Beyond gloom and doom: The long-term consequences of volcanic disasters

This chapter presents new results of research concerning the effects of the Sunset Crater eruption on local populations. It discusses four responses by the prehistoric inhabitants to the volcanic event such as: population movement, use of new agricultural methods, changes in ceramic production and exchange networks and, initiation of volcano-related ritual behaviour. In the summer of 1930, archaeologists from the Museum of Northern Arizona uncovered a pit structure sealed beneath a thick layer of black cinders at a prehistoric site just north of Flagstaff, Arizona. The excavation of this structure provided the definitive evidence that Sunset Crater volcano erupted during the prehistoric occupation of northern Arizona. The Sunset Crater eruption was likely foreshadowed by ominous signs: evidence from modern cinder cone volcanoes indicates that earthquakes occur for several weeks or months prior to the eruption, often increasing in frequency and magnitude through time. The eruption has been dated by dendrochronology, pale magnetic secular variation, and archaeological association.