Pre-contact Agave domesticates - living legacy plants in Arizona's landscape.

ABSTRACT:

Background and scope

Agaves played a central role as multi-use plants providing food, fibre and beverage to pre-contact and historical Mesoamerican cultures. However, their importance to Indigenous Peoples in the Southwest USA and northern Mexico, where they occur because of adaptations such as CAM photosynthesis, is less well known. Archaeological research indicates the Hohokam and other pre-contact Southwestern agrarian people increased agricultural potential in this region by engineering riverine terraces and bajadas for agave dry farming. Agricultural features such as terraces and rock piles were especially characteristic of post-1000 CE with the increase of dense, aggregated populations. We present an overview of six pre-contact agave domesticates (PCADs) the Hohokam and other

SUBMITTER: Hodgson WC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10799993 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature