Unpopular take: the Anasazi didn't collapse from drought, they just moved

I keep reading articles that blame the Ancestral Puebloan abandonment of Mesa Verde on a mega-drought around 1300 AD. But last summer I spent a week hiking through the canyons in southern Utah and found three separate sites with intact water diversion systems that still channel runoff. If they were smart enough to build those, why wouldn't they just adapt? I think the real story is more about social tension or resource competition, not environmental failure. Most archaeologists push the drought angle because it fits a neat narrative. Has anyone else seen evidence that contradicts the popular collapse theories?

2 comments

2 Comments

sean_perry1mo ago

The phrase "the total lack of a clear destination" is basically the whole problem with this theory, @andrew_sanchez94. People act like the Anasazi just vanished into thin air and that's somehow a simpler explanation than "they built some rock walls and then left when the food ran out." But if you look at the archaeological record, there's plenty of evidence they showed up in places like the Rio Grande valley or the Hopi mesas, just not with the exact same pottery or building styles because cultures change over time. Honestly, this whole "they just moved" argument sounds like someone watched a YouTube video and decided they cracked the case. It's not that serious, guys. Drought plus social tension plus a few hundred years of slow movement equals the end of Mesa Verde, not some big mystery.

andrew_sanchez941mo ago

wait but if they moved instead of collapsed, wouldn't there be more evidence of them showing up somewhere else? i've looked into the Hopi and Zuni migration stories and they definitely talk about leaving the canyons, but nobody seems to connect that to a specific new settlement with the same pottery styles or building techniques. like if they were smart enough to build those water channels, why wouldn't they leave behind some kind of trace in the places they supposedly moved to? i'm not saying drought wasn't a factor, but the total lack of a clear destination for where they went makes the whole "just moved" argument sound kind of hollow