Traditional Harvesting Notes

• Water Harvesting Traditions in the Desert South-West by Joel Glanzberg


• before irrigation, the people of the desert SW USA and N. Mexico have many water harvesting techniques


• Check Dams - CO, UT, NM, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep National Park, upper Rio Grande, Chama drainage, Pajarito plateau


• Terraces


• Waffle gardens - small scale imprinting, Zuni?,


• Grid gardens - like waffle gardens, but large beds lined with rocks, [kind of like a net and pan]


• Gravel/rock mulch - Anasazi, upper Rio, Chama, Wapatki in N. AZ Sinagua (~1000AD) people, Hohokam, Mogollon people


• Cliffbase planting - water concentrated, Chaco canyon,


• Floodwater farming - planting below arroyos, known as akchin farming, still used today by O'odham and Hopi, brush weirs used to redirect water out of arroyo, will blow out in flood saving field, fields can be destroyed though,


• Floodplain farming - planting along watercourses, cold air drains to these low points, led to irrigation


• Irrigation - irrigation prior to Spanish, but how common?, Hohokam S. AZ build substantial irrigation canals diverting water from larger rivers, Anasazi used dry farming not so much irrigation,


• Anasazi burned land clear to plant, when it was used-up they moved on, eventually the original plot would recover (60-100 years later), increased erosion though, check dams and linear boarders (on contour rocks?) were used late to prevent the destruction, eventually abandoned, prolonged drought of 1276-1299 AD, refugees of these people built grid gardens to prevent erosion from starting, adopted 3 sisters but still were seminomadic, forced migrations in 1300s, taught the Anasazi to keep it small,


• Excerpt from "The Corn is the Same as the People: A History of Santa Clara Pueblo Agriculture"