This research examined the fire history of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex P. Lawson & C. Lawson) forests in northwestern New Mexico. The study area included three sites in the Zuni Mountains of Cibola National Forest and one site along the boundary of El Malpais National Monument. I crossdated over 800 fire scars on 75 samples to reconstruct spatial and temporal characteristics of historic wildfire regimes. The Weibull Median Interval, Weibull Modal Interval, and Mean Fire Interval ranged from five to eight years across all sites and percent-scarred classes (all fires, 10% scarred, and 25% scarred) and indicated that low-severity wildfires occurred frequently in the study area during the period 1700 to 1880. Wildfires were historically driven by climatic variability. Superposed Epoch Analyses revealed that wetter conditions typically occurred one to three years prior to a fire event and were followed by drought during the fire year. No relationship was found between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and wildfire occurrence. These findings implied that shorter-term fluxes between wet and dry conditions, rather than longer-term climatic variability, were historically most conducive to fire occurrence. Fire frequency decreased suddenly in the late 19th century across the study area, and results indicated that fire has been absent at all sites since the 1920s. Anthropogenic disturbances including livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and fire suppression likely explain observed differences between historic and contemporary wildfire regimes in the Zuni Mountains.This research has important implications for forest management. In ponderosa pine forests of the southwestern United States, land managers often aim to restore historic ecological conditions. The reintroduction of a frequent, low-severity wildfire regime might restore some ecological patterns and processes, but given the strong legacy of human disturbances and the influences of human-induced climate change, a complete return to historic conditions may be neither possible nor desired.

Thesis (M.A.)--Southwest Texas State University, 1952. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [51]-52).

The spread of an agricultural lifestyle played a crucial role in the development of social complexity and in defining trajectories of human history. This dissertation presents the results of research into how agricultural strategies were modified during the spread of agriculture into Southwest China. By incorporating advances from the fields of plant biology and ecological niche modeling into archaeological research, this dissertation addresses how humans adapted their agricultural strategies or invented appropriate technologies to deal with the challenges presented by the myriad of ecological niches in southwest China. This dissertation uses ecological niche modeling to examine the options and constraints associated with practicing different types of agriculture in the specific ecological niches of southwest China. The predictions made by these models are then tested against archaeobotanical data from a series of sites from across the region. This approach allows one to understand how the spread of agriculture took place in its particular social and economic contexts. / Anthropology

Between 1500 and 1800, Spaniards and their Native allies captured hundreds of Apache Indians and members of neighboring groups from the Rio Grande River Basin and subjected them to a variety of fates. They bought and sold some captives as slaves, exiled others as prisoners of war to central Mexico and Cuba, and forcibly moved others to mines, towns, and haciendas as paid or unpaid laborers. Though warfare and captive exchange predated the arrival of Europeans to North America, the three centuries following contact witnessed the development of new practices of violence and captivity in the North American West fueled by Euroamericans’ interest in Native territory and labor, on the one hand, and the dispersal of new technologies like horses and guns to American Indian groups, on the other. While at times subject to an enslavement and property status resembling chattel slavery, Native peoples of the Greater Rio Grande often experienced captivities and forced migrations fueled more by the interests of empires and nation-states in their territory and sovereignty than by markets in human labor. / text

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This ethnographic study investigates the frequency of use of the Navajo Blessingway ceremony during pregnancy by Navajo women in the Fort Defiance Service Unit of Indian Health Service. Through interviews with postpartum women and community members it was found that approximately 14% of the Navajo women at this hospital had a Blessingway ceremony during their current pregnancy. The data indicate that contemporary usage of the Blessingway ceremony is much less frequent than with previous generations. Factors contributing to this decline include a: decrease in the use of Navajo language, decreased number of practicing medicine men, increased reliance on Christian religions practices, influence of Western education and health care practices and changing socioeconomic conditions. The most significant factor in encouraging pregnant women to use this beneficial ceremony was the influence of the extended family.

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