SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF CULTURE IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO. 91 



value because they were reached independently and without knowledge of the investigations 

 described in this volume. They quote various authors for and against changes of climate, among 

 whom Lowe, L. F. Ward, Hewett, Cummings, Hoffman, Morrison, Newbury, and Blake believe 

 in changes, although several of them base their belief on very slight evidence. On the other 

 hand. Holmes speaks doubtfully, and Cope, Fewkes, Mindeleff, and Bandelier are strongly opposed 

 to the idea. None of these authors, however, goes into the question exhaustively. A quotation 

 from Hewett* in regard to the Pajarito or Jemez Plateau will illustrate the extent to which the 

 subject has hitherto been investigated: 



"It appears that the abandonment of the cliff and pueblo villages of the plateau occurred from 

 600 to 800 years ago as a result of climatic modifications by reason of which the hardships of 

 living at these sites became unendurable. The transition from plateau to valley life was not 

 necessarily sudden. There is no evidence of any great simultaneous movement from all parts of 

 the plateau. The change was probably accomplished within a generation or two, one village 

 after another removing to the valley or to more distant places, as the desiccation of the plateau 

 proceeded. There is at present not a single stream on the east side of the Jemez Plateau between 

 the Chama and the Jemez that carries its water to the Rio Grande throughout the year. The 

 ancient Tewa people were, as are their modern successors, agriculturists; hence, their hving was 

 dependent on the water-supply. Only the most primitive style of irrigation was practised and 

 there is every evidence that the region was never rich in game or natural food products of any 

 kind." 



Henderson and Robbins take up the matter much more fully than their predecessors. Inas- 

 much as their work centered in the Pajarito Plateau, it will be worth while to quote what they say 

 as to the Canon de los Frijoles.f 



"The ancient ruins in the canyon itself once must have housed some hundreds of people even 

 if all the ruins were not inhabited contemporaneously, and there is nothing to indicate that they 

 were not practically all occupied at the same time. Bandelier, who is conservative, places the 

 population at 1,500. In addition, the ruins of old dwellings are to be found everywhere on the 

 adjacent mesas and scattered throughout the other canyons which cut the plateau. The mesa 

 dwellings are not so situated as to indicate that they were placed on elevated ground for pro- 

 tection from enemies, and it seems wholly improbable that their occupants would have lived in 

 such places if they were dependent for food on crops in the canyons. It is also inconceivable 

 that they would have lived on the mesas with their water-supply in the bottoms of the canyons, 

 450 to 600 feet below them, unless the canyons were already occupied and their tillable land was 

 taken up by others. No extensive irrigation works on the mesas have yet been discovered which 

 would provide irrigation for crops, and carrying water for irrigation to the mesas from the nearest 

 present sources would have been quite impracticable, yet there is no reason to believe that corn 

 could now grow on the mesas in the vicinity of these ruins. The country is not and probably has 

 not been rich in game. It is difficult to believe that so many people would have built on the 

 mesas unless they could have raised crops there without irrigation. With fertile valleys, good 

 water, and better opportunities in the bottoms of the canyons for protection and seclusion from 

 enemies, it seems very much more hkely that they would have occupied the valleys alone unless 

 there were more inhabitants than the limited valley areas would support. Hence a logical con- 

 clusion is that probably most of the dwelhngs in the canyons and on the mesas were occupied 

 simultaneously at some period. The fact that it was not necessary to live near the fields would 

 hardly account for the placing of the homes on the high, dry mesas, because locating thern here 

 would add to the distance and altitude to which the grain and water must be carried. It is also 

 wholly improbable that any great number of springs was destroyed by earthquakes or concealed 

 by the inhabitants on abandoning the dwellings, without many of them, or, indeed, most of them, 

 revealing themselves now by seepage, while if destroyed by desiccation, that would put an end 

 to them and stop seepage. 



" If there has been progressive desiccation of the region it would be fully adequate to account 

 for the abandonment of these ruins by the rather large population which probably once occupied 

 them. Then, inasmuch as the same condition is found over a very large area, indicating that 

 in the whole now arid region the aggregate population must have been very great, the question 

 would arise, where did they go? It is not sufficient to say merely that they were driven out. 



* Hewett, Edgar L.: Antiquities of the Jemez Plateau, New Mexico, Bull. 32, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 13, 1906. 

 t Hewett, Henderson, and Robbins: Physiography of the Rio Grande Valley, pp. 53, 55, and 56. 



