During the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., diverse populations of Pueblo Indians gradually withdrew from the drainages of the San Juan River and its tributaries, leaving the area uninhabited and open to future reoccupancy by Navajos. Two hypotheses have been put forward to explain these emigrations: the great drought theory and the Athabaskan raider theory. However, data from recent field work in the Four Corners area can be put together with clues from the literature to construct a third hypothesis: that late Pueblo II population shifts from the north created multiple, small pressures which slowly built into a chain-reaction of anxieties, producing widespread population rearrangements in the San Juan regions, cultural and stylistic changes and, finally, an increasing trend toward emigration. Paiute pressures in the north may have combined with climatic deterioration to initiate withdrawal of the Utah peripheral farmers who, in retreating, disturbed precarious balances of San Juan groups who were already maximally expanded in population. These, in turn, began to move about more frequently than previously, disturbing one another. Stylistic changes in pottery and architecture, large towns, and defensive sites reflect the unrest which resulted in final migration to more peaceful drainages.