The University of Arizona Press
Traditional Arid Lands Agriculture
Understanding the Past for the Future
Paperback ($40.00), Ebook ($40.00)
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Traditional Arid Lands Agriculture is the first of its kind. Each chapter considers four questions: what we don’t know about specific aspects of traditional agriculture, why we need to know more, how we can know more, and what research questions can be pursued to know more. What is known is presented to provide context for what is unknown.
Traditional agriculture, nonindustrial plant cultivation for human use, is practiced worldwide by millions of smallholder farmers in arid lands. Advancing an understanding of traditional agriculture can improve its practice and contribute to understanding the past. Traditional agriculture has been practiced in the U.S. Southwest and northwest Mexico for at least four thousand years and intensely studied for at least one hundred years. What is not known or well-understood about traditional arid lands agriculture in this region has broad application for research, policy, and agricultural practices in arid lands worldwide.
The authors represent the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, agronomy, art, botany, geomorphology, paleoclimatology, and pedology. This multidisciplinary book will engage students, practitioners, scholars, and any interested in understanding and advancing traditional agriculture.
Traditional agriculture, nonindustrial plant cultivation for human use, is practiced worldwide by millions of smallholder farmers in arid lands. Advancing an understanding of traditional agriculture can improve its practice and contribute to understanding the past. Traditional agriculture has been practiced in the U.S. Southwest and northwest Mexico for at least four thousand years and intensely studied for at least one hundred years. What is not known or well-understood about traditional arid lands agriculture in this region has broad application for research, policy, and agricultural practices in arid lands worldwide.
The authors represent the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, agronomy, art, botany, geomorphology, paleoclimatology, and pedology. This multidisciplinary book will engage students, practitioners, scholars, and any interested in understanding and advancing traditional agriculture.
“The lessons from arid lands agriculture in the past, highlighting what we know and don’t know, are strikingly relevant in the context of current challenges facing millions of smallholder farmers.”—Daniel Gustafson, Deputy Director-General, Operations, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
“This volume presents a thorough assessment of our current understanding but also sets a research agenda for years to come. No doubt countless research projects, theses, and dissertations will be inspired by this volume.”—Melissa Kruse Peeples, author of The Agricultural Landscape of Perry Mesa: Modeling Residential Site Location in Relation to Arable Land
“The unique format of the volume requires that the authors of each chapter use their expertise to become visionaries not just about their work as it stands today but where it is going (or needs to go) in the future.”—J. Andrew Darling, co-editor of Trails, Rock Features, and Homesteading in the Gila Bend Area: A Report on the State Route 85, Gila Bend to Buckeye
392 Pages
6 x 9
Published: October 2020Paperback ISBN: 9780816542444
Published: April 2015Ebook ISBN: 9780816502189