Fuelwood Collection and Women’s Work in Ancestral Puebloan Societies on the Colorado Plateau

AbstractAnthropologists have recently paid greater attention to gender and the division of labor in subsistence societies around the world. These studies have included Ancestral Puebloan societies in the United States Southwest, particularly on the Colorado Plateau. Based on ethnographic literature, women in this region have been responsible traditionally for a wide range of domestic activities, including child-rearing, farming, food preparation, cooking, pottery making, basket weaving, and collecting and transporting firewood and water. The present study presents a predictive model for prehistoric cooking energy systems on the Colorado Plateau. This model examines the causal links between environmental variables and fuelwood demand, acquisition, and use. These causal relationships have been delineated in contemporary cross-cultural research as well as studies of high-altitude cooking. Fuelwood collection, transport, and use form the core of women’s workload. This preliminary study serves to predict women’s annual workload based on the relationship between the number of fuelwood collecting trips and the elevation of Ancestral Puebloan settlements.Los antropólogos y arqueólogos han prestado recientemente mayor atención al género y la división del trabajo en las sociedades de subsistencia de todo el mundo. Estos estudios han incluido sociedades ancestrales Puebloan en el suroeste de Estados Unidos, particularmente en la meseta de Colorado. Según la literatura etnográfica, las mujeres de esta región han sido responsables de una amplia gama de actividades domésticas, incluida la crianza de los hijos, la agricultura, la preparación de alimentos, la cocina, la fabricación de cerámica, el tejido de cestas y la recolección y transporte de leña y agua. El presente estudio presenta un modelo explicativo para los sistemas prehistóricos de energía para cocinar en la meseta de Colorado. Este modelo examina los vínculos causales entre la demanda, adquisición y uso de leña basándose en investigaciones interculturales contemporáneas y las exigencias de la cocina a gran altitud.KEYWORDS: Ancestral PuebloColorado Plateauwomenworkloaddivision of laborfuelwoodaltitudecooking time AcknowledgementsI greatly appreciate the support of the following individuals: Melinda Kelly, Ralph J. Hartley, Matt G. Hill, Robert K. Hitchcock, Beth R. Ritter, and Richard L. Taylor. I benefited greatly from the instructive comments of two anonymous reviewers. Special thanks go to Dr. Tom Rocek, Kiva editor, for his diligence, insight, and patience.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 “In areas of low woody biomass, such as some areas of the Southwest, the availability of wood may have been a significant limiting factor on human behavior. For example, Whiting (Citation1939) suggests that, before the introduction of the mule and wagon, the Hopi had to make do with shrubby wood-producing plants, such as greasewood. With the introduction of better transportation, the Hopi can now exploit the more desirable but more distant juniper and piñon wood. Clearly, then, the analysis of patterns of wood use in prehistory has been neglected.” Nelson and LeBlanc Citation1986:213) .2 “The supply of timber and firewood close to the Hopi villages is so very scant as to be almost valueless economically; to secure wood for craft activities and for cooking, expeditions are made at frequent intervals to the Black Mesa forests a day or more distant to the north. An individual makes the expedition alone or else two friends take a wagon and supplies and gather timber together for their households. As the wood closer to the villages is being rapidly used up, expeditions have to go further to the north each year to secure adequate supplies. The principal timbers used are cottonwood, piñon, mountain oak and mountain mahogany … . Wood gathering is an informal activity for the most part, but occasionally formal expeditions are held.” (Beaglehole and Beaglehole Citation1937:88)