Home > Sinagua > Architecture > Pottery > Tools > Food > Agriculture > Trade > Hopi Oral History
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Home > Sinagua > Architecture > Pottery > Tools > Food > Agriculture > Trade > Hopi Oral History |
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Agriculture refers to the art, science and business of cultivating the soil, producing crops, farming, and raising livestock useful to humans. In the North American Southwest, agricultural practices and domestic crops had spread all over the region by roughly A.D. 900. Due to differences in the local environments, climatic conditions, and variation in population densities, the prehistoric people of the Southwest found a number of different ways to practice agriculture (subsistence strategies). They constructed numerous agricultural features to direct water to fields, control erosion, and store water. Archaeologists record, collect, and analyze plant and animal remains to reconstruct prehistoric diets and subsistence strategies. Additionally, the archaeologist systematically document, map, and excavate agricultural features to better understand how much work was involved to build and maintain the features, what they were used for, and what plants were grown there. The Sinagua farmed corn, beans, and squash using dry-farming agricultural techniques such as cross-channel terraces, gentle slope terracing, and waffle gardens. They also gathered wild foods, medicines, and other resources from plants and animals that lived in the area. |
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