Pueblo Agricultural Persistence and Innovation with Spanish Colonization

This article investigates how ancestral Tewa Pueblo people in the Rio Grande region of New Mexico adjusted their agricultural practices when confronted with Spanish colonization. Data collection involved surveying the areas around precontact- and contact-era pueblos to document agricultural features and changes in those features with colonization, and analyzing sediment samples to determine the types and density of plants grown in the fields. Findings include limited overall adoption of colonial introductions, with faster adoption of livestock compared to colonial crops; differential agricultural productivity among villages, not necessarily correlated with village size or environment; continued utility of archaeological agricultural fields today; and the utility of the mixed-methods, community-informed approach of this project. This work is discussed considering other New Mexico archaeobotanical and colonial-era research in conversation with regional environmental and economic literature, and as an example of an effort to utilize decolonizing methodologies in environmental and historical archaeological research.