The names, Mogollon, Hohokam, Anasazi, and later Fremont, were given by archeologists to these Prehistoric Indians. The Southwest Indians had broad similarities in their cultures, but they had distinct languages and political unity. Except for dogs and turkeys, these Prehistoric tribes did not have domesticated animals, a system of writing, or the wheel. To varying degrees, the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon were influenced by the Indians of central Mexico. In trade with Mesoamerica, they exchanged turquoise for parrot feathers, copper bells, maize (corn), beans, squash, and cotton (Taylor).

Mogollon

The Mogollon (mo-ge-yōn) people 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 (Map). 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 were plentiful in the Mogollon Mountains. Despite this, the Mogollon Indians had abandoned the mountains by 1200 A.D. and moved south to Mexico.

Hohokam

The Hohokam Indians settled in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona around 300 B.C. They built rectangular pithouses and lived in small villages. Although the Hohokam relied a great deal on hunting and gathering, they were good farmers and water engineers. Between  300 and 500 A.D., the Hohokam constructed over a thousand miles of irrigation canals. Some of these canals were up to fifty feet wide and dug with massive organized labor using stone tools (Walker).

Hohokam settlements spread from the Tucson Basin, into the Phoenix area, and as far north as present-day Flagstaff. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, Casa Grande ruins were built by the Hohokam. Besides Mesoamerica, the Hohokam carried on a wide trade network between the Anasazi and the Mogollon. The largest Hohokam pueblo,  Snaketown, had about a thousand residents living in adobe row houses, some of them two and three stories tall. Snaketown was located on the Gila River above where the Gila empties into the Salt River. Snaketown was in the area of modern day Phoenix, Arizona.

Between 1130 and 1190, a prolonged drought led to crop failure, starvation, and violent feuds.  The Hohokam came to believe their leaders and priests had lost favor with  the plants and the rain spirits.  During the twelve hundreds, the Hohokam abandoned their towns and returned to a hunter and gather existence.  Early Spanish explorers found the descendants of the Hohokam  living  in small villages. Spanish Conquistadors named them 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 plateau that they settled on 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, or Ancestral Puebloans: the Basketmaker and Pueblo.

Basketmaker Period 1-750 A. D.  

The early Anasazi lived in shallow depressions in the ground covered by a canopy of brush and mud called pithouses. 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 flood irrigation. The introduction of corn allowed the Anasazi to settle in one area. At first, the 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 that 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 made several significant changes in their culture. Larger villages were being built with more storage bins, signifying increased yields of corn. In addition to improved farming methods, the Anasazi trading range expanded to the Pacific Coast, onto the Plains, and through the Mogollon and Hohokam, into Mesoamerica. Beans were being cultivated as a source of protein; however pinion nuts, yucca fruit, berries, and wild game were still a major part of the diet. Plants were used for baskets, clothing, and other tools, especially yucca fiber. The Anasazi still hunted and gathered to supplement the cultivated crops of corn, squash, and beans.

                                            Anasazi Basket - Mesa Verde NP

By 600 A.D., farming was the mainstay of the Ancestral Puebloan economy. Agriculture revolved around corn, beans, and squash. Enough corn was being raised to create a surplus; large storage rooms were prominent features of the Pueblo communities. By the late Basketmaker phase, the Anasazi had acquired more possessions, stored food, adopted the bow and arrow, domesticated turkeys, and made pottery. Plain gray pottery, and occasionally black on white pottery, was being used as storage containers for the excess food.

                                                  Anasazi Cup - Mesa Verde NP

Excess food was stored in pottery jars or baskets inside small masonry structures in the village or in small granaries tucked under overhangs on narrow ledges. These storage granaries can still be occasionally spotted in canyonlands.

                    
                                                          Canyonlands Granary

A good deal of archeological studies of the Ancestral Puebloans centers on pottery. Some pottery made in the plateau area carried bold black-on-white designs, while other kinds included plain and textured, or corrugated cooking vessels. Black-on-red pottery from northern Arizona was traded throughout the Four Corners, as was red-on-buff styles from Utah. Shapes included jars, bowls, pitchers, ladles, canteens, figurines and miniatures.

                           
                                Anasazi Pot - Paul R. Stewart Museum

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.  Consequently, 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 that they used.

                                                               Pottery Sherds

Pueblo Phase 750-1300 A.D.

The term Pueblo refers to an Indian culture that was unique to the Southwest, not to a particular tribe. Even though the Pueblo Indians shared many common elements, each Pueblo village had 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, the Ancestral Puebloans built the traditional pithouses lodges and semi-subterranean kivas. In addition, above ground storage structures called Jackals were being built. Eventually, the Pueblo families moved out of the pithouses into the Jackals.

 
                                        Reconstructed Mesa Verde Jackal

Around 750 A.D., an elite group of "Ancestral Puebloans" started to build in Chaco Canyon. This elite group was either from Mesoamerica or strongly influenced by the Toltec Culture. As evidenced by an extensive trade in turquoise, pipestone, shells, carved flutes, mosaic baskets, and fine pottery, as well as, copper bells and macaw feathers from Mesoamerica...five great Indian cultures thrived in the western hemisphere for centuries: the Incas of South America, and four from central and southern Mexico, Mayan, Olmec, Zapotec, and Teotihuacan. Indians from these 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. These archeologists believe the Southwest Indians emerged from the archaic period (Stone).

Over the next two centuries (800-1000 A.D.), the Ancestral Puebloans spread across every arable acre of the San Juan Basin. More than ten thousand separate sites were established. Archaeologists have discovered at least one hundred and fifty great house style structures outside of Chaco Canyon. These Pueblos are referred to as Outliers. An elaborate road and trail system connected the outlying villages with Chaco Canyon. Despite having over four hundred miles of a mapped out road system, there is no evidence that Chaco Indian used 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 the two regions.

                                                           Pueblo Bonita (2003)

About 1000 A.D., the seasonal rains arrived with more consistency. This rain pattern continued for the next one hundred and thirty years. Large surpluses of corn filled the Chaco storehouses. The Chacoans exploded in a building frenzy that turned Chaco Canyon into the greatest settlement in North America. This period is referred to as the Chaco Phenomenon.

Pueblo Bonito is the most celebrated of the Chaco Canyon great houses. Over time, 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. A study by University of Arizona researchers showed the workers hauled spruce and fir timbers more than fifty miles to construct the floors and roofs. Despite the engineering ability of the Chacoans, there is no evidence that they used the wheel. The timbers were packed from the Chuska Mountains to the west and the San Mateo Mountains to the south (Sharp).

                                       Artists drawing of Pueblo Bonita in 1100A.D.

Pueblo Bonita in Chaco Canyon was the largest apartment house in the world for 600 years.

In contrast to the usual practice of adding rooms to existing structures as needed, many archeologists believe that the great houses in Chaco Canyon were planned from the start. Construction on some of these buildings spanned decades. These great houses were not traditional farming villages occupied by large populations. They may instead have been impressive examples of "public architecture" that were used periodically during times of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events (Chaco Culture Brochure)...this is difficult to believe. These great houses were built over decades, and to pre-plan them would require some type of "blueprint", or written record. Even if these structures were built with slave labor, it is implausible that these massive houses were built to impress visitors.

Percentage wise few people lived in Chaco Canyon itself, perhaps twenty-five hundred to three thousand. The Chaco elite gained control over the surplus corn trade, and Chaco priests convinced the farmers that they controlled the seasons and the rains. The Chacoans themselves made relatively little pottery, or grew much corn. They were the corn brokers, and by gaining power over the corn, they ultimately gained power over a vast region of the Southwest (Walker).

                                                     Chaco Canyon's Fajada Butte

On Fajada Butte are petroglyphs of ancient calendar markings. 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 that marks 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, 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. On the banks of the Animas River, migrants from Salmon and Chaco built the last great Anasazi Pueblo. When white settlers first saw the ruins of this Pueblo, they called it, Aztec. The settlers could not believe that indigenous Indians had built such an elaborate village; it had to have been built by Aztecs from Mexico (Walker).

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.

 Mesa Verde Period   Fremont Indians   Prehistoric Indians   Barrier Canyon References 

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