11 Bridging the Long Tenth Century

From Villages to Great Houses in the Central Mesa Verde Region

Kellam Throgmorton, Richard Wilshusen, and Grant D. Coffey

Over the past forty years, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s long-term, place-based research agenda has brought clarity to many periods of Pueblo history and, by contrast, has made the murkier ones increasingly evident. The most notable knowledge gap in the central Mesa Verde region is a period we call the Long Tenth Century (LTC; AD 890–1030).1 This 140-year period serves as coda to the formation and collapse of early aggregated villages in the Mesa Verde region (Wilshusen et al. 2012) and prelude to the classic Chaco period (AD 1080–1130), when great houses served as community centers and Chaco society expanded its influence beyond the confines of the San Juan Basin (Lekson 2006; Van Dyke 2007). To chart the transformation of villages into great house communities, we must examine and bridge the Long Tenth Century.

In Europe, historians use the term Long Tenth Century to refer to the late ninth through mid-eleventh centuries, when empires broke down and the first feudal societies emerged (West 2013). As in Europe, the Southwest LTC involved social dissolution and realignment and a shift in population centers and political spheres. Unlike Europe, where the LTC marked the development of decentralized and shifting political alliances, in the Southwest it laid the groundwork for the centralization of Chacoan power.

Locating the Long Tenth Century in the Past and the Present

Pueblo society during the Long Tenth Century was a response to the dramatic social changes and historical events of the preceding early Pueblo period (AD 600–890). The Dolores Archaeological Program (see Kohler et al., chapter 3 in this volume, for a discussion of the DAP) shaped archaeologists’ perception of the early Pueblo period. The DAP demonstrated that the development of aggregated villages—dense settlements of ten or more households, frequently within the same structure—marked a significant innovation in Pueblo architecture and social organization (Wilshusen et al. 2012). Not long after the DAP, Crow Canyon initiated several projects that produced the regional Village Ecodynamics Project (VEP) site database critical for charting long-term demographic trends (Kohler and Varien 2012; see Kohler et al., chapter 3, and Glowacki et al., chapter 12 in this volume). The VEP established the empirical patterns and methods to create detailed reconstructions of population growth and decline in the region, identifying the LTC as a major trough in regional population.

The depopulation of the central Mesa Verde region was likely a consequence of several factors. Dry and cold conditions produced challenges to productive agriculture, and Pueblo people responded with movement to destinations both near and far (Petersen 1987; Schlanger 1988; Schlanger and Wilshusen 1993). The ecological issues, concatenated with the social problems inherent in many nascent village societies, created political crises (Wilshusen et al. 2012). The resulting turmoil led to a decline in population from perhaps 11,500 to 4,000 between AD 880 and 940 (Schwindt et al. 2016).

At some villages, like McPhee Pueblo, depopulation coincided with the violent death and burial of male and female pairs on the floors of pit structures with ritual features. The pit structure roofs were dismantled and collapsed upon the paired individuals, perhaps even as they lay dying. Other pit structures with ritual features were burned, as were nearby oversized community pit structures (Wilshusen 1986). In other villages, like Grass Mesa, depopulation was less dramatic. People built temporary structures while departure was planned and executed, followed by the ritual burning of the village months or years after depopulation (Wilshusen and Ortman 1999). At some small settlements, like the Duckfoot hamlet investigated by Crow Canyon, depopulation may have been marked by famine or disease, with many members of the household simultaneously buried in pit structures that were immediately burned (Lightfoot 1994). These examples paint a picture of the end of the ninth century AD and the beginning of the tenth: food insecurity, population decline, and a loss of faith in the social and ritual practices that had sustained communities for over a hundred years.

If the beginning of the LTC in the Mesa Verde region is found in the terminal histories of villages and hamlets throughout the region, its end lies in the development of great house communities during the eleventh century AD. Numerous projects during the 1990s and 2000s considered the development of Chaco-style communities north of the San Juan River, including the central Mesa Verde region (Cameron 2009; Lekson, chapter 17 in this volume; Ryan 2015). However, most of these projects investigated great houses from the early twelfth century that did not have significant LTC components.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, projects on Tribal and private lands identified sites that connected early Pueblo period villages with later Chaco-era great house communities (Bradley 2010; Dove 2006; Potter 2015; Smith 2009; Throgmorton 2019). Other projects identified smaller settlements from the LTC (Coffey 2004, 2006; Shanks 2010). Together, these projects demonstrated that the LTC was much more than a decline or a gap; rather, it was a period with variation in settlement patterns and community structure and a period of significant social and political transformation.

One outcome of research over the past forty years is realization that the AD 880–890 depopulation resulted in a much smaller population in a much more open landscape. Many Pueblo oral histories and ceremonial songs describe how people explored the potential relationships in new landscapes, including landscapes transformed by violence, social upheaval, and environmental change. The revelations inspired by new landscapes shaped the history of a clan or people (see Kuwanwisiwma and Bernardini, chapter 5 in this volume). Research on the LTC also disrupts how archaeologists characterize Chacoan influence north of the San Juan River. Archaeologists debate whether Chaco-style great house communities beyond the walls of Chaco Canyon represent either the emulation or the export of Chacoan architecture, ceremony, and political structure. As we suggest in the section “The Late LTC (AD 975–1030): Reemergence of Great Houses and a Landscape Redefined,” there is evidence for great houses much before the presumed post-AD 1075 introduction of Chaco-style architecture north of the San Juan River.

Crow Canyon’s unanticipated discovery of a tenth-century AD community center at the Haynie site—sitting above an aggregated village and beneath two Chaco-style great houses—offers an excellent opportunity to chart the changing configurations of place and people over the longue durée and the development of Chaco-style communities (Fladd et al. 2018; Ryan 2013; Simon et al. 2017; Throgmorton et al. 2019). The Haynie site completes a Crow Canyon legacy of archaeological research on the AD 600–1300 interval in southwest Colorado. The LTC component at the Haynie site is a bridge between early Pueblo villages, great house communities, and their late-twelfth- and thirteenth-century successors.

In the following sections, we expand upon this literature review and give a summary of what is currently known about the LTC. We end with a discussion of the critical questions in LTC research and their relationship to other themes in the archaeology of the central Mesa Verde region.

Climate and the Long Tenth Century

The paleoclimate reconstructions for the LTC illustrate a period of great climate variability but with few episodes of dramatic environmental change. Palmer Drought Severity Indices suggest dry conditions were common throughout the first third of the LTC (AD 890–925). These conditions ameliorated somewhat during the middle third (AD 925–975) and returned during the last third (AD 975–1030) (Van West and Dean 2000). The beginning of the LTC (up until about AD 915) was marked by below-average temperatures, with the potential for at least two additional periods of shortened growing season around AD 980–1000 and 1015–1030 (Salzer 2000). Throughout the LTC, streambeds across the region were aggrading (after a period of arroyo cutting in the late ninth century AD) and the water table consequently rising. From AD 890 to 990 the dryland farming belt was relatively high and narrow (limited by temperature on the upper elevation and moisture on the lower), but it expanded downward during the last third of the period, after AD 990 or 1000. These data indicate dry farming during the early and late LTC was tenuous over a broad swath of the northern Southwest and was limited by adequate growing seasons and available water. Upland locations outside of cold air drainages, as well as warmer areas to the south, where runoff events or other supplemental water could be harnessed, provided attractive options to farmers adapting to those difficult agricultural times.

Settlement Patterns and Architecture, AD 890–1030

We divide the LTC into three subperiods based on distinct environmental regimes, settlement patterns, and architectural trends. The early LTC (AD 890–925) is characterized by communities that relocated to more favorable, nearby locales amidst the crises of the late ninth century AD. During the middle LTC (AD 925–975), people reinhabited several ninth-century AD villages and established new settlements in lowland locales. During the late LTC (AD 975–1030) the settlement patterns, architecture, and cultural landscape changed dramatically, initiating a shift from aggregated to dispersed settlements that was a prelude to the period of great house communities of the mid- to late eleventh century AD.

The Early LTC (AD 890–925)

Many people left the central Mesa Verde region altogether during the depopulation of Dolores Valley villages (Wilshusen et al. 2012), but a few communities either persisted or relocated locally during the first interval of the LTC. Tree-ring dates from the Mitchell Springs Ruin Group (Smith 2009) and the Far View Group at Mesa Verde National Park (Robinson and Harrill 1974) indicate some people remained in those communities, whereas dates from a residential site near Dove Creek indicate others established themselves in a relatively unpopulated area (Coffey 2004). Based on pottery data, the Champagne Springs site was first established around this time as was a cluster of villages near the head of Cross Canyon east of Dove Creek (Dove 2006). Probabilistic analyses of pottery recorded during surveys reveals scattered settlements throughout the Great Sage Plain, the Montezuma Valley, and beyond (Kohler and Varien 2012; Potter 2015). However, our knowledge of ceramic technological and stylistic change during this period is limited, and more work may be necessary to refine our estimates of the number of sites likely inhabited during the early LTC. Similarly, there are early LTC tree-ring cutting dates or near-cutting dates from around the region from sites with limited documentation. While population declined, some groups of people persisted and maintained continuity with the preceding decades.

For instance, the layout of the villages east of Dove Creek, referred to here as the Upper Cross Canyon cluster, bear a striking resemblance to the long, contiguous roomblocks found on the east side of the Dolores River, and one of them (the Gillota-Johnson site) had a great kiva (Coffey 2006). The layouts of other early LTC communities are not as easy to characterize, as they are overlain by later components or have been damaged by mechanical excavation. Regardless of their exact layout, all these settlements are aggregated, with limited evidence for a sparser hinterland.

The Middle LTC (AD 925–975)

Pottery evidence indicates that the Mitchell Springs Ruin Group, Champagne Springs, and sites at Mesa Verde National Park persisted into the middle and late LTC but that the Upper Cross Canyon cluster was on the decline (Coffey 2006). Excavation and remote-sensing activities at Champagne Springs identified at least fifty pit structures and multiple roomblocks spanning the entire tenth century AD, as well as a great kiva that was probably constructed around AD 940–960 (Dove 2006). The settlement is split between north and south complexes. Middle LTC pit structures at Champagne Springs were more complex than those from the early LTC, and many exhibited nondomestic floor features and elaborate closing rituals (Dove 2012). People lived at Mitchell Springs throughout the tenth century and into the early eleventh century AD (Dove 2021; Smith 2009), and much of the early and middle LTC architecture is obscured by later construction.

After a two-generation hiatus, people returned to select late ninth-century villages depopulated around AD 880–890. These villages tended to be those that were located near the confluence of midsized watercourses that may have been suitable for channeling runoff water. The exact timing of this return is not well established by dendrochronology, but archaeomagnetic and pottery dates from McPhee Pueblo (5MT4475) and Masa Negra (5MT4477) indicate that people refurbished and reinhabited several ninth-century structures sometime between AD 910 and 980, with the evidence best supporting a post-AD 930 occupation (Brisbin et al. 1988; Kuckelman 1988). The Stix and Leaves Pueblo (5MT11555) is very well dated, with date clusters suggesting construction events between AD 949 and 974 (Bradley 2010). Site 5MT2350, located in Mancos Canyon, has several cutting dates between AD 945 and 973, indicating construction activity at almost the same time (Farmer 1975).

In each case, a large, arcing masonry roomblock was constructed directly atop the floor plan of an earlier ninth-century AD structure (figure 11.1). The room suite pattern established between AD 760 and 890 continued, with large front habitation rooms and paired back rooms exhibiting fewer floor features. Pit structure morphology changed as square pit structures became rounder in their overall shape, benches were needed, and roof support posts were incorporated into benches, with early examples of masonry and wood pilasters appearing near the end of the period (Wilshusen 1988, 627). While these are undoubtedly aggregated habitations lived in by multiple households, they are smaller in scale than the villages of the preceding century, and usually only one or two large roomblocks within an earlier village were reinhabited.

Black and gray line drawings of three structures showing wall alignments and sequences of construction — Figure 11.1. Plan maps of mid-tenth-century AD components atop earlier ninth-century roomblocks. Tenth-century AD components in black, ninth-century components in gray. (A) Stix and Leaves Pueblo (5MT11555) (adapted from Bradley 2010, fig. 6.1); (B) McPhee Pueblo (5MT4475) (adapted from Brisbin et al. 1988, figs. 2.9 and 2.93); (C) 5MT2350 (adapted from Farmer 1975, fig. 2).

We know of other large settlements dating to the AD 925–975 interval from surface survey. Morris 40, south of Mancos Canyon, was a ninth-century village remodeled during the tenth century AD (Throgmorton 2019). It is unclear if there was an early LTC hiatus at Morris 40. The village at Barker Arroyo may have been established in the early LTC but was certainly inhabited by the middle tenth century AD (Potter 2015). Both Barker Arroyo and Morris 40 have great kivas dated to the middle LTC by associated pottery samples. And as noted earlier, probability estimates indicate that there are likely more small settlements than we currently can document with our very limited excavation data for this period (Dykeman 1986).

Continuity and Change, AD 890–975

The first eighty-five years of the LTC exhibited both change and continuity with the past. Small, dispersed settlements of one to three households were common in the eighth and ninth centuries and continued to exist in the LTC. Notably, aggregated villages remained an important settlement form, albeit of a smaller scale than the previous century. The existence of aggregated sites during a period of low regional population density is contrary to the expectations of prior models. The layout and construction techniques of some villages, such as the Upper Cross Canyon cluster, resembled ninth-century AD predecessors, and the mid-tenth-century reoccupations of several late ninth-century villages adhered closely to the original floor plans and room suites. However, settlement patterns changed dramatically. With few exceptions, much of the Dolores and Montezuma Valleys witnessed a notable loss of population between AD 890 and 925. As population slowly began to increase, it is tempting to imagine elders leading community members back to villages they knew as children some forty to fifty years before, and it begs the question—where had these people spent the last two generations and what did they learn and experience there? Communities in the upper San Juan and Fruitland areas (Chuipka et al. 2010; Wilshusen and Wilson 1995) or even the San Juan Basin are possibilities.

Southeast Utah is also a likely population reservoir during the early LTC. The Upper Cross Canyon sites (including Champagne Springs) may be the eastern extent of a settlement cluster that developed in the early LTC as people rapidly repopulated southeastern Utah, which had been thinly inhabited between AD 850 and 880 (Allison 2004; Allison et al. 2012). Based on available evidence, these settlements do not resemble either of the two village styles that dominated the late ninth-century AD central Mesa Verde region (Wilshusen and Ortman 1999), perhaps reflecting an effort to establish new social practices in the aftermath of the Dolores Valley depopulation.

A commonality among sites securely dated to AD 890–925 is a concern with water availability, though two different strategies are evident. People on Mesa Verde and in Upper Cross Canyon relied on higher-elevation mesa top locales, balancing greater precipitation (and soil moisture retention) against shorter seasons (see Ermigiotti et al., chapter 4 in this volume). Others, like those at Mitchell Springs, settled near the confluences of midsized watercourses in lowland settings, perhaps balancing increased runoff potential against the potential for cold air drainage. The potential importance of floodwater farming complicates models of social change that focus primarily on the maize dry farming niche, and the differences between these two techniques and associated landscapes require further inquiry (Ermigiotti et al., chapter 4 in this volume).

Great kivas had ceased to be an important part of community ceremonialism at most aggregated villages in the latter half of the ninth century AD (Schachner 2001, 182), but they were increasingly constructed during the AD 890–975 period, especially after 940. The reappearance of great kivas could be perceived as a revitalization of ceremonies that emphasized community solidarity as opposed to the achievements of specific households. Nonetheless, variation in floor features suggests that a hierarchy of ritual practices—including decommissioning practices (Dove 2012; Lipe et al. 2016)—likely occurred within non–great kiva pit structures, not unlike the late ninth century AD. The question of social inequality and ritual hierarchy needs more thorough examination, but it is telling that there are no obvious great house–like structures dating to AD 890–975 in the central (or western) Mesa Verde region, despite their presence at several late ninth-century AD villages a generation or two before (Wilshusen et al. 2012, 28) and their prevalence in the San Juan Basin during the LTC.

The Late LTC (AD 975–1030): Reemergence of Great Houses and a Landscape Redefined

Various villages—such as the Upper Cross Canyon cluster, Stix and Leaves Pueblo, and Mitchell Springs—were evident across the LTC landscape, but from AD 975 to 1030 an increasing percentage of the population resided in habitation compounds, typically occupied by one or two households. These compounds consisted of post-and-adobe architecture that enclosed an earthen-lined pit structure (figures 11.2A, 11.2B). The central rooms of the compound were often constructed of rough masonry, with copious adobe mortar, and had upright slab foundations.

Post-and-adobe compounds were a striking departure in construction technology and domestic use of space from the aggregated masonry roomblocks of the middle LTC, and people built them in a wide range of mesa top locations, such as in the Goodman Point community (Coffey 2014; Kent 1991; Shanks 2010), near Pleasant View (Kuckelman and Morris 1988; Martin 1938; Morris 1991); and Mesa Verde National Park (Lancaster and Pinkley 1954). The appearance of this habitation style corresponds to a period when the dryland farming belt also expanded into lower elevation mesa top settings. Post-and-adobe architecture shares the closest resemblance with settlements found in northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah, raising the question whether these are a local approach to moving onto long-fallowed mesa top areas, or a reflection of population movement from other regions. Nonetheless, there are hints that similar “compounds” appeared at existing LTC settlements, such as Morris 40 (Throgmorton 2019).

In the last decade or two of the LTC, early great houses emerged that were distinguished from other contemporary architecture by having six to twelve large, equally sized masonry rooms with scabbled, tabular, single-wythe masonry construction. Examples of these structures include Pueblo B at Mitchell Springs (figure 11.3A; Dove, personal communication, 2021); the east core of the Haynie west great house (Throgmorton et al. 2021), Phase I at at Wallace Ruin (figure 11.3B; B. Bradley and C. Bradley 2020; B. Bradley, personal communication, 2022); and Site 875 (Lister 1965) in the Far View community (figure 11.3C). Some had higher-than-average ceilings (Pueblo B, Mitchell Springs), and at least one (Wallace Ruin) was multistoried. Some were accompanied by large, circular pit structures with comparable tabular masonry lining their subterranean walls (Dove, personal communication, 2021). Site 875 included a crypt room containing numerous secondary interments associated with Cortez and Mancos Black-on-white pottery. Other possible examples that employed a blockier masonry style and that may date slightly later include the north half of Pipe Shrine House in the Far View community (admittedly a tenuous example) and the AD 1050 component of Pueblo A at Mitchell Springs (Dove 2021). Based on this sample, cardinally paired great houses were common in the early AD 1000s—the Haynie west great house and Wallace Ruin (north-south), Pueblos A and B at Mitchell Springs (north-south), Site 875 and Pipe Shrine House at the Far View community (east-west). Unfortunately, there are few, if any, tree-ring dates associated with these structures, which have been dated to the early eleventh century AD based on masonry style, or in some cases roughly equal proportions of Mancos and Cortez Black-on-white, and Mancos Corrugated utility ware accompanied by small amounts of Mancos Gray.

Black and white line drawings of four structures showing masonry, adobe, and post-and-adobe wall alignments and construction styles — Figure 11.2. Examples of vernacular residential structures dating ca. AD 975–1030. (A) 5MT8899 (adapted from Hammack et al. 2000, fig. 2.18); (B) Martin Site 1 (1937 Season) (adapted from Martin 1938, map. 6); (C) Gnatsville (5MT1786) (adapted from Kent 1991, figs. 2 and 3); (D) Site 16, Mesa Verde National Park (adapted from Lancaster and Pinkley 1954, pl. 20).

Black and white line drawings of six structures with dashed and solid lines — Figure 11.3. Possible early great houses at Mitchell Springs, the Haynie site, and the Far View community, ca. AD 1020–1050. (A) Pueblo “B” Mitchell Springs adapted from Dove (n.d.); (B) east half of the west great house at the Haynie site (5MT1905), reconstruction based on Claudia Haynie’s unpublished 1983–1985 excavation notes (Throgmorton et al. 2021); (C) Site 875 adapted from Lister (1965, fig.4).

Toward a More Dynamic LTC Narrative

Early eleventh-century great houses in the central Mesa Verde region were dramatically different than the post-and-adobe architecture and earthen-lined pit structures found at most residential sites, and their careful masonry construction and ceiling height distinguished them from other masonry houses. Their presence complicates the research questions surrounding great houses in the central Mesa Verde region. Not only must we consider how early twelfth-century AD great houses related to Chaco and Aztec, but also we must consider how the early eleventh-century ones related to a very different-looking Chaco world. Evidence from the LTC suggests that the emulation-versus-export debate is not a matter of which, but of when. Great houses are not a phenomenon confined to the Chaco world, so it is also imperative to consider the internal dynamics of LTC communities. What was the relationship of early eleventh-century AD great house residents to one another and to non–great house residents? Several of the best early great house examples are not located near known clusters of post-and-adobe style structures (e.g., Pleasant View, Goodman Point). Did the trend toward settlement dispersal, especially into landscapes uninhabited for a hundred years, encourage the development of early great houses, or was it a consequence of their development?

Along these lines, our review indicates that during most of the LTC people in the central Mesa Verde region rejected the U-shaped proto–great houses that had characterized many late ninth-century AD villages (e.g., McPhee Pueblo) and instead revitalized a tradition of great kiva construction. Do great kivas and great houses represent contrasting forms of sociopolitical organization in the central Mesa Verde region, as they may have in the San Juan Basin to the south (Van Dyke 2007, 90)? If so, what can this pattern tell us about changes in political organization throughout the LTC and after?

Environmental fluctuation clearly played a role in creating conditions of possibility for inhabitants of the central Mesa Verde region. We have built our conceptual models of the human-environment relationship around dryland farming, yet our developing understanding of the LTC points to floodwater farming playing a more important role in the development of some early great houses. We think it is important to investigate the variables involved in floodwater farming and consider how this style of agriculture might alter our perception of human-environment relationships in the Pueblo past. What differences exist between mesa top LTC sites, a location where dryland farming occurred, and lowland LTC sites, where floodwater was possible?

Study areas are drawn to reflect the realities of working in the contemporary world—permit systems, data repositories, and land statuses affect how we conduct our research. We know these boundaries did not exist in the Pueblo past, yet it is difficult to avoid them in our research agendas. We set out to investigate the central Mesa Verde region during the LTC. However, if the centers of population shifted westward, eastward, and southward, then an investigation of the LTC in the central Mesa Verde may, in fact, be investigating the edges of strong patterns that developed in adjacent regions because of demographic and social upheaval circa AD 880–890. To evaluate the significance of the early LTC cluster in Upper Cross Canyon, the reoccupation of some villages in the middle LTC, and the appearance of post-and-adobe compounds during the late LTC, it will be necessary to consider social and historical conditions outside the confines of the central Mesa Verde region.

It is possible that a unifying theme for all these questions is to be found in landscapes. In southwestern Colorado, we have usually focused our energies at three geographic scales—the regional database, localities, and individual sites. Each scale has been deployed in making arguments about both general social processes and specific local histories, such as the chapters in this volume by Schleher et al., chapter 10, on Basketmaker III period community development and chapter 14, on Pueblo II and III period communities at Goodman Point and Sand Canyon. Yet it can be difficult to navigate between these different scales of inquiry, and this has, at times, obfuscated the social and historical connections that shaped the lives of Pueblo people in the past. Landscapes are the qualitative topography wherein individuals experience and influence the environmental and sociopolitical conditions that directly affect their lives. They are relational spaces, centered on connections at a variety of scales.

Unlike the short-lived and densely clustered villages of the early Pueblo period, people in LTC communities had the time and space to develop expansive, complex cultural landscapes that became intimately entangled with ceremonies, historical narratives, and perhaps language (Throgmorton 2019). The scalar flexibility of landscape offers a useful analytical tool to make sense of the shift from the loosely demarcated landscapes of villages and hamlets to the well-inscribed landscapes of great house communities. Consultations with elders and Tribal leaders regularly remind us that these landscapes still hold significance and have much to teach us (Ortman, chapter 6 in this volume).

When we consider the trajectory that led from villages to great houses during the LTC, we see potentially meaningful shifts in how the very definition of a cultural landscape was conceived as well as where community centers were located. Early great houses can be found at the confluence of midsized drainages with watersheds linking highland and lowland, encompassing a much larger territory than any ninth-century AD village. Early great houses may occur in cardinally oriented pairs, an expression of dualism and an increasingly structured built environment. By making sense of the variety of landscapes characteristic of the LTC and how they take shape as an emerging local cultural canon, it may be possible to discern local developments from those influenced by Chaco participants. This analysis may help guide our understanding of how far and fast the Chaco polity unfolded better than identifying local or nonlocal construction techniques in great house architecture and site design.

The bridge we are building for the LTC allows us to connect two seemingly different worlds. In the same way that it would have been difficult to predict the emergence of great house landscapes out of what came before, few could have imagined forty years ago the many connections we now see between Crow Canyon’s archaeological research, public education, and American Indian communities. Building bridges that connect our histories and our communities may be what Crow Canyon does best.

Note

1. For this study, the central Mesa Verde region is an area roughly coterminous with the VEP II study area (Schwindt et al. 2016), with extensions to the south and north. Our dates are derived from Bocinsky et al. (2016), who identified a notable inflection in the tree-ring cutting date frequency distribution between AD 890 and 1030.

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