Gary Nabhan and Shawn Kelley
Northern Arizona University
Changes in Crop Diversity and the Flower World among Uto-Aztecan Farmers, from Hopi through the O'odham
Some of the richest early documentation on agrobiodiversity and diet in the New World comes from Uto-Aztecan cultures, allowing longitudinal or "time-lapse" comparisons to assess changes in crop varieties and diet through time. This discussion will focus on a new assessment of agrobiodiversity among Hopi farmers, from prehistoric through historic to contemporary times, and compare their agrigenetic erosion and crop loss with that of the O'odham in Arizona, Sonora and Chihuahua. It will also discuss the largest seed repatriation in the Americas, which occurred in Hopiland in 2003, and efforts to restore crop diversity to Hopi fields and orchards.
