Loading…
10
The dendro date that flipped my opinion on the Mesa Verde theory
I've spent 3 years reading about the Ancestral Puebloans, and last month I finally saw the core samples from the 2019 excavation near Cortez. Everyone online pushes the drought collapse story, but those tree rings show a wet period right before the abandonment. I think the real story is more about social tension and shifting trade routes, not just climate. The pottery shards in the upper layers match northern styles, which suggests people left for cultural reasons. Am I the only one who thinks we lean too hard on environmental doom narratives?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
oliver_ward1420d ago
Has anyone looked at the corn cobs they left behind in the storage rooms? The ones from the last few years show a shift to a drought-resistant variety, which means they were planning for dry times, not running from them.
7