Athapaskan People
We may next consider the problem of the Navajos and Apaches who figured so prominently in Southwestern history. They are relative newcomers in the area and it is only within recent years that they have stirred the interest of many archaeologists, although the Navajos have been literally haunted by ethnologists for a long time.
Both Navajos and Apaches speak dialects of the Athapaskan language which is spoken by many groups in northwestern Canada. At some time in the relatively recent past, groups of Athapaskan-speaking people left their northern homeland and drifted southward, some going along the coast and others wandering farther east. Some reached the Southwest and the descendants of these migrants are the Indians whom we know as Navajos and Apaches.
There are many theories as to the route which they followed. Recent finds, in the Colorado Rockies, of circular structures of dry-laid masonry which are non-Pueblo in character and which resemble certain Navajo houses or hogans, suggest that at least some of the migrants may have followed the main mountain ranges.[68] It is also possible that they may have moved south through the Great Basin west of the Rocky Mountains, or along the High Plains east of the mountains. Pottery finds give 1100 A. D. as the earliest date for the hoganlike structures in the Colorado mountains. It is not certain that these houses were built by Athapaskan people, however, and there is no definite knowledge as to just when the Athapaskans reached the Southwest and first came into contact with the Pueblo Indians. The earliest tree-ring date yet obtained in the Pueblo area from any site which we may be sure is Navajo is from the Governador area and falls in the middle of the sixteenth century.[40] If the Navajos arrived as early as 1200 A.D. they may have influenced the Largo-Gallina people and have been influenced by them, but this is still a moot question. A relatively early arrival might also aid in explaining the withdrawal of the Pueblos from the northern area.