User:Smallchief/costa rica

COLORADO -- DONE

Counties with large population losses
The following Great Plains counties lost more than 60 percent of their population from the census year when they attained their highest population until 2010. Sources:, Population of Counties by Dicennial Census, 1900-1990, accessed 12 August 2021;. accessed 24 May 2022

Pre-history
Evidence of American Indian presence in the upper Pecos River valley goes back to 11,500 BCE. Sedentary and more intensive occupation began about 600 CE, coinciding with the adoption of agriculture, especially maize and the use of the bow and arrow instead of the atlatl for hunting. Archaeologists have found permanent dwellings in the form of pit-houses dating to 800 to 950 CE. Apparently, settlement in the Pecos River valley was sparse until about 1200 CE, when villages of adobe houses began to form. In the period 1250-1325, six pueblos with at least 50 rooms existed in the area. After 1325 these small pueblos began to coalesce into larger settlements. The "Classic period" began in 1325 featuring glaze-painted ceramics and large residences at several locations. During the time period of 1400 to 1525, the smaller settlements were abandoned, and the population concentrated in the Pecos Pueblo, building four-story residences and producing glaze ware for use and trade with Plains Indians and the Rio Grande Puebloan peoples.

The concentration of the population into a single settlement on the upper Pecos River was probably for the purpose of defense from raiding Plains Indians (mostly Apache in the 16th and 17th centuries and Comanche in the 18th century) and as a trading center between the agricultural people of the Rio Grande valley and the Plains Indians who alternated trade and raids. The Plains Indians brought dried meat, buffalo hides, slaves, shells, and flint to Pecos to exchange for agricultural products, textiles, pottery, and turquoise. The population of Pecos Pueblo at the time the Pueblo was first visited by Europeans in 1540 is estimated at 2,000 people.

Pecos Pueblo
The main unit of the park preserves the ruins of Pecos Pueblo, known historically as Cicuye (sometimes spelled Ciquique), the "village of 500 warriors". The first Pecos pueblo was one of two dozen rock-and-mud villages built in the valley around AD 1100 in the prehistoric Pueblo II Era. Within 350 years the Pueblo IV Era Pecos village had grown to house more than 2,000 people in its five-storied complex.

The people who lived at Cicuye/Pecos Pueblo spoke the Towa language. The Pecos people enjoyed a rich culture with inventive architecture and beautiful crafts. They also possessed an elaborate religious life, evidenced by the remains of over 20 ceremonial subterranean kivas. Some of the kivas have diameters as large as 40 feet and are 10 feet deep, accessed by wooden ladders. Farming was a main part of their diet and staple crops included the usual beans, corn, and squash. Their location, power and ability to supply goods made the Pecos a major trade center in the eastern part of the Puebloan territory, connecting the Pueblos to the Plains cultures such as the Comanche. There are seven distinct periods of their occupancy beginning with the Preceramic Period (11,500 B.C.E. - 600 C.E.) Ancestral Puebloan Paleo-Indians. Emigration of Pecos people to other areas, encroachment of Hispanic settlers in the area, outbreaks of smallpox, and problems with Plains Indians caused the site to decline. The last 17 (or 20) inhabitants abandoned Pecos Pueblo in 1838, moving to the Jemez Pueblo, the only other Pueblo which spoke the Towa language.