Editing Rio Grande (section)

===Prior to European contact===
[[File:Rio Grande Creede.jpg|thumb|right|The Upper Rio Grande near [[Creede, Colorado]]]]
Archeological sites from the earliest human presence in the Rio Grande Valley are scarce, due to traditional Indigenous nomadic culture, [[Pleistocene]] and [[Holocene]] [[river incision]] or burial under the Holocene floodplain. However, some early sites are preserved on [[West Mesa]] on the west side of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque. These include [[Folsom tradition|Folsom]] sites, possibly dating from around 10,800 to 9,700 BCE, that were probably short-term sites such as buffalo kill sites. Preservation is better in flanking basins of the Rio Grande Valley, where numerous Folsom sites and a much smaller number of earlier [[Clovis culture|Clovis]] sites have been identified.<ref name="BallengerEtal2017">{{cite book |last1 = Ballenger |first1 = Jesse |last2 = Holliday |first2 = Vance |last3 = Sanchez |first3 = Guadelupe |editor1-first = Barbara |editor1-last = Mills |editor2-first = Severin |editor2-last = Fowles |title = The Earliest People in the Southwest |year = 2017 |volume = 1 |doi = 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199978427.013.11 }}</ref> Later [[Paleo-Indian]] groups included the [[Belen point|Belen]] and [[Cody complex|Cody]] cultures, who appear to have taken advantage of the Rio Grande Valley for seasonal migrations and may have settled more permanently in the valley.<ref name=VeirraEtal2012>{{cite book |last1 = Vierra |first1 = B.J. |last2 = Jodry |first2 = M.A. |last3 = Shackley |first3 = M.S. |last4 = Dilley |first4 = M.J. |last5 = Bousman |first5 = C.B. |last6 = Vierra |first6 = B.J. |year = 2012 |chapter = Late Paleoindian and early archaic foragers in the Northern Southwest |title = From the Pleistocene to the Holocene: Human organization and cultural transformations in prehistoric North America |volume = 17 |page = 171 |publisher = Texas A&M University Press |isbn = 978-1603447782 |edition = }}</ref>

The Paleo-Indian cultures gave way to the [[Southwestern Archaic Traditions|Archaic]] [[Oshara tradition]] beginning around 5450 BCE.<ref name=Gibbon798>{{cite book |last1 = Gibbon |first1 = Guy E. |first2 = Kenneth M. |last2 = Ames |year = 1998 |title = Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia |location = New York |publisher = Taylor and Francis |page = 798 |isbn = 081530725X }}</ref> The Oshara began cultivation of [[maize]] between 1750 and 750 BCE, and their settlements became larger and more permanent.<ref name=VeirraEtal2012/>

Drought induced the collapse of the [[Ancestral Puebloan]] culture, at [[Chaco Canyon]] and elsewhere across the Four Corners region, at around 1130 CE. This led to a mass migration of the Ancestral Puebloans to the Rio Grande and other more fertile valleys of the Southwest, competing with other indigenous communities such as the Apache with territory in the Rio Grande Valley.<ref>{{cite book |last1 = Stuart |first1 = D.E. |year = 2008 |chapter = The Chaco Ancestral Puebloans |title = Canyon Gardens: The Ancient Pueblo Landscapes of the American Southwest |isbn = 978-0826338600 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-w9DYqcjwL8C&dq=%22rio+grande%22+%22ancestral+puebloans%22&pg=PA189 |access-date = November 15, 2021 |page = 189 |publisher = UNM Press }}</ref> This led to decades of conflict (the Coalition Period), the eventual merging of cultures, and the establishment of most of the [[Tanoan]] and [[Keresan]] [[pueblos]] of the Rio Grande Valley. This was followed by the Classic Period, from about 1325 CE to 1600 CE and the arrival of the Spanish. The upper Rio Grande Valley was characterized by occasional periods of extreme drought, and the human inhabitants make extensive use of gridded gardens and check dams to stretch the uncertain water supply.<ref>{{cite journal |last1 = Peckham |first1 = S. |year = 1984 |title = The Anasazi Culture of the Northern Rio Grande Rift |journal = New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series |volume = 35 |pages = 275–281 |url = http://www.npshistory.com/publications/rigr/nmgsg-35fc-275.pdf |archive-url = https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.npshistory.com/publications/rigr/nmgsg-35fc-275.pdf |archive-date = October 9, 2022 |url-status = live |access-date = November 15, 2021 }}</ref>