36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 188 



January. Extreme average maximum and minimum temperatures 

 are 87.5° in July and 19.3° in January. The highest temperature 

 ever recorded is 100°; lowest —12°. 



The annual precipitation averages 12.80 inches, distributed re- 

 markably evenly throughout the year. The lowest average month 

 is June, with 0.35 inches, and the highest August, with 1.62 inches. 



Traces of snowfall have been recorded in every month of the year. 

 However, 90 percent of snow falls in the 4 months from December 

 through March. The average annual snowfall is 52.3 inches. The 

 highest average month is February, with 14.9 inches. Freezing tem- 

 peratures have occurred in every month save July and August, and the 

 growing season averages little more than 100 days. A mean 4.5-inch 

 precipitation is received during the growing season. A generalized 

 description of the climate of the Navaho country is that of Field 

 (1953). 



HISTORICAL SETTING 



A curious anomaly of the Shonto country is the fact that its pre- 

 history seems to be considerably better known than its recent history. 

 The rise and fall of the Puebloan people who occupied the area a 

 thousand years ago have been charted in detail through the work 

 of numerous arclieologists. By contrast, the history of the Navaho 

 settlement and even of European penetration into the same area re- 

 main shrouded in mystery which persists into the present century. 



PEEHISTORY 



Among anthropologists, the Shonto area is chiefly famous as the 

 original homeland of the Kayenta branch of the Anasazi or prehis- 

 toric Pueblo people. Relics of their prehistoric occupation are found 

 upon almost every acre of the region, and include the celebrated 

 Betatakin and Keet Seel ruins. The prehistoric farmers perhaps 

 sought out the deeply incised highlands deliberately, as the best 

 watered portion of the lower San Juan basin. Following the tre- 

 mendous social amalgamation which occurred in Pueblo life during 

 the 12th and 13th centuries, however, the limited soil resources of 

 the highlands proved incapable of supporting concentrated agricul- 

 tural populations. Throughout the Pueblo area at about A.D. 1300, 

 there was a general abandonment of eroded mesas in favor of down- 

 stream floodplains, as soil rather than water became the critical 

 need. The Kayenta people removed themselves from the Shonto 

 area to the broad floodplains at the southern foot of Black Mesa, 

 where their descendants survive as the Hopi of today.* Prior to 

 the present century, then, the Shonto area supported its heaviest 

 population nearly 1,000 years ago. 



* This theory of the prehistoric population and depopulation of the Tsegl area Is set 

 forth at length In Adams, MS. 



