FROM DROUGHT TO DROUGHT
Hunting and Gathering Sites of the Galina Indians

Florence Hawley Ellis is a distinguished anthropologist and historian, and was Director of the Florence Hawley Ellis Museurn and the archeological Field School at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Over the past years she has directed excavation at hunting and gathering camp sites on Canjilon Mountain in Rio Arriba County, northern New Mexico, dating from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, A.D. These sites were inhabited seasonally by people from the greatest settlements to the north and west--among them Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon-to avoid the recurrent summer droughts. In hot summers the people brought camping equipment, and in the fall they packed up stores of dried meat, berries, and medicinal plants to take back to their cliff dwellings and stone houses. Later they moved to the Jemez Pueblo on the Rio Grand between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where their descendants live today. This report has the usual archeological data (drawings of artifacts, floor plans of caves, measurements of structures, etc.), but Dr. Ellis never loses sight of the people who used these artifacts and lived in the caves on these lava flats. She tells us about the little capes made of turkey feathers from domesticated birds, the dog fur that was woven into garments, the little sipapus (holes in the floor to communicate with the underworld), and other evidence of Pueblo Indian life and work. Dr. Ellis' knowledge of history and her superior writing make this a most readable and unusual archeological report.
     
      —From “Independent Publisher”
     
            “Readers familiar with Ghost Ranch will welcome this opportunity to learn more about the archaeological work going on there. Florence Hawley Ellis, who directs the work and for whom the Ghost Ranch Museum of Anthropology is named, reports on the Canjilón Mountain hunting and gathering sites.”
     
      —Fern Lyon, New Mexico Magazine
     
     
            “Florence Hawley Ellis is a distinguished anthropologist and historian, and is now Director of the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum and the archeological Field School at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Over the past years she has directed excavation at hunting and gathering camp sites on Canjilon Mountain in Rio Arriba County, northern New Mexico, dating from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, A.D. These sites were inhabited seasonally by people from the greatest settlements to the north and west—among them Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon—to avoid the recurrent summer droughts. In hot summers the people brought camping equipment, and in the fall they packed up stores of dried meat, berries, and medicinal plants to take back to their cliff dwellings and stone houses. Later they moved to the Jemez Pueblo on the Rio Grande between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where their descendants live today.
            “This report has the usual archeological data (drawings of artifacts, floor plans of caves, measurements of structures, etc.), but Dr. Ellis never loses sight of the people who used these artifacts and lived in the caves on these lava flats. She tells us about the little capes made of turkey feathers from domesticated birds, the dog fur that was woven into garments, the little sipapus (holes in the floor to communicate with the underworld), and other evidence of Pueblo Indian life and work. Dr Ellis’ knowledge of history and her superior writing make this a most readable and unusual archeological report.”
     
      —Janet Lecompte, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, Small Press Magazine