more diverse, and they abandoned their famous ceramic style for imported pottery and locally made knockoffs. Many of them even left the region, migrating to other parts of the U.S. Southwest as well as south into what is now northern Mexico. The ones who stayed expanded their trading connections to supplement their sedentary farming culture. Perhaps most interesting, the Mimbres were able to accomplish all this reorganization without falling to pieces. Skeletal remains from the period show little evidence of disease, starvation, or violence.
