Chacoan Outlier Depopulation and 12th Century Arroyo Cutting near Zuni Salt Lake, New Mexico

Summary

Depopulation of Chacoan outlier settlements in the Cibola culture area near Zuni Salt Lake ~AD 1130 has been attributed to the onset of a persistent 50-year drought. Prior alluvial stratigraphy studies concluded that arroyo formation near these settlements occurred two centuries after this exodus and therefore was not a contributing factor. The present study used a larger sample of radiocarbon dates, including short-lived, charred plant material from alluvial contexts and tree-rings from several deeply buried juniper trees preserved at the base of paleoarroyo fills, to refine the dating of late prehistoric channel entrenchment in the Zuni Salt Lake area. Bayesian age modeling that included juniper germination dates determined by radiocarbon wiggle matching facilitated construction of a high-resolution alluvial chronology. The revised chronology includes an arroyo-cutting episode constrained to the 60-year interval between AD 1106 and 1166. This finding suggests that terminal Pueblo II depopulation of the Zuni Salt Lake area ~AD1130 probably did in fact coincide with extensive arroyo formation. This landscape degradation greatly reduced the area’s agricultural potential and arguably played a significant role in its mid-12th century depopulation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20572