Ancestral Puebloans: "Ancestral Puebloans: Builders of the Southwest"
Ancestral Puebloans
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado.[1] They are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, which developed from the Picosa culture. The people and their archaeological culture are often referred to as Anasazi, meaning "ancient enemies", as they were called by Navajo. Contemporary Puebloans object to the use of this term, with some viewing it as derogatory.[2][3]
The Ancestral Puebloans lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos,
and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. They had a complex network
linking hundreds of communities and population centers across the Colorado Plateau. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used mostly for ceremonies, was an integral part of the community structure.
Origins
During the period from 700 to 1130 AD (Pueblo I and II Eras),
the population grew fast due to consistent and regular rainfall which
supported agriculture. Studies of skeletal remains show increased
fertility rather than decreased mortality. However, this tenfold
population increase over a few generations was probably also due to
migrations of people from surrounding areas. Innovations such as
pottery, food storage, and agriculture enabled this rapid growth. Over
several decades, the Ancestral Puebloan culture spread across the
landscape.[citation needed]
Ancestral Puebloan culture has been divided into three main areas or branches, based on geographical location:[citation needed]
Modern Pueblo oral traditions[which?] hold that the Ancestral Puebloans originated from sipapu, where they emerged from the underworld.
For unknown ages, they were led by chiefs and guided by spirits as they
completed vast migrations throughout the continent of North America.
They settled first in the Ancestral Puebloan areas for a few hundred
years before moving to their present locations.[citation needed]
Migration from the homeland
Chaco Culture bowl, 11th to 13th centuries, Pueblo Alto, Chaco Canyon
The Ancestral Puebloans left their established homes in the 12th and
13th centuries. The main reason is unclear. Factors discussed include
global or regional climate change, prolonged drought, environmental degradation such as cyclical periods of topsoil erosion or deforestation, hostility from new arrivals, religious or cultural change, and influence from Mesoamerican cultures. Many of these possibilities are supported by archaeological evidence.[28]
Current scholarly consensus is that Ancestral Puebloans responded to pressure from Numic-speaking
peoples moving onto the Colorado Plateau, as well as climate change
that resulted in agricultural failures. The archaeological record
indicates that for Ancestral Puebloans to adapt to climatic change by
changing residences and locations was not unusual.[29]
Early Pueblo I Era sites may have housed up to 600 individuals in a few
separate but closely spaced settlement clusters. However, they were
generally occupied for 30 years or less. Archaeologist Timothy A. Kohler
excavated large Pueblo I sites near Dolores, Colorado,
and discovered that they were established during periods of
above-average rainfall. This allowed crops to be grown without requiring
irrigation. At the same time, nearby areas that suffered significantly
drier patterns were abandoned.
Ancestral Puebloans attained a cultural "Golden Age" between
about 900 and 1150. During this time, generally classed as Pueblo II
Era, the climate was relatively warm and rainfall mostly adequate.
Communities grew larger and were inhabited for longer. Highly specific
local traditions in architecture and pottery emerged, and trade over
long distances appears to have been common. Domesticated turkeys appeared.[30]
After around 1130, North America had significant climatic change
in the form of a 300-year period of aridity called the Great Drought.[31] This also led to the collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization around Lake Titicaca in present-day Bolivia.[32] The contemporary Mississippian culture
also collapsed during this period. Confirming evidence dated between
1150 and 1350 has been found in excavations of the western regions of
the Mississippi Valley, which show long-lasting patterns of warmer, wetter winters and cooler, drier summers.
In this later period, the Pueblo II became more self-contained,
decreasing trade and interaction with more distant communities.
Southwest farmers developed irrigation techniques appropriate to
seasonal rainfall, including soil and water control features such as
check dams and terraces. The population of the region continued to be
mobile, abandoning settlements and fields under adverse conditions.
There was also a drop in water table
due to a different cycle unrelated to rainfall. This forced the
abandonment of settlements in the more arid or overfarmed locations.[33]
Evidence suggests a profound change in religion in this period.
Chacoan and other structures constructed originally along astronomical
alignments, and thought to have served important ceremonial purposes to
the culture, were systematically dismantled. Doorways were sealed with
rock and mortar. Kiva walls show marks from great fires set within them,
which probably required removal of the massive roof – a task which
would require significant effort. Habitations were abandoned, and tribes
divided and resettled far.
This evidence suggests that the religious structures were abandoned deliberately over time. Pueblo oral history
holds that the ancestors had achieved great spiritual power and control
over natural forces. They used their power in ways that caused nature
to change and caused changes that were never meant to occur. Possibly,
the dismantling of their religious structures was an effort to
symbolically undo the changes they believed they caused due to their
abuse of their spiritual power, and thus make amends with nature.
Most modern Pueblo peoples (whether Keresans, Hopi, or Tanoans)
assert the Ancestral Puebloans did not "vanish", as is commonly
portrayed. They say that the people migrated to areas in the southwest
with more favorable rainfall and dependable streams. They merged into
the various Pueblo peoples whose descendants still live in Arizona and
New Mexico. This perspective was also presented by early 20th-century
anthropologists, including Frank Hamilton Cushing, J. Walter Fewkes, and Alfred V. Kidder.
Many modern Pueblo tribes trace their lineage from specific settlements. For example, the San Ildefonso Pueblo
people believe that their ancestors lived in both the Mesa Verde and
the Bandelier areas. Evidence also suggests that a profound change took
place in the Ancestral Pueblo area and areas inhabited by their cultural
neighbors, the Mogollon. Historian James W. Loewen agrees with this oral tradition in his book, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Markers and Monuments Get Wrong (1999). No academic consensus exists with the professional archeological and anthropological community on this issue.
Environmental stress may have caused changes in social structure, leading to conflict and warfare. Near Kayenta, Arizona,
Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago has been studying a group
of Ancestral Puebloan villages that relocated from the canyons to the
high mesa tops during the late 13th century. Haas believes that the
reason to move so far from water and arable land was a defense against
enemies. He asserts that isolated communities relied on raiding for food
and supplies, and that internal conflict and warfare became common in
the 13th century.
This conflict may have been aggravated by the influx of less settled peoples, Numic-speakers such as the Utes, Shoshones, and Paiute people, who may have originated in what is today California, and the arrival of the Athabaskan-speaking Diné who migrated from the north during this time and subsequently became the Navajo and Apache
tribes most notably. Others suggest that more developed villages, such
as that at Chaco Canyon, exhausted their environments, resulting in
widespread deforestation and eventually the fall of their civilization
through warfare over depleted resources.
A 1997 excavation at Cowboy Wash near Dolores, Colorado found remains of at least 24 human skeletons that showed evidence of violence and dismemberment, with strong indications of cannibalism.[34] This modest community appears to have been abandoned during the same time period.[35]
Other excavations within the Ancestral Puebloan cultural area have
produced varying numbers of unburied, and in some cases dismembered,
bodies.[36] In a 2010 paper, Potter and Chuipka argued that evidence at Sacred Ridge site, near Durango, Colorado, is best interpreted as warfare related to competition and ethnic cleansing.[37]
This evidence of warfare, conflict, and cannibalism is hotly debated by some scholars and interest groups.[34][38][39]
Suggested alternatives include: a community suffering the pressure of
starvation or extreme social stress, dismemberment and cannibalism as
religious ritual or in response to religious conflict, the influx of
outsiders seeking to drive out a settled agricultural community via
calculated atrocity, or an invasion of a settled region by nomadic
raiders who practiced cannibalism.
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