Few traveling between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Rio Grande valley realize that they are traversing one of the most significant American Indian migration and settlement corridors in the Southwest, a well-watered and fertile floodplain that served to link peoples of the southern Rocky Mountains and the San Juan River to those of the Jemez range and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the Rio Grande, across some 300 miles. This chapter gives an overview of Pueblo (Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Keres, Hopi, and Zuni), Apache, Navajo, and O’odham histories, and reveals a dual process of migration and place making across a millennium. The Southwest has a high variability in seasonal precipitation, and its peoples have demonstrated creative and adaptable cultures that allowed for movement to new locations and the creation of new homelands as a crucial aspect of their survival.
Simulation of the effects of ground-water withdrawal from a well field adjacent to the Rio Grande, Santa Fe County, New Mexico
