Allison (1996)

Allison, 1996 believe that there are reasons to doubt that the Anasazi abandonment coincides with the
mid-twelve-century drought.  He thinks the drought  actually occurred sometime before the abandonment
of the Virgin region by the Anasazi. In addition, he points out that there are weaknesses in the demographic
analysis presented by Larson and Michaelson (1990).  The two main points in Allison's argument are demography
and chronology. In terms of the demographic reconstruction employed by Larson and Michaelson, Allison
points out that it depends on their ability to divide the sites into meaningful temporal units. The problem,
according to Allison, is that all sites with between 6 and 69% corrugated pottery were assigned to period IV.
He does an alternative division between the two periods (IV and V), modifying only the classification of 3
sites (Figure 1) and found completely different results (Figure 2 and table below).

Allison (1996) also argues that the chronology is inadequate. He says that there is some Radiocarbon dates from Virgin Anasazi sites
 with corrugate ceramics that suggest the period V ended around A.D. 1300 not in A.D. 1150 as Larson and Michaelson said.
According to Allison (1) Virgin Anasazi populations neither grew as rapidly nor declined as quickly as Larson
and Michaelson suggested and (2)  the period V has longer than what Larson and Michaelson suggested.

ALLISON'S CONCLUSION
1. Climatic and population growth fluctuations may have influenced Virgin Anasazi but not as greatlyas Larson and Michaelson said.
2. It would be more accurate to incorporate SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VARIABLES in order to analyzed the
Anasazi abandonment.

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