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ChapterII
MESAVERDEREGIONDEFINITION,NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT,HISTORYANDMETHODOLOGY
OFRESEARCH
II.1.DEFINITIONANDBORDERSOFTHECENTRALMESA
VERDEREGION
TheMesaVerderegionispartofalargerareacalledtheNorthAmericanSouthwest(Fig.
1).Archaeologically,theNorthAmericanSouthwestcoverstheapproximateareaof
whatistodayUtah,Colorado,Arizona,NewMexico,southernCalifornia,southeastern
Nevada,andwesternTexasintheU.S.,andnorthernportionsofthestatesofSonoraand
ChihuahuainMexico(Cordell1997;Plog1997).Thisareaincludesdiversegeography
andclimaticconditions,thoughdrysemi-desertplainsprevail;theseplainsareinter-
ruptedbyplateausandmountainrangeswithmanypineandsprucewoodlands.
Archaeologically,theMesaVerderegionincludesadjacentpartsofwhatarepres-
entlysoutheasternUtah,southwesternColorado,northeasternArizona,andnorthwestern
NewMexico.ThesefourstatesmeetatwhatisknownastheFourCorners,andthat
generalareaisreferredtoastheFourCornersareaoftheU.S.TheMesaVerderegionis
alsoknownastheNorthernSanJuanregion,andthesetwotermsareoftenusedinter-
changeably(Lipe1995a:143–144;Rohn1989:149–150;Varien2000:6).SanJuan
RiverbeginsinsouthernColorado(intheSanJuanMountains),passesthroughthe
northwesternpartofNewMexico,andfeedsintoColoradoRiverinUtah;thisriver
mighthavebeentreatedasanaturalboundaryinancienttimes,anditroughlyservesas
aculturalboundarybetweentheMesaVerderegionandareastothesouth,includingthe
ChacoregioninnorthwesternNewMexicoandtheKayentaregioninnortheastern
Arizona.EventodayitisconsideredthenaturalnorthernborderofthelandoftheNavajo
Indiannation(Glowacki2006:12,referthereforfurtherliterature).
However,thesetworegionaltermsMesaVerdeandNorthernSanJuanarenot
synonymous,becausethelatterregioniscommonlydefinedasthegeographicareaen-
compassedbythenortherndrainageoftheSanJuanRiver(Varien2000:6)andasbeing
surroundedbytheLaPlata,SanJuan,Abajo,LaSal,andCarrizomountains,whereasthe
MesaVerderegionismoreaculturaldesignation,theboundariesofwhichvariedthrough
time.Nevertheless,forthetimeunderconsiderationinthisbookthethirteenthcentury