Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T13:48:11.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Past Climate of the Navajo Reservoir District

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Arthur H. Harris
Arthur H. Harris*
Affiliation:
Museum of Arid Land Biology, University of Texas at EI Paso
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The hypothesis is advanced that Yellow-bellied Marmots (Marmota flaviventris) are affected in their geographic distribution by seasonality of precipitation in such a manner that their presence in Southwestern archaeological sites indicates a minimum of about two inches of winter precipitation. Application of this hypothesis to past changes in marmot distribution in the Navajo Reservoir District (northwestern New Mexico and adjacent Colorado) indicates an early period of high effective moisture produced predominantly by summer rains. At about A.D. 700-800, there occurred a change to dominant winter precipitation which lasted until ca. A.D. 1000 or later. This model agrees with previous work based on faunal analysis but is exactly counter to that proposed on the basis of alluvial and pollen studies.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , July 1970 , pp. 374 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dittert, Alfred E. Jr., Hester, Jim J., and Eddy, Frank W. 1961 An archaeological survey of the Navajo Reservoir District northwestern New Mexico. Monographs of the School of American Research and the Museum of New Mexico, No. 23.Google Scholar
Hall, E. Raymond, and Kelson, Keith R. 1959 The Mammals of North America. Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Arthur H. 1963a Ecological distribution of some vertebrates in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico. Museum of New Mexico Papers in Anthropology, No. 8.Google Scholar
Harris, Arthur H. 1963b Vertebrate remains and past environmental reconstruction in the Navajo Reservoir District. Museum of New Mexico Papers in Anthropology, No. 11.Google Scholar
Harris, Arthur H. 1970 The Dry Cave mammalian fauna and late pluvial conditions in southeastern New Mexico. Texas Journal of Science (In Press).Google Scholar
Harris, Arthur H., and Findley, James S. 1964 Pleistocene-Recent fauna of the Isleta Caves, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. American Journal of Science 262:114–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, Arthur H. 1915 Revision of the American marmots. North American Fauna, No. 37.Google Scholar
Kincer, J. B. 1941 Climate and weather data for the United States. In Climate and Man, Yearbook of Agriculture, pp. 685–747.Google Scholar
Lange, Arthur L. 1956 Woodchuck remains in northern Arizona Caves. Journal of Mammalogy 37:289–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoenwetter, James 1966 A Re-evaluation of the Navajo Reservoir pollen chronology. El Palacio 73:19–26.Google Scholar
Schoenwetter, James, and Eddy, Frank W. 1964 Alluvial and palynological reconstruction of environments, Navajo Reservoir District. Museum of New Mexico Papers in Anthropology, No. 13.Google Scholar
Schultz, C. B., and Howard, E. B. 1935 The fauna of Burnet Cave, Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 87:273–298.Google Scholar
Stearns, C. E. 1942 A fossil marmot from New Mexico and its climatic significance. American Journal of Science 240:867–878.Google Scholar
Tuan, Yi-Fu 1966 New Mexican gullies: a critical review and some recent observations. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 56:573–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar