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Southwest Anasazi Indian Culture History Maps

by

Ned Eddins

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Emigration Trails            Forest Fires            

Historical NovelsMountains of Stone     The Winds of Change

Pre-Historic Native Americans:

Anasazi      Fremont Indians        Mesa Verde       Hovenweep  

Southwest Rock Art    Betatakin-Kiet Siel     Monument Valley         

Cedar Mesa-Grand Gulch      Barrier (Horseshoe) Canyon  

Paleo-Indians               Meso-American Indians

Indian Cultures:

Indian Horse             Indian Smallpox           Indian Trade Guns          

Trail of Tears           Trade Beads             Indian Alcohol 

Internal Page Links:

Anasazi       Mogollon      Hohokam-Sinagua       Pueblo Phase 

Chaco Canyon              Demise of Southwest Indian Cultures

Between 1650 B.C. and 400 A.D., six Indian cultures settled in the american southwest: Anasazi, Mogollon, Hohokam, Salado, Sinagua, and Hopi (Lekson). The Hohokam, Sinagua  and Salado are often considered the same cultures living in different areas: the Hohokam central to southern Arizona; the Salado in the Tonto Basin of southern Arizona; Sinagua central Arizona to the Flagstaff area of northern Arizona. The Hopi live on the Three Mesas of Central Arizona. A seventh culture, the Fremont Indians from the Great Basin settled primarily in Utah in 400 A.D. The Fremont and Anasazi Cultures overlapped in Utah and Colorado.

Map of Four Corners Indian Cultures
Four Corners Area

The Anasazi, Mogollon, Sinagua, and Hohokam Indians did not range over the vast distances covered by the earlier Archaic Indian big game hunters of the late Pleistocene period. During the late Archaic period, corn and then beans and squash from Mesoamerica provided the means for a semi-settled village lifestyle. Between three hundred B.C. and one hundred A.D., the Southwest Indians turned toward agriculture to supplement their food source. Corn, beans, and squash become so important in Indian cultures they were known as…The Three Sisters. The corn provided a stalk for the beans and squash provided ground cover to reduce water evaporation.

The Southwest Pueblo Indians of today are direct decedents of Prehistoric Indian cultures that raised corn (5600 B.C.), hand irrigated fields, and built massive stone structures in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Cedar Mesa, Montezuma Castle, and Casa Grande hundreds of years before the first recorded Europeans saw North America.

The prehistoric Southwest Indians exhibited cultural similarities, but had distinct languages and political unity. Except dogs and turkeys, these prehistoric tribes did not have domesticated animals, a system of writing, or the wheel. To varying degrees, the Anasazi, Hohokam, Sinagua, and Mogollon were influenced by Indians of central Mexico, especially the Toltec. The Southwest Indians traded turquoise to Mesoamerican Indians, primarily the Toltec, for parrot feathers, copper bells, maize (corn), beans, squash, and cotton as is shown in the Wolfman Panel (Taylor).

Wolfman Panel with Mesoamerican Copper Bells

Many archaeologists agree on a wide trade network between the Southwest Indians and Mexico, especially with the Toltec, but discount an Anasazi migration from Mexico; these archaeologists believe the Southwest Indians emerged out of the desert archaic period (Stone). Stephen Lekson, History of the Ancient Southwest, provides growing evidence of a mass migration of Uto-Aztecan speaking people from Mesoamerica arriving with corn in the southwest as early as 1650 B.C.. The first farmers on the Colorado Plateau spoke a language that later become the language of the Hopi. 

Mogollon:

The Mogollon (mo-ge-yon) 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, the Mogollon acquired corn, squash, beans, tobacco, and cotton from Mesoamerica. The use of agricultural plants necessitated moving from scattered pithouses to semi-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 fertile mountainous area, the Mogollon Indians had abandoned the mountains by 1200 A.D. and moved south to Mexico.

Hohokam – Salado – Sinagua

The history of the Sinagua Culture is similar to the Hohokam and the Salado culture of southern Arizona. The Sinagua borrowed heavily from the Mogollon and Anasazi cultures as well. The two most famous of the Sinagua Pueblos is Montezuma Castle and Wupatki. When white settlers first saw Montezuma Castle and Aztec, an Anasazi pueblo, the belief was these structures were built by the Aztec of Mesoamerica, hence the names.

 Montezuma Castle Camp Verde Arizonia
Sinagua – Montezuma Castle
Sinagua Pueblo with Kiva
Wupatki Pueblo – Wupatki National Monument

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 early Hohokam Indians built pithouses and lived in small villages.

Anasazi Pithouse Cut-away or Kiva
Pithouse – Boulder State Park

The Hohokam are best known for their agriculture. The Hohokam used sharp, wood-digging sticks, thin rock slab hoes, and the shoulder blades of large animals to construct over a thousand miles of canals. Remnants of these canals can be seen in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. 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 the plants were hand-watered from canals, catch basins, or seeps.

Indian Tool from Northeast
Shoulder Bone Hoe- Knife – and Awl  Courtesy of Joe Humphries

Indians with primitive stone tools lacked the capability to flood irrigate large agricultural fields. Flood irrigation requires canals, diversion ditches, temporary dams, relatively level ground, and a plant cover. Level ground with a plant cover is lacking in a desert environment.

Extended families hand-watered and cultivated the Three Sisters as well as cotton and other crops. The Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) were planted in a series of earth mounds close to the canals similar to the milpas in Mesoamerica.

Milpa form of agriculture in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican Milpas – Three Sisters

Anasazi migrants from the Colorado Plateau and the influence from Mesoamerican cultures characterized the final period of Hohokam history. In the twelfth century, the Hohokam built concentrated settlements, some a half-mile square in area. The new Hohokam villages were solid clay walls reinforced with posts. Some of the new villages were massive multi-storied houses with walls more than six-feet thick at the base. Entrance to the walled villages was by ladder or a single portal. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, the multi-storied Casa Grande was built by the Hohokam.

Hohokam's Casa Grande
Casa Grande ~ 1100 A.D.

Snaketown the largest Hohokam pueblo 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 in the area of modern day Scottsdale, Arizona.  Not all the Hohokam lived in large villages; small bands continued to build traditional lodges of posts, brush, and mud plastering over a shallow pit.

The Hohokam developed trade networks west to the California coast, eastward to the high plains of New Mexico and Texas, and southward to Mexico. The Hohokam traded pottery and cloth for seashells from the California coast. Agriculture products, seashells, and turquoise were traded to the Llano Estacado Indians of New Mexico and Texas. Turquoise and decorated seashells were traded in Mesoamerica for copper bells, polished plaques of iron pyrite, parrots, and macaws, besides these extensive trade routes, the Hohokam traded with the Anasazi and the Mogollon.

Macaw from Mesoamerica
Macaw Petroglyph – Hovenweep National Monument

Concentrated populations signaled the end of the Hohokam expansion. Between 1130 and 1190, a prolonged drought led to crop failure, starvation, and violent feuds. During the twelve hundreds, the Hohokam abandoned the large settlements and returned to a small band, thirty to forty people, hunter-gatherer existence. Descendants of the Hohokam were in southern Arizona when first seen by Spanish explorers. The Spanish conquistadors referred to the Hohokam as Pima and Papago.

Anasazi: The Ancestral Puebloans

Anasazi is a Navajo word meaning ancient enemies. The Navajo object to this term, so the new politically correct name for the Anasazi is Ancestral Puebloans…the major problem with this name is the Anasazi were not the ancestors to the Hope, Zuni, Acoma, and other Pueblo tribes living primarily along the Rio Grande. When the Anasazi abandoned the four corners area many of them joined the pueblos along the Rio Grande River.

Basketmaker  Period 1-750 A. D.

Archaeologists recognize two major periods in the archaeological record of the Anasazi: the Basketmaker and Pueblo. In approximately 100 A. D., small hunter-gatherer bands of Anasazi settled on the Colorado Plateau. This large mountainous plateau region encompasses the Four Corners area, as well as, other parts of southern Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. The early Anasazi lived in shallow depressions in the ground covered by a canopy of brush and mud called pithouses. The Anasazi used woven 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 hand irrigation. The introduction of corn allowed the Anasazi to settle in one area. The corn was planted in small plots, and while it was growing, the people resumed their hunter-gather pursuits. Over several hundred years, Anasazi agriculture advanced to the point the people could sustain themselves in semi-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.

Watertight woven Anasazi Basket
Watertight Anasazi Basket

 By 500 A.D., the Basketmaker villages showed significant changes in their culture. Larger villages were 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 to Mesoamerica. Beans were cultivated as a source of protein; however pinion nuts, yucca fruit, berries, and wild game were still a major part of the diet. Fibrous plants, especially yucca fiber, were used for baskets, clothing, and other tools. Fibrous cords were used in construction of Anasazi dwellings.

Cedar Mesa's Sheik Canyon Fibrous Roof Ties -
Fibrous Roof Ties – Cedar Mesa

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

Black on White Anasazi Cup
Anasazi Cup – Mesa Verde NP

The pottery containers, or baskets, were stored inside masonry structures in the village or in small granaries tucked under overhangs on narrow ledges for emergency use. These storage granaries are occasionally spotted on high cliff ledges. Note the opening is on the top not on the side as is often depicted in so called granaries, which are actually Anasazi houses.

Anasazi food storage
Canyonlands Granary

A good deal of archaeological studies of the Anasazi centers on pottery. 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 or scrapings from a meal. Consequently, ceramic fragments (sherds) can indirectly show when a household or village was occupied.  Archaeologists use broken pieces of pottery to reveal information on social groups and trade networks.

Anasazi Clay Pots
Anasazi Pot

Some pottery made in the Colorado plateau area carried bold black-on-white designs, while other kinds included plain and textured, or corrugated cooking vessels.

Broken Anasazi Pots from different areas
Pottery Sherds

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. The style and design of pottery changed through time and varied with the inhabitants across different regions. Broken pieces of pottery are called sherds.

Pueblo Phase 750-1300 A.D.

The term Pueblo refers to Indian cultures 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, above ground houses, and improved pottery all came about during this period.

Jackel House built above ground
Reconstructed Mesa Verde Anasazi Jackal

At the start of the Pueblo era, the Anasazi built the traditional pithouses lodges and semi-subterranean kivas…a chamber, built wholly or partly underground, used by male Pueblo Indians for religious rites. In addition, above ground storage structures called Jackals were being built. Eventually, the Pueblo families moved out of the pithouses into the Jackals.

Chaco Canyon:

Around 750 A.D., an “elite group” started to build in Chaco Canyon. The Chaco Indians were either from, or strongly influenced by the Toltec Culture of central Mexico. This “elite group” brought with them  the knowledge and technological advancements seen in the population centers of central Mexico such as Teotihuacan and Tula….over a several thousand year time period in Mesoamerica several great Indian cultures developed and disappeared in the western hemisphere: Norte Chico in Peru and from central and southern Mexico the Olmec, Zapotec, and Teotihuacan.

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 grow and carry on an extensive corn trade between the two regions.

Over the next two centuries (800-1000 A.D.), the Anasazi spread across the San Juan Basin; more than ten thousand separate sites have been identified. Archaeologists have discovered at least one hundred and fifty great house style structures outside of Chaco Canyon; these Pueblos are referred to as Outliers. 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 through the Chaco priests. Priests convinced the farmers they controlled the seasonal rains. By gaining power over the corn, the Chacoans controlled a vast region of the Southwest (Walker). The Chacoans themselves made relatively little pottery, or grew much corn; they were the corn brokers.

During this time period, an extensive trade developed with Mesoamerica consisting of turquoise, pipestone, shells, carved flutes, mosaic baskets, and fine pottery, as well as, copper bells and macaw feathers.

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 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 Bonita built in Caco Canyon in 1000 - 1100 A.D,
Chaco Canyon – Pueblo Bonita

Pueblo Bonito is the most celebrated of the Chaco Canyon great houses. Along its back perimeter, the rooms stood five stories high. 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. The Pueblo Bonita workers shaped an estimated one million blocks of sandstone weighing some thirty thousand tons in constructing Pueblo Bonito.

An elaborate road and trail system connected the outlying villages with Chaco Canyon. Despite having over four hundred miles of roads, there is no evidence Chaco Indian used the wheel. 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. The timbers were packed from the Chuska Mountains to the west and the San Mateo Mountains to the south (Sharp).

Pueblo Bonita 600 hundred room building
Artists drawing of Pueblo Bonita in 1100 A.D.

The Chaco Culture Brochure states:

In contrast to the usual practice of adding rooms to existing structures as needed, many archaeologists believe 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” used periodically during times of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events.

This information from the Chaco Canyon Brochure is difficult to believe. If these great houses were built over decades, to pre-plan them would require some type of “blueprint” or written record. There is no evidence the Anasazi had any type of writing or communication through symbols. Even if these structures were built with “slave” labor, it is implausible these massive houses were built to impress visitors…from where?

Celestial Observation taken from Fajada Butte
Fajada Butte 

There is evidence of astronomical observations in Chaco Canyon. In 1977, Dr. Anna Sofaer discovered the Sun Dagger on Fajada Butte. 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). There is no direct evidence to support it, but the sun dial was probably built by the Toltec.

Sun Dials marking the soltices and Equinoxs
Fajada Butte Sun Dials

The unraveling of the Chaco society began with a prolonged drought beginning around 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. As the Chaco system begin to fail, the Chaco population scattered in a series of migrations to outlying areas. Some places in the Four Corners area such as, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, Betatakin, etc. were built about this time period.

One group built the Salmon Pueblo, which soon failed. Migrants from Salmon and Chaco Canyon built a five hundred room pueblo on the banks of the Animas River. 

Bult after the collapse of Chaco Canyon
Anasazi Aztec Pueblo

When white settlers first saw the ruins of this large pueblo, they called it, Aztec.The settlers could not believe indigenous Indians had built such an elaborate village (Walker). Leaving the question what happened to the Southwest Pueblo Indians?

Demise of  Prehistoric Southwest Indian Cultures:

Archaeologists put forth many reasons, especially drought, for the decline of the Southwest Indians. Environmental conditions, or warfare, often triggered the collapse of a culture, but the basic problem was stone-tooled farmers lacked the ability to grow, transport, and distribute enough food to support large numbers of non-food producing people in population centers. Another factor was the lack of domesticated work animals; this limited the ability of stone-tooled farmers to transport food to the large communities, such as, Pueblo Bonita, Casa Grande, Snaketown, etc…prehistoric Americas lacked large animal that could be domesticated for agriculture use.

The Anasazi article was written by 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) Thefurtrapper.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.

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Paleo-Indians              Mesoamerican Indians                Mesa Verde

Cedar Mesa           Barrier Canyon         Hovenweep          Betatakin     

Fremont Indians            Indian Rock Art               Monument Valley 

References:

Barnes, F. A and Pendleton, Michaelene. Canyon country prehistoric rock art: An illustrated guide to viewing, understanding and appreciating the rock art of the prehistoric Indian cultures of Utah, the Great Basin and the general Four Corners region. Wasatch Publishers, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1989.

Childs, Craig. House of Rain. Back Bay Books, New York, NY. 2006

Cordell, Linda S. Ancient Pueblo Peoples.  Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C. 1994.

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton, New York, N.Y. 1996.

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.

Lekson, Stephen. A History of the Ancient Southwest. School for Advanced Research Press. Santa Fe, New Mexico. 2011.

Madsen, David B.. Exploring the Fremont. Utah Museum of Natural History/University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1989.

Noble. David Grant. Archeology Guide to Ancient Ruins of the Southwest. Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, AZ, 2000.

Roberts, David. In Search of the Old Ones Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. 1996

Schaafsma, Polly. The Rock Art of Utah. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah. 2004.

Stone, Tammy. The Prehistory of Colorado and Adjacent Areas. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1999.

Taylor, Allan. American Colonies: The settling of North America. Penguin Books. New York, NY. 2002. 

Turner, Christy G. II , and Turner, Jacqueline A. Man Corn Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric Southwest. University of Utah Press, 1999.

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, Dolores, Colorado

www.co.blm.gov/ahc/anasazi.htm

Anna Sofaer

http://www.solsticeproject.org

Hopi Indians

http:\\www.hopi.nsn.us/village3.asp

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