The Sand Canyon Archaeological Project: A Progress Report

The Sand Canyon Project is a continuing interdisciplinary study of the Pueblo Indian occupation of southwestern Colorado, focusing on the period A.D. 1150-1300. Working in a field area approximately fifteen miles northwest of Mesa Verde National Park, project archaeologists are investigating two classic problems in Puebloan archaeology; the shift from dispersed upland settlement to large, canyon-oriented pueblos and the rapid abandonment of the northern San Juan area in the late A.D. 1200's. Survey results, intensive and test excavations at selected sites (including Sand Canyon Pueblo), a study of agricultural productivity during the late Pueblo period, and an oral history of twentieth-century homesteading are among the topics reported in this monograph.