OCR Text |
Show ing ones either by mountain ranges or by intervening regions lacking water, there gradually arose distinct culture units in each of these drainage areas. Distinctions are frequently found in pottery, particularly in tempering materials, vessel shapes, and styles of decoration, and, to a lesser extent, in architecture and other elements of culture. During the height of the Pueblo Culture, from about 1050 to 1300 A. D., distinct culture areas are noted in the Kayenta region, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Little Colorado River Valley, Flagstaff, the Kanab area north of the Colorado, the Upper Virgin, and the Lower Virgin. While most of these areas present relatively pure Anasazi Culture, in several areas there was a decided overlapping of cultures. In the Lower Virgin area there is a blending of the Anasazi and Patayan, typified in such pueblos as Mesa House and Pueblo Grande de Nevada. In the San Francisco Mountain region around Flagstaff, there is a blending of Anasazi and Mogollon, together with numerous elements of the Hohokam and Patayan Cultures. During the latter part of the thirteenth century the entire northern Anasazi area was abandoned, the people from the eastern San Juan moving into the Rio Grande Valley and those from the western area pushing south and southeast into the Little Colorado drainage and the mountains of eastern Arizona. No definite cause for this abandonment is known. However, from tree- ring studies we know that the Southwest suffered a severe drought during the period from 1276 to 1299 A. D. As a result of this drought there would inevitably be numerous crop failures and also the supply of wild seeds and even wild game would be limited. Arroyo cutting and lowering of the water table may well have been contributing factors. This, together with the possible incoming of numbers of nomadic invaders, such as the ancestors of the present day Navajo, Apache, Ute, and Paiute, encroaching upon Pueblo lands and plundering their villages, undoubtedly led the Pueblo people into larger communities in areas where permanent water occurred. One of the significant trends, evident in examining the archeology of east- central Arizona, is the shifting frontiers of the Pueblos. This moved progressively farther south and west with time, culminating in the fourteenth century with the Salado Figure 47.- Wupatki Ruin in Wupatki National Monument, Ariz. 94 |