AD 1200 to 1250

The occupational histories of thirteenth-century villages in the northern San Juan followed multiple trajectories (see Ortman et al. 2000); however, some general trends can be noted. During the first half of the century, loose settlement clusters formed on rolling uplands with excellent agricultural potential. These clusters composed social, economic, and political communities, and some, such as the Goodman Point community (Coffey 2018; Ryan 2015b), included a village and a great kiva (Coffey 2018). Communities shared an ideology, a social identity, domestic water sources, and cooperative projects. The subsistence system was heavily dependent on maize crops (Decker and Tieszen 1989; Matson 2016) and on domesticated turkeys, although a variety of game and edible wild plants (see Oas and Adams, chapter 22 in this volume) supplemented these domesticates. Periods of cooler temperatures during this time (Salzer and Kipfmueller 2005) could have curtailed growing seasons and reduced crop productivity. The unprecedented consumption of turkey co-occurred with a severe reduction in mule deer as a result of overhunting (Driver 2002; Schollmeyer and Driver, chapter 21 in this volume).

The largest village during the first half of the century, and the largest Pueblo site ever recorded in the region, was Yellow Jacket Pueblo (Kuckelman 2003a), which occupied nearly 100 acres and housed as many as 1,300 residents. It is likely that during this time Yellow Jacket was a regional hub of power and influence and might thus have served as an example to dispersed communities of the advantages of aggregated settlement and stimulated other communities to follow suit. Regional population is estimated to have peaked between AD 1225 and 1260 (cf. Hill et al. 2010, figs. 2.2a, 2.2b) at nearly 35,000 residents (Varien 2010, 16–17).

AD 1250 to 1280

By about AD 1250, serious difficulties had developed. Some models suggest that out-migration from the region predated AD 1250 (Cordell et al. 2007; Duff and Wilshusen 2000), but a large number of the remaining 35,000 residents of the region (Varien 2010, 16–17) moved from rolling uplands to construct villages in canyon settings (Varien 2010, table 1.4), many of which were located on or near the primary community spring (Lipe 1995, 153; Lipe and Ortman 2000; Lipe and Varien 1999). The population near the geographic middle of the San Juan region—that is, the central Mesa Verde portion of the region—reached its greatest density (Hill et al. 2010, figs. 2.1a, 2.2; Varien 2010, table 1.1; Varien et al. 2000, fig. 4), possibly augmented by immigration from outlying areas of the region (Glowacki 2015; Hill et al. 2010, fig. 2.1a; Varien 2010); tree-ring dates indicate that occupation of southeastern Utah by Pueblo peoples was significantly reduced by about midcentury (Bellorado and Windes, chapter 18 in this volume; Glowacki 2015).

Villages in the Hovenweep area (Winter 1975, 1976, 1977) were built on bedrock canyon rims; others, such as Sand Canyon Pueblo (Kuckelman 2007) and Goodman Point Pueblo (Kuckelman 2017d), were constructed around more heavily vegetated canyon heads, and villages at Mesa Verde proper, such as Cliff Palace (Fewkes 1911) and Long House (Cattanach 1980), were situated in large alcoves. Thus, by midcentury, most of the population of the region had resettled into fewer and larger settlements (Kohler 2010, 119) on or near some of the most agriculturally productive soils in the region (Dean 2010, 333; Glowacki 2010, 2015). The population of Yellow Jacket Pueblo dwindled (Kuckelman 2007), and Sand Canyon, with 450 to 700 residents, and Goodman Point, with 600 to 900 residents, became the two largest villages in the region (Adler and Hegmon, chapter 16, and Schleher et al., chapter 14 in this volume).

Proprietary access to springs was a key factor in this resettlement; for Pueblo families, the region was uninhabitable without springs for domestic water. The area occupied by the dispersed Goodman Point community, for example, contained numerous springs (Connolly 1992, fig. 4.2); however, at midcentury, residents constructed Goodman Point Pueblo around their most prolific spring. Some research suggests that drought in the mid-AD 1200s could have reduced the flow rate of some springs in the region (Kolm and Smith 2012, 77–79); in any case, by midcentury, proximity to the primary community spring trumped proximity to crop fields.

The new villages incorporated many defensive structures (Kuckelman 2002). Sand Canyon and Goodman Point Pueblos included massive enclosing walls that stood at least one story tall, angled loopholes for viewing the landscape outside the village, and towers (Kuckelman 2007, 2017d). The defensive aspects of towers are well documented (Farmer 1957; Hibben 1948; Kuckelman 2000b; Lancaster and Pinkley 1954, 44–47; Mackey and Green 1979; Schulman 1950; Wilcox and Haas 1994, 218). Towers at Sand Canyon Pueblo abutted the outside face of the village-enclosing wall but could be accessed only from inside the village.

The aggregation of population, in and of itself, might have been one goal of the midcentury resettlement. Aggregation is a highly effective defensive strategy (Crown et al. 1996, 200–201; Haas and Creamer 1996, 209–210; Kidder 1924; LeBlanc 1999; Reid et al. 1996; Tuggle and Reid 2001), and a correlation has been reported between population aggregation and conflict (Haas and Creamer 1996; Wilcox and Haas 1994). The placement of new villages in defensible locations and the construction of defensive architectural features suggest social turmoil and credible threat of attack.

By midcentury, Pueblo families had become even more heavily dependent on maize crops for many of their calories (Decker and Tieszen 1989; Matson 2016) and on domesticated turkeys for animal protein; turkeys were also fed maize (McCaffery et al. 2014; Munro 1994; Nott 2010; Rawlings and Driver 2010; Schollmeyer and Driver, chapter 21 in this volume). Wild resources had been reduced (Adams and Bowyer 2002, 123; Dean and Van West 2002, 97; Driver 2002, 158–160, Johnson et al. 2005; Kohler 2004; Kohler et al. 2007) by a millennium of exploitation. The survival of Pueblo residents thus depended on the success of maize crops. However, multiple environmental downturns that included disrupted precipitation patterns (Dean 1996; Dean and Funkhouser 1995; Van West and Dean 2000; Wright 2010), cooler temperatures (Adams and Petersen 1999; Petersen 1988, 1994; Salzer 2000; Wright 2010, fig. 4.3), and periodic droughts (Dean and Van West 2002) had descended upon the region. These conditions developed when the Pueblo population in the central portion of the region reached its greatest density (Hill et al. 2010, figs. 2.1a, 2.2; Kohler et al. 2007; Varien 2010; Varien et al. 2007), which would have limited the ability of families to relocate farmsteads and fields (Cordell et al. 2007, 385–386) and would have reduced wild plant and animal resources already diminished by periodic droughts and centuries of exploitation.

By midcentury, violence in the northern Southwest had begun to escalate (Haas 1990; Haas and Creamer 1996; LeBlanc 1998, 1999; LeBlanc and Rice 2001; Lightfoot and Kuckelman 2001; Morris 1939, 42; Schaafsma 2000; Wilcox and Haas 1994, 236). Many lines of indirect evidence—defensible settlement locations, defensive architecture, population aggregation, traditional narratives, warfare imagery, and structural burning—have been discussed elsewhere (see Kuckelman 2002, 2012, 2014; Lightfoot and Kuckelman 2001). Direct evidence has been found in the form of both antemortem and lethal-level perimortem trauma on human remains (Cattanach 1980, 145–146; Kuckelman 2010b; Kuckelman et al. 2002, table 3; Kuckelman and Martin 2007, table 12; Lambert 1999; Street 2001, 198), and the remains of some individuals exhibit multiple antemortem cranial fractures (Kuckelman 2017b; Kuckelman et al. 2002, table 3) that would have been inflicted between midcentury and final regional depopulation. Such violence is likely to have been a factor in decisions to construct defensive villages with proprietary access to domestic water.

Final Depopulation

The so-called Great Drought, which descended on the Southwest by at least AD 1276 and persisted for decades (Berry and Benson 2010, figs. 3.2D2, 3.4D; Dean and Van West 2002; Douglass 1929), dealt the final blow to Pueblo occupation of the region. Evidence of the effects of the Great Drought on Pueblo peoples has proved challenging to detect in the archaeological record; robust assemblages of food refuse that could be firmly dated to the final few years of regional occupation have been lacking until recently. However, Crow Canyon excavations at Sand Canyon (Kuckelman 2007), Goodman Point (Kuckelman 2016, 2017d, 2020), and Castle Rock (Kuckelman, ed. 2000) Pueblos yielded abundant food remains that reveal evidence of subsistence stress. The remains of food consumed during most of the time the villages were occupied, found in midden deposits, were compared to remains of final meals consumed just before the villages were depopulated, found in abandonment contexts. The results (Hoffman et al. 2010, Kuckelman 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2016) reflect dramatic dietary shifts indicative of famine just before village and regional depopulation—remains of turkeys and crop foods dominate midden samples, whereas remains on floors and in cooking features are mostly wild plant foods (including nonpreferred foods) and the skeletal remains of various wild animals. Corroborating evidence was reported by Robert Muir (1999); the variety of taxa represented in the faunal assemblage from Sand Canyon Pueblo is less than expected for midden contexts and greater than expected for other contexts. Multiple independent data thus indicate that just before depopulation, Pueblo farmers became predominantly hunters and gatherers, presumably because of crop failure and an associated reduction in turkey flocks.

The occupations of the two largest villages in the region—Goodman Point and Sand Canyon Pueblos—as well as smaller pueblos such as Castle Rock and probably at least some of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, ended in attacks in which many people perished, sometime within a few years after the onset of the Great Drought. Direct evidence of these attacks was left on the remains of men, women, and children that were left unburied on prehistoric ground surface, on structure floors, and on structure roofs at sites of villages excavated by Crow Canyon (Kuckelman 2010b; Kuckelman 2017d; Kuckelman et al. 2002) and at sites of other villages, including Mesa Verde cliff dwellings (Cattanach 1980, 415; Fewkes 1909, 24; Kuckelman et al. 2017; Kuckelman and Martin 2007, table 12; Lambert 1999, 141; Morris 1939, 82; Street 2001, 198) and Ruin 6 (Morris 1939). Some remains exhibit perimortem cranial depression fractures and other traumatic injuries (Kuckelman 2012, 126); multiple individuals who perished had survived previous cranial trauma (Kuckelman 2017b; Kuckelman et al. 2002, table 3). At Goodman Point Pueblo, weathered human remains found in the roof-fall debris of multistory structures (towers) reveal that during attacks, such structures were used as refuges and perhaps for active defense (Kuckelman 2017a). Evidence of trophy taking and anthropophagy associated with these warfare events has been reported elsewhere (Kuckelman 2010b, 2017b, 2020; Kuckelman et al. 2002; Lambert 1999, 141).

No compelling archaeological data indicate the presence of any culture group other than Pueblo peoples in the northern San Juan region at any time either before or during the thirteenth century AD (see Kuckelman 2002, 2014; Kuckelman et al. 2002; LeBlanc 1998, 1999; Lipe 1995, 161–162; Lipe and Varien 1999, 341; Wilcox and Haas 1994). It is likely that Pueblo warriors from the largest villages in the region—Sand Canyon and Goodman Point Pueblos—were among the aggressors. Human remains at Goodman Point Pueblo that predate the final attack of that village appear to be evidence of “perpetrator” actions against enemy settlements (Kuckelman 2020), whereas no such evidence has been reported for other pueblos occupied late in the thirteenth century. It is possible that more-distant groups of Pueblo warriors, such as those in the middle San Juan region of northwestern New Mexico, invaded villages in the central Mesa Verde area. Regardless of who perpetrated which attack, neither victors nor anyone else settled in the defeated pueblos.

Perhaps surprisingly, hydrologic data suggest that a scarcity of domestic water is unlikely to have been a factor in final depopulation. Recent simulation studies indicate that the flow rates of different springs in this area varied widely (Kolm and Smith 2012, 77) but do not indicate a significant decrease in flow rate late in the thirteenth century (Kolm and Smith 2012, 82–83; Smith et al. 2006). Further, recent studies on the spring at Goodman Point Pueblo (Wright Paleohydrological Institute 2011) suggest that flow rates would have been adequate for the needs of the community throughout the Pueblo occupation of the region (Kuckelman 2017c), even during droughts. It is also important to note that occupation of the region continued during the severely droughty fifty-year period of the mid-AD 1100s (Kohler et al. 2007; Varien 2010), which would have been all but impossible had most springs ceased to issue water. Thus, the major effect of the Great Drought was famine rather than a shortage of domestic water.

Of the nearly 15,000 tree-ring dates that have been obtained for the northern San Juan region, the latest fifteen, which fall into the span AD 1278 through 1281, are from cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Thus, during regional depopulation, Mesa Verde cliff dwellings might have been among the final strongholds. Unfortunately, nonprofessional digging of the uppermost, crucial deposits in many cliff dwellings in the late 1800s destroyed much of the record of the final days of residence of those settlements (see Kuckelman 2016).

Conclusions

In the past four decades, Crow Canyon archaeologists and colleagues generated significant new data regarding thirteenth-century villages in the northern San Juan: population density peaked and then waned, settlement patterns shifted, defensive architecture proliferated, dependence on maize and turkey increased to precarious levels, and disastrous environmental conditions that resulted in famine and intense interpueblo warfare were key factors in permanent depopulation in the final quarter of the thirteenth century. Numerous researchers have documented a correlation between stressful environmental conditions and violence (Ferguson 1997, 340–341; Hsiang et al. 2013, 7; Keeley 1996, 139, 140; Lambert 1997, 78; Mackey and Green 1979, 153; Milner et al. 1991; O’Shea and Bridges 1989). A coincident escalation of warfare in other areas of the Southwest (Rice and LeBlanc 2001) as well as in other areas of the continent (Lightfoot and Kuckelman 2001, 64) is more characteristic of widespread environmental deterioration than of localized tensions among Pueblos.

Thus, recent research into the final depopulation of the northern San Juan indicates that myriad environmental challenges, warfare, and other social disruptions were powerful deterrents to continued occupation of the region. However, springs continued to issue domestic water, and food in the form of reduced crops and some wild plant and animal resources would have been available, so it is unlikely that the region became completely uninhabitable by Pueblo peoples. Why didn’t occupation continue at reduced density? The answer may lie in the fundamental community-based fabric of Pueblo society. That is, after many residents were killed or emigrated, remaining population levels were socially and ritually nonviable; both Timothy Kohler (2010) and Donna Glowacki (2010, 2015) point out that social coherence would have been difficult to maintain under conditions of low population density. Most emigration from the region thus stemmed from famine associated with devastating environmental conditions and from warfare, but complete depopulation resulted from the associated nonviable population levels.

Acknowledgments. I would like to thank Crow Canyon for the opportunity to contribute to this fortieth anniversary volume and to Debra Martin for generously sharing her osteological data on human remains from Mesa Verde National Park.

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