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Anasazi Indian Culture of the Southwest
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O. Ned Eddins
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Mogollon Hohokam-Sinagua Anasazi
Between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D., four distinct cultures settled into the southwest...Anasazi, Mogollon, Hohokam, Sinagua. A fifth culture, the Fremont Indians, settled primarily in Utah in 400 A.D. The Fremont and Anasazi cultures overlapped in Utah and Colorado.
Four Corners Area
Prehistoric Indians
The Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam Indians did not range over the vast distances covered by the big game hunters of the Archaic (8000 to 1000 B.C.) or Pleistocene period. Between three hundred B.C. and one hundred A.D., the Southwest Indians turned toward agriculture to supplement their food source. Mesoamerican corn and then beans and squash provided the means for a settled village lifestyle. Corn, beans, and squash become so important in the Americas Indian Cultures they were known as...The Three Sisters.
The Southwest Pueblo Indians of today are direct decedents of the Anasazi who raised corn, beans and squash and built the massive stone structures in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Cedar Mesa. These vast stone structures existed in the Southwest hundreds of years before Europeans saw North America.
The Mogollon (mo-ge-yōn) people first occupied mountainous areas of Arizona and New Mexico in approximately 200 B.C. The Mogollon culture eventually expanded to the southern rim of the Colorado Plateau. The Mogollon Indians were initially hunter-gatherers, but as their civilization advanced, they acquired corn, squash, beans, tobacco, and cotton from Mesoamerica. The use of agricultural plants necessitated moving from pithouses to more permanent villages.
The mountainous region where the Mogollon lived between 900 and 1200 A.D. had good soil and abundant moisture for growing maize. Deer, antelope, and other wild game was plentiful in the Mogollon Mountains. Despite this, the Mogollon Indians abandoned the Southwest mountains by 1200 A.D. and moved south to Mexico.
The Hohokam Indians settled in the valleys of southern Arizona around 300 B.C. Hohokam hunter-gatherer bands spread from the Tucson Basin through much of Arizona. The relationship between the Hohokam Indians and the Sinagua Indian pueblos in the Flagstaff, Arizona, area is unclear. In many ways the history of the Sinagua Culture is similar to the Hohokam. The Sinagua borrowed heavily from the Mogollon and Anasazi cultures as well.
The most famous of the Sinagua pueblos is Montezuma Castle. When white settlers first saw Montezuma Castle and the Anasazi Pueblo, Aztec, the settlers believed local Indians were incapable of building such structures; Indians of Mesoamerica built them.
Montezuma Castle
Sinagua Pueblo - Wupatki National Monument
The early Hohokam Indians built rectangular pithouses and lived in small villages. Best known for their agriculture, the Hohokam used sharp, wooden digging sticks, thin rock slab hoes, and the shoulder blades of large animals to construct over a thousand miles of canals. Some of the canals were up to fifty feet wide and dug with massive organized labor (Walker). The canals provided water for the villages and the Hohokam crops...the overwhelming majority of these plants would be hand watered from the canals, catch basins, or seeps.
Pre-historic Indians with primitive tools did not have the capability to flood irrigate large fields. Successful flood irrigation requires canals, diversion ditches, multiple dam sets, and relatively level ground with a plant cover. The Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) were planted in a series of earth mounds near the canals similar to the milpas in Mesoamerica. Extended families hand watered and cultivated the Three Sisters as well as cotton and other crops
Anasazi migrants from the Colorado Plateau and Mesoamerican cultures characterized the final period of Hohokam history. By the twelfth century, the Hohokam began building larger and more concentrated settlements, some occupied a half-mile square area. Although small bands of Hohokam continued to build traditional lodges of posts, brush, and mud plastering over a shallow pit, the new Hohokam villages were solid clay walls reinforced with posts. Some of the new villages were massive multistoried houses with the base of the walls more than six feet thick. Entrance to the house was by ladder or a single portal. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, the multistoried Casa Grande was built by the Hohokam.
Casa Grande ~ 1100 A.D.
In the area of modern day Phoenix, Arizona, the largest Hohokam pueblo, Snaketown, had about a thousand residents living in adobe row houses, some of them two and three stories tall.
The Hohokam developed trade networks extending west to the coast of California, eastward to the Llano Estacado of Texas, and southward deep into Mexico. The Hohokam traded pottery and cloth for California seashells. Seashells, turquoise, and agriculture products were traded to the Indians of the Staked Plains in New Mexico and Texas. Turquoise and decorated seashells went to Mesoamerican for copper bells, polished plaques of iron pyrite, parrots and macaws. Besides California, Mesoamerica, and the Staked Plains, the Hohokam traded with the Anasazi and the Mogollon.
Concentrated populations signaled the end of Hohokam expansion. Between 1130 and 1190, a prolonged drought led to crop failure, starvation, and violent feuds. During the twelve hundreds, the Hohokam abandoned their towns and returned to a hunter-gatherer existence. Descendants of the Hohokam lived in small villages in southern Arizona when first seen by Spanish explorers. Conquistadors referred to them as Pima and Papago.
Anasazi: The Ancestral Puebloans
In approximately 100 A. D., the Anasazi settled on a high plateau in an area much different than the rest of the Southwest. The new area was the Colorado Plateau. This large mountainous region encompasses the Four Corners area, as well as, other parts of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Archeologists recognize two major periods in the archeological record of the Anasazi: the Basketmaker and Pueblo.
Basketmaker Period 1-750 A. D.
The early Anasazi lived in underground pits covered by a canopy of brush and mud called pithouses.
Anasazi Pithouse - Boulder State Park
The Ancestral Puebloans made and used baskets as containers; some were woven tight enough to hold water. The Anasazi did not make pottery during this period, but they did raise Mesoamerican corn and squash with dry farming and some irrigation. The introduction of corn allowed the Anasazi to remain in one area. Corn was planted in small plots, and while it was growing, the people resumed their hunter-gather pursuits. Over several hundred years, the agriculture of the Ancestral Puebloans advanced to the point they could live and sustain themselves in permanent villages. During this time period, another Indian culture emerged to the north of the Anasazi...the Fremont Indians of Utah and the eastern Great Basin.
By 500 A.D., the Basketmakers had larger villages with corn storage bins to store the increased yields of corn. In addition to improved farming methods, Anasazi trading range expanded to the Pacific Coast, onto the Staked Plains, and through the Mogollon and Hohokam, into Mesoamerica. Beans were cultivated as a source of protein; however pinion nuts, yucca fruit, berries, and wild game were a major part of the diet. Plants provided baskets, clothing, and other tools, especially yucca fiber.
Anasazi Basket - Mesa
Verde NP
By 600 A.D., farming was the mainstay of the Ancestral Puebloan economy. Enough corn was being raised to create a surplus; large storage rooms were prominent features of Pueblo communities. Another form of storage was small granaries tucked under overhangs on narrow ledges. The granaries held a supply of corn in the event the village was raided. The granary below is in Canyonland National Park.
Canyonland Granary
By the late Basketmaker phase, the Anasazi acquired more possessions, stored food, adopted the bow and arrow, domesticated turkeys, and made pottery. Plain gray pottery, and occasionally black on white pottery, served as storage containers.
Anasazi Pots
Anasazi Cup - Mesa Verde NP
Anasazi Pottery - Boulder State Park
Black-on-red pottery from northern Arizona was traded throughout the Four Corners area, as was red-on-buff styles from Utah. Some pottery made in the Colorado Plateau area carried bold black-on-white designs. Other kinds of pottery included plain and textured or corrugated cooking vessels. Shapes included jars, bowls, pitchers, ladles, canteens, figurines and miniatures.
A good deal of archeological studies center on pottery and pottery sherds. Ceramic fragments (sherds) can indirectly show when a household or village was occupied. Archeologists use broken pieces of pottery to reveal information on social groups, and the trade networks they used.
Pottery Sherds
The style and design of pottery changed through time and varied across regions. Pottery contains hidden clues about the people who made it. Temper (gritty binding material) in the clay may be traceable to the geologic area where the pottery was made. The surfaces of bowls may retain pollen from food plants, or scrapings from a meal.
The term Pueblo refers to an Indian culture unique to the Southwest, not to a particular tribe. Pueblo Indians share many common elements, and yet, each Pueblo village has its own social order and religious practices. The early Pueblo period was a time of territorial expansion and cultural transition. Cotton cloth, aboveground houses, and improved pottery all came about during this period.
At the start of the Pueblo era, traditional pithouses lodges and semi-subterranean kivas were built along with above ground storage structures called Jackals. Eventually, Pueblo families moved out of the pithouses into the Jackals.
Reconstructed Jackal - Mesa Verde National Park
Around 750 A.D., an "elite group" of Ancestral Puebloans started building in Chaco Canyon. This elite group was from Mesoamerica, or strongly influenced by the Toltec Culture. During this time an extensive trade in turquoise, pipestone, shells, carved flutes, mosaic baskets, and fine pottery, as well as, copper bells and macaw feathers developed with Mesoamerica. Indians from Mesoamerican (Mexico City to Honduras) cultures moved into the southwestern United States. They brought with them their knowledge and technological advancements (Southwest Indian Council). Many archeologists agree on a wide trade network between the Southwest Indians and Mexico, especially with the Toltec, but discount the migration from Mexico (Stone).
Over the next two centuries (800-1000 A.D.), the Anasazi spread across the San Juan Basin; more than ten thousand separate sites were established. At least one hundred and fifty great house style structures outside of Chaco Canyon have been located by archaeologists. These Pueblos structures are referred to as Outliers. An elaborate road and trail system connected the Outlier villages with Chaco Canyon. Despite over four hundred miles of a mapped-out road system, there is no evidence Chaco Indian developed the wheel.
The area west and north of Chaco Canyon had two wet seasons, rain in the summer and rain or snow in the winter; to the south and southeast, there was a single rainy season in the middle to late summer (Walker). The people of Chaco Canyon were perfectly situated to carry on an extensive corn trade between these two regions. Chaco Canyon priests convinced the farmers they controlled the seasonal rains. Through the priests, the "elite group" in Chaco Canyon gained control over the surplus corn trade.
Percentage wise few people, twenty-five hundred to three thousand, lived in Chaco Canyon. The Chacoans themselves made relatively little pottery, or grew much corn. They were the corn brokers. By gaining power over the corn, they ultimately gained power over a vast region of the Southwest (Walker).
Seasonal rains arrived with more consistency in 1000 A.D. and continued for the next one hundred and thirty years. With large surpluses of corn in Chaco storehouses, the Chacoans exploded in a building frenzy. This period 850 to 1150 A.D. is referred to as the Chaco Phenomenon. Chaco Canyon became the greatest settlement in North America.
Pueblo Bonita (2003)
The most celebrated of the Chaco Canyon great houses is Pueblo Bonito. Workers shaped an estimated one million blocks of sandstone weighing some thirty thousand tons to construct Pueblo Bonito. Along its back perimeter, the rooms stood five stories high. At its peak, Pueblo Bonita had seven hundred or more rooms, thirty-seven family kivas, and two community kivas. Built in several stages, Pueblo Bonita covered over four- and one-half acres. Pueblo Bonita in Chaco Canyon was the largest apartment house in the world for 600 years.
A study by University of Arizona researchers showed workers hauled spruce and fir timbers more than fifty miles to construct the floors and roofs. The timbers were packed from the Chuska Mountains to the west and the San Mateo Mountains to the south (Sharp). Despite the engineering ability of the Chacoans, there is no evidence they used the wheel.
Artists drawing of Pueblo Bonita in 1100A.D.
In contrast to the usual practice of adding rooms to existing structures, many archeologists believe the great houses in Chaco Canyon were planned from the start...these great houses were built over decades and to pre-plan them would require some type of "blueprint" or written record. No evidence has been found the Anasazi developed any type of writing as did Mesoamerican Indians.
The Chaco Culture Brochure states: these great houses were not traditional farming villages occupied by large populations. They may instead have been impressive examples of "public architecture" used periodically during times of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events ...this is difficult to believe. The Chaco Canyon great house were not temples. Even if the farmers could raise enough corn to support decades of labors and visitors, it is implausible massive houses were built in such a barren land to impress a few visitors.
The Anasazi conducted astronomical observations on Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon. On Fajada Butte are petroglyphs of ancient calendar markings.
Chaco Canyon's Fajada Butte
Dr. Anna Sofaer discovered the Sun Dagger on Fajada Butte in 1977. A large circular spiral and a small spiral are pecked in the cliff behind three large stone slabs. At midday on the summer solstice, the sun shines between the stone slabs and creates a dagger of light that bisects the large spiral. On midday of the winter solstice, two daggers bracket the large spiral. During the spring and the fall equinoxes, a small dagger of light bisects the small spiral. The slabs also cast shadow on the large spiral to mark the moon’s eighteen point six years cycle of its orbit (Chaco Culture Brochure).
Fajada Butte Sun Dials
Fajada Butte Sun Dagger
The unraveling of the Chaco society began with a drought in 1130 A.D. Lack of rain depleted the storehouses filled with grain, and made the farmers question the power of the Chaco priests. The Chaco Phenomena was over. The Chaco population scattered in a series of migrations. One group built the Salmon Pueblo which soon failed. Migrants from Salmon and Chaco Canyon built the last great Anasazi Pueblo on the banks of the Animas River. When white settlers first saw the ruins of the Animas Pueblo, they called it, Aztec...indigenous Indians had not built such an elaborate village; it had to have been built by Aztecs from Mexico (Walker).
Archeologists put forth many reasons, especially drought, for the decline of the Southwest Indians, but the underlying reason was eventually farmers with stone and wooden tools could not produce enough food to sustain religious leaders and laborers within centers like Pueblo Bonita. Environmental conditions or warfare often triggered the collapse of a culture, but the basic problem was food supply. North American Indians never acquired the technology to grow, transport, or distribute food to large numbers of people in concentrated population centers. Until Cortez brought horses to Mesoamerica in 1519, there were no large animals in North or South America suitable for domestication. A lack of domesticated work animals limited the ability of farmers to support areas such as Pueblo Bonita and later Mesa Verde.
The Anasazi article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.
Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Mountainsofstone.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.
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Related Articles:Paleo-Indians Meso-American Indians Barrier Canyon Mesa Verde Cedar Mesa Hovenweep Monument Valley Fremont Indians Petroglyphs
Cordell, Linda S. Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C. 1994.
Dillehay, Thomas D. The Settlement of the Americas. Basic Books, New York, NY. 2000.
Ferguson, William M. and Rohm, Arthur H. Anasazi Ruins of the Southwest in Color. University of New Mexico Press. 1990.
Frazier, Kendrick. People of Chaco: A Canyon and its Culture. W. W. Norton, New York, NY. 1999.
Koppel, Tom. Did They Come By Sea? American Archeology Magazine, Spring. 2002.
Stone, Tammy. The Prehistory of Colorado and Adjacent Areas. University of Utah Press, 1999.
Taylor, Allan. AMERICAN COLONIES The settling of North America. Penguin Books. New York, NY. 2002.
Walker, Paul Robert. The Southwest Gold Gods & Grandeur. National Geographic Society. 2001.
Warner, Ted J., Ed. The Dominguez-Escalante Journal – Their Expedition through Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico in 1776. University of Utah Press.
Weber, David J. The Taos Trappers-The Fur Trade in the Southwest 1540-1846. University of Oklahoma Press. 1982.
Wenger, Gilbert. The Story of Mesa Verde National Park. 1980.
Internet Sources:
Anasazi Cultural Center, Delores, Colorado
www.co.blm.gov/ahc/anasazi.htm
Anna Sofaer
http://www.solsticeproject.org
Catherine Dold
http://www.catherinedold.com/fcannibals.htm
- Cowboy Wash Cannibalism 1140 AD
Hopi Indians
http:\\www.hopi.nsn.us/village3.asp
http://inkido.indiana.edu/w310work/romac/hopi.htm
Harrison
Lapahie
http://www.lapahie.com/Chaco_Sun_Dagger.cfm
James Q. Jacobs
http://www.jqjacobs.net/southwest/sw_notes.html
Jay W. Sharp
http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind11.html
Southwest Indian Relief Council
http://www.swirc.org/
http://www.newmexico.org/culture/indianculture.html