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Paleoindian Archaic Basketmaker II Basketmaker III Pueblo I Pueblo II Pueblo III
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The Pueblo III Period: A.D. 1150 to 1300Across the Mesa Verde region, thousands of people are congregating in immense pueblos. Walled villages wrapped around canyon heads and magnificent cliff dwellings perched on steep, rocky slopes are home to the majority of the population. The time is the mid-thirteenth century, and the Pueblo people of the Mesa Verde region, who over the centuries have built a remarkable cultural legacy, will soon carry that legacy to new homes in the south. The Pueblo III period was a time of dramatic change. Early in the period, most people lived in small farmsteads loosely clustered around community centers. But by A.D. 1250, almost everyone had left their farmsteads and moved into the community centers, resulting in the formation of large villages. And most of those villages were located in canyon settings—around canyon heads or in rock alcoves high above the canyon floors (Figure 1).
Paralleling these developments was an astonishing increase in the number of people living in the area. Archaeologists believe that the Pueblo population in the Mesa Verde region reached its peak between A.D. 1200 and 1250, probably numbering in the tens of thousands. But only a few decades later, by about A.D. 1285, the Pueblo people had left the region, moving to southern villages in present-day Arizona and New Mexico. Such dramatic changes in such a short period of time naturally raise the question “Why?” Why did the Pueblo people suddenly congregate in such large numbers in and near the canyons? Why, after investing so much effort in building enormous villages, did the entire population depart the region? Archaeologists have long pondered these and related questions, and they continue to explore a variety of explanations. It is possible that social conflict and deteriorating environmental conditions in the Mesa Verde region forced, or at least contributed to, the migration from the area. Or perhaps better conditions and exciting new social developments in pueblos to the south—for example, in the Pueblo communities along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico—actually drew the people of the Mesa Verde region away. There is no single or simple answer. What we do know, of course, is that the Pueblo people and their culture continue to thrive today in communities in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. On the Hopi mesas, at Zuni, and in 18 pueblos along the Rio Grande River, the Pueblo people are a living testament to the enduring character, spirit, and accomplishments of their ancestors (Figure 2).
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