The ‘Columbian Exchange’ and landscapes of the Middle Rio Grande Valley,USA,AD 1300–1900

Abstract

When Spanish colonists entered New Mexico in 1598, they encountered landscapes shaped by centuries of intensive human use: the fields, water features, and towns of prehistoric New Mexico were all products of human activity, and both zooarchaeological and paleoethnobotanical data suggest significant human impacts on floral and faunal features outside of human settlement. And yet, these human-influenced prehistoric Southwestern landscapes were distinct from those that developed through the ‘Columbian exchange’ and contact between indigenous communities and the Spanish. The Spanish colonists brought with them a suite of new taxa – both floral and faunal – as well as new land management practices that transformed New Mexican environments, eventually leading to the iconic Southwestern landscapes of today. In this paper, I use zooarchaeological data to explore New Mexican landscapes from the late prehistoric period through the early 20th century, assessing the degree of influence of Spanish fauna across this period of time.