The ethnohistoric literature on Huron horticultural subsistence suggests that site abandonment took place after 10-15 years of continuous cultivation. These assumptions were examined in a series of simulations which demonstrate the instability under which the Huron system operated, and suggests a critical threshold of between six to seven years of cultivation. Further, these results are significant since they show the importance of fluctuations in critical parameters for an understanding of sociocultural evolution. -- AATA