This volume examines the large Puebloan ruins in the middle San Juan River valley in the Four Corners region of northwestern New Mexico. While there are many ruins in the area dating to the A.D. 1050 to 1300 time period, the largest and most elaborate are Salmon and Aztec. Both sites have seen extensive research—Aztec by Earl Morris from 1916-21, and Salmon by Cynthia Irwin-Williams from 1972-79—and there are thousands of artifacts from both.
The editors of this study agree with Morris and Irwin-Williams that both of these impressive sites were developed and built by colonists from Chaco Canyon, the huge complex to the south, beginning in about the A.D. 1090s to about 1130, when the entire Chacoan system collapsed. Utilizing the extensive tree-ring data, these editors conclude that the sites were not abandoned as Morris and Irwin-Williams believed, but rather continuously occupied at a lesser level into the Mesa Verde period. By about 1300 the entire region was abandoned.
Aztec and Salmon ruins are key parts of the story of the Chaco and Mesa Verde systems, and this volume is an excellent introduction into the very interesting and complex archaeology of the region.—Mark Michel