Migrations of the Apachean Dineh

Abstract

There has been considerable controversy as to when the Apachean Dineh first entered the Greater Southwest. Using a lexicostatistic method, glottochronology, for determining the divergence of Dineh languages, a reassessment of a number of archaeological and anthropological papers, and an appraisal of the genetic affinities among speakers of different language phyla, a good case can be made for a very early entry of the Apachean Dineh into the Greater Southwest. This equates to about A.D. 200 for the Intermontane region of Utah, Idaho, Nevada and parts of California and Arizona and to about A.D. 575 in the Greater Southwest region of New Mexico and Arizona and parts of Utah and Colorado.