Look at the kinds of construction and fire wood used at different times during the Classic Mimbres period.

Cottonwood and willow trees were abundant natural vegetation in the wide valleys adjacent to Mimbres villages. Villagers cut them down in order to plant large fields. Archaeologists think that as cottonwood and willow were depleted, villagers used more piņon, juniper and mesquite wood.

Archaeologists ask,

"What is the significance of the increased jackrabbit trapping?"

They think about ways that villages with large fields changed the environment. And, they consider that cottontails prefer brushy cover while jackrabbits prefer open fields. As the brushy cover was cleared for planting fields, the cottontail habitat would have been destroyed and the jackrabbit habitat expanded.