Large Game Abundance and Source-Sink Dynamics in the Northern Rio Grande and Mesa Verde regions ca. AD 1300

Abandonment of the Mesa Verde region (ca. A.D. 1300) has fascinated archaeologists for decades. The Northern Rio Grande (NRG) region of New Mexico is one area Ancestral Puebloan people may have migrated to, as evidenced by an increase in population density in the area after A.D. 1300.  Several pull factors may have drawn Mesa Verde people to the NRG, including abundant large game.  To address this as a potential pull factor, we assess hunting efficiency using zooarchaeological data from three Mesa Verde Pueblo I-III (A.D. 750 – 1300) sites and two NRG sites (ca. A.D. 1300 – 1600).  If the Mesa Verde region had become a faunal sink, then large game abundance should have been substantially higher in the Northern Rio Grande after AD 1300.