1. STUDYING ARCHAEOLOGICAL
FOOD-WEBS IN ANCESTRAL
PUEBLOAN SOCIETY
Stefani Crabtree,
Washington State University
Monday, October 22, 2012

2. WHAT IS A FOOD-WEB?
A network of interactions between producers and consumers
The graphical representation of trophic interactions
directional, shows community structure, stability, and
nutrient flow
Basically, who eats whom.
Monday, October 22, 2012

3. PREVIOUS FOOD-WEB
STUDIES
Estes et al. 1998; a look at killer whale predation on sea otters.
First study linking oceanic and near shore systems.
Yodzis and Inness’s producer/consumer functional response
model.
Monday, October 22, 2012

4. Monday, October 22, 2012

5. HUMAN SPECIFIC
MODELS
Studies usually focus on negative consequences of human
involvement--i.e. exploitation.
Deer predation in U.S. Southwest--human overhunting destroyed
big game by Pueblo II times.
Exception: work by Jennifer Dunne’s lab
Collaboration with Herb Maschner looking at long-term
human interaction/management in Alaska
Monday, October 22, 2012

6. THIS STUDY:
Looks at human/environment interactions in a novel environment
The Mesa Verde Cuesta and Great Sage Plain
Attempts to understand human/environment interactions within
an agricultural society.
Decouples humans from direct causation; looks at humans as
actors (and reactors) in a complex system.
Tests vulnerability of humans in their environment.
Monday, October 22, 2012

7. Monday, October 22, 2012

8. WHY CASTLE ROCK?
Occupied 1250-1274 AD.
Well-excavated by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
Oral history linking surviving descendants to the site.
Well-recorded, high resolution of utilized plants and animals.
Monday, October 22, 2012

9. METHODS
Combed the grey literature to compile information on all animals and plants
living in our study area in Southwest Colorado.
Data easily located for plants and mammals. Difficult for invertebrates.
Invertebrates were aggregated according to types.
Human consumption patterns were taken from Castle Rock Pueblo
Archaeological site and data on ethnographic consumption from Crow
Canyon Archaeological Center.
Monday, October 22, 2012

10. THE FOOD-WEBS
Trophic Level
Human-Specific Food Web
Trophic Level
Overall Food Web
Monday, October 22, 2012

11. DISCUSSION
Humans directly predate few species on the landscape.
When we take into account what the species that humans prey on
eat, web gets more complicated.
Humans are connected to all species in the landscape through
secondary, tertiary and quaternary connections.
Monday, October 22, 2012

12. VULNERABILITY WEB
Vulnerability
Humans are not especially
vulnerable because of their
omnivory.
However, the species that
humans rely on most have few
species they eat.
Human vulnerability is
related to the vulnerability of
their prey.
Monday, October 22, 2012

13. DISCUSSION
Humans did affect the survival of their prey through hunting.
However, because high-ranked game rely on few species for
preferred browse, high-ranked prey would be affected by small
climatic changes.
If deer rely on a shrub for a majority of their diet, but it is affected
by long term growth cycles of invertebrates, deer abundance will
go down when invertebrates get more abundant.
Humans reacted not only to hunting-induced depletion but also
the resiliency of the system as a whole
Monday, October 22, 2012

14. CONCLUSIONS
These data are preliminary; it’s being refined daily.
Working to include percents of diets to look at “nodal knockout” of
key species
However, there are important implications for worldwide ecosystems.
Seemingly “invisible” forces may have dramatic effects on an ecosystem.
Resiliency of ancestral population is in the choices they had; what is our
resiliency now?
Monday, October 22, 2012

15. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was produced under the Village Ecodynamics
Project (VEP), funded by NSF DEB-0816400
Individual support provided by the NSF grfp program at
Washington State University.
Initial project produced at the Santa Fe Institute Complex
Systems Summer School.
Monday, October 22, 2012

16. THANKS...
Lydia Smith, MA student at UC Berkeley
Santa Fe Institute, especially Jennifer Dunne for invaluable advice on this
project;
Rick Williams and Neo Martinez for their help with the use of Networks
3D;
Mark Varien, Scott Ortman and Donna Glowacki for advice on how to
proceed with archaeological literature;
Thomas Lewinsohn and the faculty at the Sao Paulo Advanced Science
School on Ecological Networks for critiques of an earlier draft of this
project;
David Krakauer and Cormac McCarthy for evaluating and judging a
previous version of this work
Monday, October 22, 2012