2016-10-20_PERMIT FILE - C1981035A (18)

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components), while in the adjacent MVMDU, 40.8 percent of identifiable components are classified as PII. During the present survey, no PII components were identified. 4.1.3.5 Pueblo 111 Period The early Pueblo III period (AD 1150-1225) begins a trend towards increasingly large residential communities, although the vast majority of sites are still hamlets (Lipe and Varien 1999b). Paleoclimatical reconstructions indicate a prolonged drought occurred from AD 1130 to 1180, which seems to correlate with a period of little new construction based on cutting dates from structural beam -cut tree -ring samples (p. 292). Local pottery types found on early PIII sites in the western drainages include McElmo B/W, Dolores Corrugated, and Mesa Verde Corrugated, while exotic wares decrease. By late Pueblo III times, Mesa Verde B/W, Mesa Verde Corrugated, and Hovenweep Gray become more common and eventually replace the earlier wares. Settlement patterns in early PIII continue from earlier times with an emphasis on mesa top interiors surrounded by deep, arable, and loess soils. By late PIII times (AD 1225-1300), a dramatic shift toward canyon rim and alcove settings (cliff dwellings) near canyon heads is underway and settlements become aggregated with the majority of the population now living in densely populated villages and community centers (p. 303). These canyon oriented settlements are usually in close proximity to springs and ofeeten incorporated into the site itself. Ancestral Pueblo population growth probably reached its peak from AD 1200-1250. Tree -ring studies suggest that beam cutting rates continued to be high up to the AD 126Os to 127Os, with little to no evidence of beam -cutting in or following the 128Os, suggesting a rapid abandonment of the region was underway, and correlating with the Great Drought of AD 1276 to 1299. Peterson (1992) argues that in addition to drought, this period is known as the Little Ice Age and infers, on several lines of evidence that the growing season contracted to an unbearable level for maize farmers. Conflict and warfare during periods of food scarcity likely increased and played a role in the depopulation of the area, although climate and warfare seem insufficient by themselves to explain the complete Ancestral Pueblo abandonment of the Four Corners region with its myriad of arable habitat types. As Lipe and Varien (1999b) point out, losers in warfare would likely be displaced, but the winners of such conflicts would stay. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that small, non -equestrian hunting and gathering groups, like the prehistoric Athabaskan and Numic, could possibly dislodge well -organized and fortified pueblo communities numbering in the hundreds and thousands. The Ancestral Pueblo migration out of the Four Corners region to the Rio Grande and Little Colorado watersheds in the late 12OOs, where summer monsoonal moisture is stronger, probably involved a variety of climatological and social factors for such a thorough abandonment of an ecologically diverse and productive region. Lipe and Varien (1999b) argue that the cultural and economic attractiveness of the Little Colorado River and Middle Rio Grande regions, in addition to the typically cited environmental and social stresses in the Four Corners, must have been overwhelmingly strong for such a thorough abandonment of a vast cultural landscape. The LPDU sees a dramatic decrease in population during the PIII period (only 2.5 percent of identifiable components are classified as PIII in the LPDU). Pueblo III period occupations were not identified in the project area. 4.1.4 Navajo Tradition Both Dinetah and Gobernador phase Navajo sites are present in the LPDU, ADU, and Upper San Juan - Piedra Drainage Unit. These sites tend to increase with frequency south towards the New Mexico border, probably due to the presence of Ute Indians in southern Colorado. Dittert (1958) initially defined the An Intensive CRI for GCC Energy's Proposed Groundwater Monitoring Wells on State and Private Lands in La Plata County, CO SEAS 16-098 October 2016 11