Trophic Interconnectedness in Southwestern Colorado: An Archaeological Food-Webs Study of Ancestral Puebloans

Previous studies within Southwestern Colorado have acknowledged the importance of high-ranked game in Ancestral Puebloans’ diets.  Additionally, the volatility of the populations of these animals in association with climatic events has been documented.  However, a full-scale trophic study of the interactions of both large and small game with the greater biomass of the Southwest has yet to be completed. This study aims to: a. Create a large terrestrial food-web; b. Understand human-environment interactions; and, c. Understand changes in food-webs through time related to environmental fluctuation. In this study I link both ethnographically documented uses of plants and animals among modern Puebloans with archaeological assemblages of plant and animal remains.  I then analyze the connectedness of the animals and plants in the Southwest with network theory, discussing the fragility of this network by removing key animals and plants in the network, analyzing how the food-web network changes with these omissions.  Through understanding the volatility (or robustness) of the overall network we may be able to better understand the fluctuations of the natural environment during both high and low frequency climate change.  Finally, by adding humans to this trophic environment we acknowledge humanity’s ever-present role in food-webs, helping create understanding of modern interactions in the terrestrial food-web of the desert southwest.