THE DEPOPULATION OF THE NORTHERN SAN-JUAN - CONDITIONS IN THE TURBULENT 1200S

Population peaked in the Northern San Juan in the early A.D. 1200s, bu t many people remained after A.D. 1250. Regional abandonment probably started in the west in the late 1260s and in the central area in the 1 270s; it was complete by the early or middle 1280s. The social context of the late 1200s included warfare, settlement aggregation, minimal t rade with groups outside the region, and low levels of intra- and inte rcommunity hierarchy. Climatic and other environmental problems undoub tedly had severe effects on farming and perhaps on domestic water supp lies. These difficulties probably gave abandonment the principal ''pus h,'' but complete depopulation of the region may also have required so ciocultural ''pulls'' from outside the region. (C) 1995 Academic Press , Inc.