MODULE TWO

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Environment of the Southwest
Paleoindians Enter the New World
Pleistocene Extinctions
Study Terms

ENVIRONMENT OF THE SOUTHWEST

Chapter 1. "From Clovis to Coronado", The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona.

Southwestern Life-Zones and Biotic Communities of the Southwest Handout
Sites of the Southwest Map

The geographic definition of the Southwest is variable and has changed according to what is being considered. Until recently archaeologists thought of the Southwest as a culture area that included all of the American states of Arizona and New Mexico, the southern-most parts of Utah and Colorado and all of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. An easy-to-remember definition of this broad region is that it extends from Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Las Vegas, Nevada, and from Durango, Colorado, to Durango, Mexico. An even simpler definition is "where mesquite grows."

Today archaeologists divide this broad region into the American Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Because this course emphasizes the prehistory of Arizona and New Mexico, referring to this as the American Southwest is appropriate.

Within even the restricted region of Arizona and New Mexico the environmental diversity is enormous. Precipitation, temperature, elevation, and landform are among the factors that contribute to this diversity in plant and animal life in the Southwest. The Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts are marked by low rainfall. The rainfall pattern throughout the Southwest is biannual. High energy summer thunderstorms originating out of the Gulf of Mexico dump large quantities of water in a fairly short time contributing to rapid runoff and erosion. Winter precipitation out of the Pacific Ocean comes as both snow and gentle rain that can soak into the ground.

Temperature extremes are also quite common ranging from the scorching triple digits of a summer day in the desert to the howling, sub-zero, January wind atop Mount Humphrey at 12,655 feet above sea level.