Exploring Biocultural Hotspots of the Mogollon Highlands

Join geographer and ethnoecologist Laura Beebe in a presentation that recontextualizes the Mogollon Highlands not as a mere transitional zone between the Sonoran Desert and the Colorado Plateau, but as a distinctive bioregion with a complex integrated biocultural identity. At the heart of this identity are Cultural Keystone Places: dynamic, localized landscapes of high significance that are paramount to the historical identity of highland communities. The deep cosmological dimensions of these biocultural hotspots are demonstrated by pre-contact cultivated agaves, which persist today as clonal, living archaeological relics that trace the spiritual homelands and ancient lifeways of ancestral farmers. We will examine how these botanical lineages align with ecologically specialized reptile and amphibian species, which serve as sedentary geographic historians due to their high fidelity to localized microclimates. The talk concludes by demonstrating how identifying non-random biocultural hotspots through GIS mapping can validate the Mogollon Highlands as a place rich in Cultural Keystone Places.