During the great drouth the population of the Southwest was diminished and many regions were abandoned forever by the Pueblo Indians. When the drouth finally ended the survivors were concentrated in the most favorable spots where there were the best supplies of water, the finest farming lands or good natural defenses against the nomadic Indians.
In some regions they prospered for a time but never again did they reach the high level they had attained before the great drouth. Perhaps the drouth caused a dry rot to set in and the fortunes of the Pueblo people waned. When Coronado came there were less than eighty pueblos: today there are less than thirty.
The people of these present-day pueblos are the descendants of scores of thousands of Pueblo Indians who once lived in the Southwest. In their veins, greatly thinned by the centuries, flows the blood of the ancient people of the Mesa Verde.
PART TWO
The Archeological Background
9
ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
The story of the Mesa Verde really had its beginning many thousands of years ago in a distant land. It began when the first ancient Asiatic stepped across from Siberia and became the First American. Who he was and exactly when it happened we shall never know, but it was the important first step in a long chain of events which led to the occupation of the Mesa Verde by Pueblo Indians.
There seems to be little doubt that the early inhabitants of North and South America came from Asia by that northern route. It is the only route by which men, traveling without artificial means of transportation, could have reached these western continents. Not a single insurmountable barrier, not a single impossibility lay in the path of those ancient men as they drifted with the line of least resistance. From the northwest, America was discovered and populated.
Men first came into being somewhere in the Old World. From this point of beginning they spread slowly over the face of the earth. In all directions the ancient men traveled, always on foot, always without a goal. After a time Europe, Africa and Asia were populated, but the Americas remained without men. Surrounded by vast areas of water, except at one point, the Americas were the last great land bodies to be discovered.
Finally, the day of discovery arrived. For countless centuries groups of men had been drifting over the great continent of Asia. Farther and farther they traveled until at last a group, perhaps forced on by stronger groups behind, stood on the utmost tip of northeastern Asia, the tip of Siberia now known as the East Cape.
Standing on the ocean shore those men shaded their eyes and looked out across the water. There, only fifty-six miles away, lay another land. Curiosity, or perhaps the force of “enemy pressure”, urged them on. A means of crossing those fifty-six tantalizing miles was found. At last the first human foot touched American soil.