Are Agave Utahensis Clonal Rings Living Artifacts?

A “mostly” solid clump of Agave Utahensis.

Imagine, for a moment, you're standing on a sun-baked hillside in Southern Nevada. The year is 1780, and the evening air is thick with woodsmoke. Hundreds of fires dot the landscape below, each one marking a camp where Southern Paiute people are processing their agave harvest. This scene, described by early European explorers, might seem unremarkable—just another example of indigenous people gathering wild plants. But what if I told you that this moment, this seemingly simple act of harvest, holds the key to understanding one of humanity's most persistent puzzles: the relationship between humans and their environment?

Here's what makes this story extraordinary: those same hillsides today still bear the living, breathing marks of that ancient harvest. Like rings in a tree trunk or layers in an archaeological dig, circular formations of Agave utahensis plants—known as clonal rings—stand as living artifacts, some over 160 years old. New research I published shows that many of these rings date back to the time of large scale indigenous harvest of wild Agave Utahensis. These aren't just plants; they're time capsules. And what these ancient rings can teach us about indigenous resource management wisdom is fascinating.

A broken open, U-shaped clonal ring of Agave Utahensis

Several species of wild agave species harvest in Mexico for mezcal production are on the brink of extinction, and many more have suffered deep losses of genetic diversity. It’s a familiar story: human exploitation leads to environmental degradation. It's the tragedy of the commons, the cautionary tale we've all heard.

But these clonal rings of Agave Utahensis in Southern Nevada seem to be an exception—their populations remain robust and genetically diverse—even after thousands of years of intensive human use. This isn't just an interesting botanical footnote; it's a clue to something much bigger. The three lessons we can learn from this ancient system are striking in their elegant simplicity, yet profound in their implications. Let me explain why each matters so much.

Centralized Oversight

What makes the Southern Paiute's system so fascinating isn't just what they did, but how they organized it. By placing a single specialist in charge of harvest oversight, not only could they ensure all the other protocols were followed, but they were also a living database of ecological knowledge, ensuring that collective wisdom wasn't lost in individual decision-making.

Harvesting Technique

The Southern Paiute's harvesting method—using a sharpened stick to carefully separate the heart while preserving roots and offsets—wasn't just the easiest way to pry the tastiest parts of the agave free. It also solved multiple problems simultaneously: it preserved the plant's reproductive capacity while potentially stimulating even more growth through apical meristem damage similar to a process we now call the "coring.”

Timing

But perhaps the most important aspect of their system was timing. Throughout it’s life, Agave Utahensis is storing energy in it’s rosette, in the form of fructans, complex starches indigestible to humans. When flowering begins, it enzymatically converts those inedible starches, to edible simple sugars, which it intends to use to power the growth of a 10 foot tall flower stalk covered in nectar rich flowers. And this is exactly when the Southern Paiute harvested Utahensis, once the flower stalk has actually grown to 10 feet, the sugars will have been all used up. By waiting until the flowering stalk reached hip height—but not after—they weren't just maximizing sugar content. This timing—at the end of it’s life, when it’s flowering and not before—also allowed for the plant to produce as many pups as possible.

A large, U-shaped ring of Agave Utahensis

We're currently facing a global crisis in resource management. The conventional wisdom says that human use inevitably leads to resource degradation. But the agave clonal rings tell us something different: with the right system, human use can actually enhance resource sustainability. It's not just about using less—it's about using differently.

And maybe that's the most important lesson these ancient plant rings have to teach us: sometimes, the solutions to our most pressing problems aren't about inventing something new. They're about rediscovering something we once knew, written in rings of desert plants, waiting for us to remember.

Another clonal ring of Agave Utahensis

If you'd like to learn more about this research and dig into the details, I'm honored to share that I've published a comprehensive 17-page paper with 52 citations in the Winter 2024 issue of the Cactus and Succulent Journal, published by the Cactus and Succulent Society of America (CSSA). This journal has played a pivotal role in documenting and advancing our understanding of both Agave utahensis and the broader world of cacti and succulents over many decades, making this publication particularly meaningful.

In my study, I surveyed 96 different Agave utahensis clonal rings across three distinct sites in Southern Nevada, all located near archaeological roasting pits. Using a dating methodology based on rosette size at flowering and age at flowering, I estimated the ages of these rings. When using mid-range estimations, I found that the largest clonal ring surveyed was at least 160 years old, dating it to the period of intensive Southern Paiute harvesting. Using upper-range estimations, this same ring could be as old as 240 years, and my research indicated that 13 of the surveyed rings potentially dated to the period of large scale Southern Paiute use.

You can read the full article either by subscribing to the journal or by downloading a free PDF version from here.

Below, I've embedded a detailed video walkthrough of my research on Agave utahensis clonal rings and indigenous resource management practices. In this presentation, I explain how these remarkable living artifacts provide evidence of sustainable harvesting techniques that were used for thousands of years. I discuss the methodology used to date these rings, share photographs from my field research, and explore the implications these findings have for modern conservation efforts.