1300 to 1530 Collapse of the Socioeconomic Chains, and Cultural Regression

Starting around 1300 and growing gradually, there was a general collapse of all the cultural chains in Northwestern Mexico and Southwestern United States (you can click on the image to see it better)

We don´t know the causes of this collapse, although the possibilities are: environmental degradation, overexploitation of the land, a long drought period, new and hostile human groups arriving, or the local repercussion of the collapse of one of the great civilizations in Central Mexico as possible causes.

For instance, around 1300 Athabascan groups, as the Apaches, arrived to northwestern Mexico and southwestern US. They had lived around the McKenzie river, in Canada, forming nomad bands of hunters and recollectors, without knowledge of agriculture.

The only thing we are sure of, is that after this collapse of the native cultures that had flourished here, as well as of the trade networks, the style of life of the inhabitants returned to a less organized type of organization, in which the yearly cycles of the natural environment recuperated their preponderance, limiting the extension and complexity of this society.

The regional inhabitants returned to semi nomadism in the more arid regions, while in those in which there was water and good soils, agriculture remained as a way of life, although not in the scale it had achieved during the Hohokam and Trincheras cultures period.