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In a study at Washington State University, researchers sketched out one of the greatest baby booms in North American history, a centuries-long "growth blip" among Southwestern Native Americans between 500 and 1300 A.D. It was a time when the early features of civilization--including farming and food storage--had matured to a level where birth rates likely exceeded the highest in the world today.
But then a crash followed, which the researchers say offers a warning sign to the modern world about the dangers of overpopulation. The study looked at a century's worth of data on thousands of human remains found at hundreds of sites across the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Pottery became common across the Southwestern United States around A.D. 600; many vessels stored corn.Image credit: Bureau of Land Management/Anasazi Heritage Center Collections/Mark Montgomery
