At the very apex of the cultural efflorescence of the Great Pueblo period, some unknown circumstance or series of events caused abandonment of most of the urban centers of the San Juan Anasazi and Mogollon areas. A prolonged drouth is recorded by tree rings formed during the period from 1276 to 1299 A.D. Surely a drouth of this magnitude would have had serious effects on people as dependent upon agriculture as were the Pueblo Indians. There are some indications that alien and perhaps enemy people were drifting into these areas at about this time, perhaps predecessors of the modern Navajos and Apaches. The congested living conditions of Pueblo villages undoubtedly contributed to unsanitary conditions and social pressures that also may have contributed to shifts in population. Many of these migrants moved into the homeland of the Rio Grande Anasazi in the upper Rio Grande Valley, and to a lesser extent in the central Rio Grande Valley. Some may have relocated at Zuni and other areas along the Little Colorado River drainage extending westward into Arizona.
(Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service)
Figure 5. Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon National Monument
A multistory pueblo containing 800 rooms.
During the Great Pueblo period, another group showing characteristics of both the Anasazi and of non-Puebloan people occupied an area on both sides of the Continental Divide along the eastern margin of the San Juan Basin. This cultural phase, known as the Largo-Gallina because of the distribution of sites in the Largo and Gallina drainage basins, is represented by pit houses, surface rooms, and towerlike structures with some similarities to the dwellings of the Anasazi. The black-on-white pottery also suggests Puebloan relationships, whereas the culinary vessels resemble those of the Navajo.
Beginning at about 1300 A.D. or shortly thereafter, a different cultural group began to move westward from the Texas Panhandle into the plains of northeastern New Mexico. These people of the Panhandle Aspect built single-room structures and contiguous room pueblos resembling those in use by the Anasazi of the Rio Grande and were skilled bison hunters, farmers, and traders. This combination of traits suggests both Puebloan and eastern traditions. Panhandle Aspect villages were abandoned suddenly not long after 1400, perhaps as a result of the drouth recorded by tree rings for the period from 1439 to 1454.
Following the shift in population of the Pueblo region, cultural changes occurred that have led to the designation Regressive Pueblo period (Pueblo IV) for the interval between 1300 and 1700 A.D. Noteworthy changes during this period include a tendency toward enlargement of villages and the creation of new styles of pottery, accompanied by some deterioration of the artistic creativity of the Classic period. Major ruins of this period that are readily accessible to the public include Puye Cliff Dwellings, Tyuonyi Pueblo in Bandelier National Monument, and Pecos Pueblo in Pecos National Monument.
At the time of Coronado’s entrada in 1540, there were from 60 to 70 Pueblo villages in New Mexico, most of which contained fewer than 400 inhabitants. Four or five mutually unintelligible languages were spoken, each with several dialects, making communication between Spanish and Indian extremely difficult. Language barriers contributed to an inadequate documentation of the Pueblo way of life during the early years of Spanish contact, so that we must continue to depend upon the archeological record during the first century of Spanish colonization of the area. The beginning of the Historic Pueblo period (Pueblo V) accordingly is commonly set at 1700 A.D.
APACHES AND NAVAJOS
Little is known concerning the origin of these two related groups, who differ markedly from the Pueblo Indians in language and cultural traits. Their closest ties are with other Athapaskan-speaking tribes in northwestern Canada, and available evidence indicates that they are comparative newcomers to the Southwest. A correlation between the abandonment of sections of the Pueblo region and pressures exerted by ancestral Apaches and Navajos has been suggested, but definite proof of this is still lacking. Raids against the eastern pueblos of the Galisteo Basin are reported to have occurred in 1525. Coronado’s expedition encountered nomadic hunters in the plains east of Pecos in 1541, observing that they followed the movements of herds of bison or buffalo on whom they were highly dependent for food and shelter, lived in portable tents of tanned buffalo hides supported by a framework of poles, and used dogs as beasts of burden. Trade contacts with the Rio Grande pueblos included exchange of hide “cloaks” for corn grown by the Pueblo Indians.
Related groups in western and northwestern New Mexico are even more poorly known, as there was still less contact between them and the Spanish explorers. Evidently some agriculture was practiced as a supplement to a subsistence based largely on hunting and gathering, a pattern of livelihood reminiscent of that of the pre-Puebloan Cochise people.