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    Mesa Verde - Kayenta - Hovenweep Period
by
O. Ned Eddins

Paleo-Indians     Anasazi      Hovenweep     Monument Valley
Fremont Indians    Petroglyphs   Barrier Canyon

After the demise of Pueblo Bonita and the other Chaco Canyon Pueblos, there was a marked contraction in Anasazi territory. As the Chaco system begin to fail, some areas in the Four Corners region, such as, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and Kayenta increased in population. During the early Mesa Verde development, there were a great many villages on the valley floor, i.e. Lowry Pueblo, Hovenweep, and in the mouths of canyons. Eventually, outside pressures forced the Anasazi to build the massive cliff dwellings, i.e. Cliff Place and Spruce Tree House, that can still be seen in Mesa Verde National Park. The peak population of the Mesa Verde period (A.D. 1000-1200) in southwestern Colorado is estimated at twenty-five-to-fifty-thousand Puebloans. Today, the same area in Montezuma County, Colorado supports eighteen-to-twenty-thousand people (Anasazi Heritage Center). 

The round tower construction of  Painted Hand and the towers of Hovenweep is a mystery that is yet to be resolved by archeologists.

   
                                                         Painted Hand

  
                                                          Hovenweep Castle

The main Lowry Pueblo was built in stages on top of abandoned pithouses of eighth century people.

                                                              Lowry Pueblo

 Initially it consisted of only five rooms, and over a thirty year period was expanded to include forty rooms and eight kivas, or ritual rooms. The central part of the Pueblo had two or three stories. Not all rooms and kivas were used at the same time. Some rooms were for sleeping, some for storage, some for work areas, and some for social and religious events. The presence of a great kiva suggests that Lowry Pueblo was a regional urban ritual center. At its population climax, Lowry housed about one hundred people. It was abandoned around 1150 A.D. (BLM sign).

After 1150 A.D., the Mesa Verde area of the San Juan Basin had the largest number of people in the Southwest.

                                                          Cliff House Canyon

Increases in the number of people in cliff dwellings reduced the inhabitant's ability to raise enough agriculture products to feed themselves. Around 1276, a drought began that continued until the end of the century. Even without a drought raising enough food on the mesas, and getting water out of the canyons, played a big part in the abandonment of the Four Corners area--while the people were in the cliff dwellings who protected the crops from marauding raiders?

Many reasons are given for the Ancestral Puebloans leaving the Four Corners area. Prolonged drought, famine, disease, raids by marauding nomads, exhaustion of resources, and quarrels among the Puebloans are given as causes for abandoning the Pueblos. There is evidence of intra-regional conflict at some sites. According to Cordell there were "…numerous burned dwellings and human skeletons that had been burned and cannibalized…."

The San Juan Basin was completely abandoned by 1300 A.D. (Walker).  The major migrations from the Mesa Verde area were to the Rio Grande and Little Colorado River in Arizona. Some of the people joined the Hopi of northeastern Arizona and the Zuni of western New Mexico.

Increases in the number of people in cliff dwellings reduced the inhabitant's ability to raise enough agriculture products to feed themselves. Around 1276, a long drought began that continued until the end of the century. The San Juan Basin of Colorado and Utah was completely abandoned by 1300 A.D. (Walker).

 The major migrations of the Puebloans from the Mesa Verde area were to the Rio Grande and Little Colorado River areas in New Mexico, although some of the Pueblo people joined the Hopi of northeastern Arizona and the Zuni of western New Mexico. Many reasons are given for the Ancestral Puebloans leaving the Four Corners area. Prolonged drought, famine, disease, raids by marauding nomads, exhaustion of resources, and quarrels among the Puebloans themselves are given as causes for abandoning the Pueblos.

There is evidence of intra-regional conflict at some sites. According to Cordell there were "…numerous burned dwellings and human skeletons that had been burned and cannibalized…." The idea of widespread warfare in the Four Corners region remains controversial, but new evidence suggests that some villages suffered violent attacks during the 1200s. Sand Canyon Pueblo, in the Montezuma Valley below Mesa Verde, was burned, and as many as two hundred and fifty people killed. Archaeologist, Stephen LeBlanc believes that the Ancestral Puebloans split themselves into at least three warring factions: Mesa Verde, Montezuma Valley, and the Aztec area. These otherwise peaceful agrarian people may have turned to violence when faced with starvation (Walker, Dold). 

The cliff dwellings and the Pueblo villages in the Mesa Verde area had been abandoned several hundred years before the first white men saw them. On July 29, 1776, Father Francisco Dominguez and Father Silvestre Escalante left Santa Fe with eight men to explore a trading route to Monterey, California. Father Escalante recorded in his journal the presence of an ancient Indian village along the Delores River in Colorado.  

Upon an elevation on the river’s [Delores River] south side, there was in ancient times a small settlement of the same as those of the Indians in New Mexico…

The Anasazi Heritage Center near Delores, Colorado is located close to where Escalante made his observations. The nearby "Escalante Ruins” have been excavated and stabilized.

                                                              Escalante Kiva

 Ancestral Puebloans used kivas for social and religious gatherings. The small hole in the center is called a Sipapu. During the Chaco Canyon era, kivas were built above ground and were surrounded by rectangular walls. This great kiva was fifty- to sixty-five-feet in diameter.

After the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition, there is no recorded evidence of anyone seeing the Anasazi Pueblos until the mid-eighteen hundreds. In September 1849 while on patrol, Lt. James Hervey Simpson came upon a pueblo ruin, Pueblo Pintado. A few days later, the army patrol under Lt. Colonel John M. Washington saw the great houses of Chaco Canyon (Frazier). Hovenweep and Lowry Ruins on the valley floor were undoubtedly observed by the mid-1800s. William Henry Jackson photographed Two Story Cliff House in Mancos Canyon in 1874. A few years earlier, Jackson had photographed the Yellowstone and Jackson Hole area.

                                                  Mesa Verde Spruce Tree House

 Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason discovered Spruce Tree House and Cliff Palace in December of 1888 (Wenger).

                                                         Mesa Verde Cliff Palace

In 1901, Richard Wetherill homesteaded land in Chaco Canyon that included Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo Del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl. Wetherill operated a trading post at Pueblo Bonito until 1910. During an argument over a horse, a Navajo killed him. Wetherill is buried near Pueblo Bonito (Chaco Culture).

1680 Pueblo Revolt

Spanish expeditions in the sixteenth century visited the Pueblos villages of northwestern Arizona and western New Mexico. Fray Marcos de Niza made the first recorded contact with the Zuni in 1539. Coronado’s Expedition reached the Zuni villages a year later, and found out that the Zuni villages were not the seven cities of Cibola as Coronado had believed from Niza's report.

After the Spanish Conquistadors, the Franciscan Friars come to convert the Pueblos to the Christian religion. One of the earliest missions was San Geronimo de Taos. At that time, the Taos Indians had lived in the Taos Valley of New Mexico for more than 800 years. The Franciscans Friars imposed taxes on the Pueblo Indians. The only way the Puebloans had to pay these taxes was with labor, corn, pottery, and blankets. At first, most of the Pueblo Indians accepted the Franciscan Friars, but over the years, resentment grew against the taxation and the Spanish religious oppression. The Taos Pueblo played a prominent role in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Po'pay (Pope), the leader of the rebellion, lived at the Taos Pueblo. Fifteen years after being driven out by the Pueblo Indians, the Spanish retook the land and re-established the Spanish missions.

Warfare between the Pueblo Indians and the neighboring tribes of Navajo, Ute, and Comanche took its toll on the Pueblo villages. Following the Mexican War, the Taos people resisted the Americans, just as they had the others that had tried to take their lands. In 1847, Pueblo Indians killed the newly appointed Governor, Charles Bent. Prior to his appointment as Governor of New Mexico, Bent and his brother William had established Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River near La Junta, Colorado. Despite occasional warfare, the Taos Pueblo was the major fur trade center during the Mountain Man period in the Southwest (Weber).

The southwest Pueblos with multiple languages and ethnic groups are the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the United States.

                                                         Old Oraibi 1051 - 2006

The Hopi village of Old Oraibi and the Pueblo village of Acoma have been continuously occupied since 1150 A.D. (Southwest Indian Council). Inhabitants at Old Oraibi claim the village of Old Oraibi was founded in 1051.

                                                    Acoma - The Sky City

The Acoma Pueblo was built on a three hundred and fifty-seven foot sandstone mesa.  In 1598, the Spanish Governor Juan de Ońate and seventy soldiers killed and maimed many of the villagers---the villagers had killed thirteen soldiers that were stealing grain from the village storehouse.

 A reader recently pointed out that the Acoma Pueblo people were not part of the Zuni people. I really appreciate it when someone points out an error on the website...Thank you very much..

It should be noted that the Ancestral Puebloans were not the only American Indians that built large structures during this time period. Just as the Southwest Pueblos, the Mound Builders were many different cultures that shared common traits. Primarily east of the Mississippi River, the American Indian Mound Builders built spectacular structures. Cahokia in Illinois was a flourishing population center and a city in every sense of the word when London was a few scattered huts. The Mississippian Culture in North America reached its peak around 1450 A.D., although it lasted into the 18th century with the Natchez. Some forms of mound building lasted well into the late 19th century (mound builder internet site).

Recent archeological data indicates that the North and South American Indians were using forms of agriculture as early as 10,000 B.C.. Over fifty percent of the world's agriculture comes from plants first domesticated by the Americas Indians.

The Anasazi Mesa Verde 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.