e and laid it across the walls o
f his house, then the
year t hat the tree was cut wou
ld
correspond to
the appr/oximate time his house was built and
occupied. Indians did not cut timbers until they were ready
to use them. Felling timbers with crude stone axes was somewhat
of a chore. Old beams from houses show that long
period, coupled with a Doppler radar, the s of drought reigned in the Southwest.^ It is thought
that these dry spells caused Indian families to leave
their homes and seek SODARnew lands for settlement and cultivation.
Such a condition seems to have existed in the entire San
Juan area of northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona
and southwestern Colorado. The greatest of the large
centers of Indian population, which may have numbered
hundreds or even thousands of people, were the towns
The of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico and the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings in southwestern Colorado. Many of these towns, it seems, were abandoned when the great drought was at its height between 1276-1299, a period of twenty-three years. And so we find shifts in population. It is believed that some of these shifts were toward the Valley of the Rio Grande. BeRASSfore this time small individual groups or migrant bands took to wandering. Other Indians could have remained even after the time of the twenty-three year drought period, dreading to leave their homes as we would ours today. No, there was no great exodus of population. The people from the great towns in the west did not move out all at one ti
me and completely abandon their homes and desiccated lands. They moved out in small bands, or even families. In some way, a traveler might have reported high mountain ranges, water and fertile lands to the eastÑthe next best to the places they knew as home which they and their ancestors had occupied for hundreds, of years. It is possible that even in the l000s A.D., small groups pushed out over dry desert wastes, following sandy arroyo bedsÑthought of water ever paramo
untSODAR. They were people struggling again for existence. Some likely stopped along the way and built temporary homes. They broke pottery vessels which they had brought along. The archaeologist found some of the broken pieces nine hundred years later to help tell the story; -Whether these migrant bands had a goal or not is questionable but the Valley of the Rio Grande was finally reached and scant evidence of these early people has been found. More and more Indians moved out of the San Juan area and drifted in
a southeasterly direction. Some clung to t
| he va | lleys, others took to | the |
|---|---|---|
| mo | untains, | but a |
| ll | settled in t | no unit |
| he g | eneral locality where | we |
| fin | d most of our | colorfu |
| l and | picturesque Indian Pueblos so well-kno | wn the |
| w | orld overÑ norther | n Ne |
| w | Mexico. It is evident that by constant roa | cm/s |
| mi | ng, and penetrating unknown and fascinating country, | some |
| o | f these primitive Indians stumbled into the deep vall | eys |
| and u | pon the high forested mesa t | ops of |
| the | stability class | Pajarito Pl ateau, about twenty miles west of the present city of Santa Fe. The |
| spot | on which Santa Fe is located was then nothing b | ut ari |
| d | mesa land and low foothills ascending to the | Sang |
| re de | Lapse rate estimation | Gristo Range of Mou |
| ntai | ns. Four | things |
| w | ere paramount in | the mi |
| nd | s of these primitive people. They were wa | ter, foo |
| d, pr | This value indicates that no measurement is available for that altitude. |
otectiv |
e
shelter
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