scholarly journals How Agriculture Took Hold in the Mesa Verde Region: A Review of Recent Research on the Late Basketmaker-Early Pueblo Periods (A.D. 500-920)

2018 ◽  
pp. 69-95
Author(s):  
Richard Wilshusen

Major research projects and significant publications over the last two decades have fundamentally reframed our understanding of the Basketmaker III and Pueblo I periods in the Mesa Verde region. Whereas the last state historic context summaries for these periods, which were published in 1999, focused on the specifics of chronology building, site type definitions, settlement patterning, and other nuts and bolts issues, recent advances in database software and an increasing emphasis on regional research have turned our attention to the larger issues of how agriculture took hold and thereafter transformed the landscape north of the San Juan River. The relatively low populations and small-scale horticultural economies of the Basketmaker II period virtually disappeared between A.D. 500 and 600, to be replaced by a more intensive maize-dependent agricultural economy centered on large communities. The rapid expansion of early Pueblo agricultural settlements across the Mesa Verde region and the subsequent formation of large villages were in part fueled by the accelerating population growth that came with agricultural dependence. In turn, the late ninth-century breakup of these large villages contributed to population migration to the south of the San Juan River and the tenth-century emergence of what ultimately became the Chaco great house system. This review updates the 1999 Basketmaker III and Pueblo I overviews.

1944 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank C. Hibben ◽  
Herbert W. Dick

One of the activities of the University of New Mexico's 1939 field school at Chaco Canyon was a reconnaissance excavation in the vicinity of Largo Canyon, to the northeast of the Chaco, proper. This was a continuation of the survey and excavations of the past four seasons, as a part of the project for outlining chronologically and geographically the culture known as Gallina. The extent of the Gallina manifestation to the east and south has already been fairly accurately delineated, but its western and northwestern boundaries are unknown. Since the San Juan and Mesa Verde centers lie to the northwest, it was deemed imperative that the cultural connections in that direction be determined. Typical Gallina unit houses are common on the headwaters of the Largo and in the Llegua Canyon area which heads in the same region. The extremely rugged area lying between this district and the San Juan and Mesa Verde region, however, is not only difficult of access, but is practically unknown archaeologically.


Author(s):  
William deBuys

In the southwest the specter of climate change invites a long look into the deep past. For anyone who hunts for insights about the nature of the region and the trick of making peace with its aridity, the ubiquitous signs of vanished communities beckon irresistibly—in the ruins of Chaco Canyon, the empty cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, and the mounded rubble of abandoned villages scattered near and far. The “lessons” they offer, however, are not always as clear as we would like them to be. Cautionary tales about the truths and errors of distant centuries can be easy to spin but surprisingly hard to reconcile to the complexity of the archaeological record, which is never static. As with any domain of science, the story told by the archaeology of the Southwest is always emerging, always gaining in heft and detail. When I went looking for someone who could help me read it, the trail I took led to the head of a rugged canyon, choked with piñon and juniper, in the far southwest of Colorado. “There’s a kiva, there’s a kiva, there’s a kiva,” says archaeologist Mark Varien, who is vice president of programs at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, outside Cortez. He points in succession to three circular depressions amid the rubble, signatures of the remains of subterranean rooms that once housed much of the life of the pueblo. Rough blocks of sandstone outline the space the kivas occupied, their roofs having long ago caved in. Wind has filled their cavities with the dust and litter of centuries. Now they bloom with cliff rose and sagebrush. We stand just behind the kivas on a mound of half-buried building stones, which are canted at every angle—the remains of masonry rooms. To either side lie the mounds of more room blocks, their rear walls forming the perimeter of the pueblo, and the pueblo itself wrapping around the cleft of a rocky draw. The draw leads south and widens into Sand Canyon, a dry tributary of McElmo Creek, which flows west out of Colorado and joins the San Juan River not far away in Utah.


Author(s):  
Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne ◽  
Karletta Chief ◽  
Perry H. Charley ◽  
Mae-Gilene Begay ◽  
Nathan Lothrop ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
San Juan ◽  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Favis Joseph C. Balinado ◽  
Gerald Paolo Dar Santos ◽  
Engr. Rio A. Escanilla ◽  
Alejandro Danilo Banaag ◽  
Andreana Amor M. Gulay ◽  
...  

Geology ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Wolkowinsky ◽  
Darryl E. Granger

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 333
Author(s):  
Silvia Palacios ◽  
Gabriela Lara ◽  
Laura Perucca

. The earthquakes of 1894, 1944, 1952 and 1977 occurred in the province of San Juan in central-wesern Argentina caused numerous processes of soils and sediment liquefaction, including those in the Ullum-Zonda valley. Historical records showed cracks, sand volcanoes, craters and differential settlements, which caused significant damage to housing and the agro-industrial sector of the region. In this work, we carried out a study of the susceptibility to liquefaction of soils and sedimentary deposits in the Ullum-Zonda valley. This was conducted using a methodology in which conditioning factors such as depth of the water table, historical records of liquefaction, potential seismogenic sources, origin, age and grain size of the soils and sedimentary deposits, among others, were evaluated and weighted. An iterative process of overlapping maps weighted the influence of the different factors in the assessment of susceptibility. Once the optimal combination was achieved, a final map with the zoning of soils and sediment susceptibility to liquefaction was obtained for the Ulum-Zonda Valley. The achieved zoning was related to a susceptibility index (SI), qualitatively classified as very high, high, moderate and low. The zone of very high susceptibility to liquefaction is located in the distal portion of the alluvial fan formed by the San Juan River in the Ullum-Zonda Valley, the areas of high to moderate susceptibility in the middle sector of the fan, and those of moderate to low susceptibility correspond to the proximal-middle sector of the fan. The main villages of the Ullum-Zonda valley, Ibáñez (head of the Ullum department) to the north of the San Juan River, Basilio Nievas (head of the Zonda department), to the south of the river, Tacú residential sector (located south of the Ullum dam) and the yacht clubs (located on the northeast periphery of the dam) are located in the areas of high to very high susceptibility, where the main conditioning factors are soil and sediments granulometry and the depth of the phreatic level.


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