Karen Adams

Karen Adams is the director of archaeobotanical research at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. She is educated in the fields of archaeology and botany. Karen studies plant parts found in archaeological sites to learn how different plants were used for food, fuel, and other purposes in ancient times. Karen's work has taken her to many different parts of the world, including Arizona, Alaska, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, but she enjoys returning to southwestern Colorado every summer to study the ancient Pueblo people. Here, Karen tells us what she has learned about farming at Woods Canyon Pueblo.

"I think the steep canyon location of Woods Canyon Pueblo makes good sense. By building on the canyon edge, the Puebloans could have used the nearby mesa tops for their agricultural plots. In ancient times, we might have seen people tending large fields of corn, beans, and squash near the village where the deep soils would have provided especially good growing conditions. Squash also would have grown well in wide places in the canyon bottom where water was nearby and where these plants could have been tended closely.

"The evidence at Woods Canyon Pueblo tells us that the ancient Pueblo people used sophisticated farming techniques. People constructed checkdams across drainages so that water from the summer rains could be directed onto the fields where their crops were planted. The checkdams also would have slowed the flow of water over the land, so that nutrient-rich sediment would have accumulated behind them. These new patches of rich, moist soil could then have been used as small garden plots."