Perhaps the most enduring controversy in Southwestern archaeology is what happened to the people who abandoned Mesa Verde and the Four Corners region in the late 13th century. By A.D. 1300 some 25,000 people who lived there for hundreds of years were gone—never to return. At about the same time, people in the Tewa area of the northern Rio Grande Valley north of Santa Fe coalesced into large towns, seemingly indicating a major population expansion. Generations of archaeologists have been taught that the Mesa Verdeans immigrated to the Rio Grande to form what became the eight modern Tewa/Tiwa pueblos—including Santa Clara, Nambe, and Taos. This view is hotly contested by archaeologists who argue that there is little evidence to support this conventional wisdom.
In this volume, Scott Ortman, late of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado, makes the strongest case yet for a large scale migration from the Four Corners to the Rio Grande in the late 1200s. Working systematically, Ortman builds his case using genetic, linguistic, and cultural heritage evidence including oral traditions and material culture on evidence in each of these arenas. For example, he compares skull measurements from the Four Corners to those of the Rio Grande and finds a high degree of similarity among some 900 individuals. On the other hand he finds much less similarity with pre-1200 Rio Grande skulls.
Ortman contends that as the people migrated from Mesa Verde they underwent a striking social transformation resulting in a unique hybrid of ideas and practices in the resulting Tewa culture, including a new religion. He also argues that the Tewa language came from the Four Corners.
Winds from the North is a very important addition to the scholarship of southwestern archaeology. It makes the strongest argument yet to support the commonly held belief that the people of Mesa Verde and the Four Corners migrated to the Rio Grande Valley. Not everyone, however, will be convinced, and this debate will continue for years to come. – Mark Michel
