Cultural Adaptation to 2000 Years of Climate Change in the Southwest

Excerpt from Conference Program:
"The Southwestern United States enjoys a detailed record of both climate change and human adaptation. Tree-ring sequences, pollen, geology, and archaeology combine to produce a history of the repeated growth, florescence, and collapse of communities across the region. The past 2000 years encompass the economic transition from hunting and gathering to corn agriculture, the innovation of pottery, the spread and reformation of major religions, and mass migrations that include the arrival of Europeans. Changes in social and economic organization, for both better and worse, are correlated with major changes in climate, and it is rare to find even a 200 year period during which conditions were stable. Change can be understood in terms of adjustments of population, resources, technology, and expectations, and the patterns of the past are relevant to our own ability to adapt to the inevitability of future climate change."