Where did the Navajo live before and after the europeans came to America?

Answer 1

There are two or three answers for this question.

The Navajo creation stories say they emerged from a previous world. This is the fourth or fifth depending on the version of the story. The emergence place was in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. There are different version of exactly where this was. The Navajo put a very high premium on individuality and therefor have many versions of the same stories. Some possible places are; near Pagosa Springs, at the Pinos and San Juan river confluence, the La Platas or a secret place in or on a Lake or confluence of two rivers. They first lived near the confluence of the San Juan and Animas river valleys. Changing woman was born south of there on Gobernador Knob [Ch'óol' i ' i ] and formed the first clans. According to the stories this happened in the mid 1100's AD. This corresponds with Jemez Pueblo accounts as well and internal evidence from Navajo stories. Some stories have clans traveling east to the current upper San Juan valley. But all stories have Navajo culture starting here and the best archeology has the earliest Navajo starting here too. This is to the east of the current main Navajo lands today.

The earliest evidence of archeology that shows a distinct Navajo culture of hogans and corn and hunting is later than the Navajo stories starting in the early 1500 although some evidence has been found dating back before that. Western ideas say that before the Navajo were in the San Juan valley they were not Navajo they were Apachean people. It wasn't until they lived there and picked up corn growing and hogans and forged the unique culture that in Navajo that they became Navajo. In that sense the western science and Navajo origin stories agree.

Another way of looking at it is that the Apachean people who ultimately became Navajo at one time lived near their linguistic cousins the Chipewanean speakers in northern Canada. They moved to the southwest over about 1100 years arriving about 1100-1300 AD and some of them became Navajo around 1500. Others with a more conservative mindset remained more mobile and became the different Apache groups in the southwest. Before that the Na Dene language family came into the Americas from Siberia and is perhaps related to Yeniseian. They probably cam after the eariest migrations but before the migrations that brought the Inuit peoples. They are different genetically from other groups that are thought to have been here longer.

The upshot is that as long as the Navajo have been distinctly Navajo they have lived in the Southwest.

Answer 2

Hopi Native Americans originally populated the southwestern portion of the United States prior to European contact. The Spanish were the first European people to encounter them in 1540.

Answer 3

they lived in northern New mexico, a portion of southern Utah, and part of northern Arizona

Answer 4

no