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Running head: ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SETTLEMENTS

Ancestral Puebloan Settlements in the American Southwest


Benjamin Tanner
Salt Lake Community College
ANTH 1030
Tiffany Collins
30 November 2015

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

The Ancestral Puebloans, sometimes called the Anasazi, began settlements in the
southwest around 200 AD; by 500 AD had begun developing villages in the region. By 1250 AD
they had all but disappeared from the four corners area. While they were living in the area they
constructed a variety of dwelling types, some of which are still standing today. They created
beautiful ceramic pottery, cultivated maize and other agricultural crops, and traded regionally
bringing in goods from a large area. The grandeur of their cultural achievements is matched with
the rapid migration and abandonment of large village sites. In this paper I will outline migration
patterns and cultural achievements of the Ancestral Puebloans in Americans desert Southwest.
The Ancestral Puebloans are best known for larger masonry structures and cliff
dwellings. But this type of construction did not happen until 1000 AD. Prior to that they lived in
pit houses which had a shallow subsurface floor and a roof supported by timbers, including one
entrance on the top of the house accessed by a ladder. These pit houses were organized into small
villages, and relied heavily on agriculture for sustenance. Following the people of this region
congregating in villages they are referred to as Puebloans, meaning village dwellers in Spanish
(National Park Service, 2015). Construction of structures iconic to the Ancestral Pubeloans
began around 1000 AD and they were occupied for nearly 250 years before the areas
abandonment. This type of building allowed many people to live in one area, with the capacity to
house multiple families like Cliff palace, a large village structure at Mesa Verde with over 150
rooms. This arrangement became both possible and more important with the increased
dependence on agriculture.
Another iconic hallmark of the Ancestral Puebloans is their ceramics. Known
affectionately as Anasazi Style pottery, their large and intricately decorated ceramic vessels
have acquired worldwide interest and fascination. Perhaps the most well-known example of this

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

regions ceramics is the Mesa Verde Black-on-white style. These detailed and skillfully decorated
vessels, as well as simpler corrugated wares, are found throughout the four corners region
(Green, 2010). Ceramic vessels such as these were made particularly popular due to the
discovery and excavation of Mesa Verde in Colorado. Gray corrugated wares were likely used
for cooking and preparing foods. Decorated wares, including black-on-whites and polychromes,
may have had some ceremonial use, although some also had daily domestic use.
Maize was a staple of the Ancestral Puebloan diet. As they began to settle more in
villages, the Anasazi became increasingly dependent on maize along with squash and other
agricultural foods. The cultivation of maize began in Mesoamerica, with is origins in a wild grass
called teosinte (Chazan, 2014). Once domestication of plants became successful in providing
food for larger groups of people, it quickly spread throughout north and south America. Trade
networks for other goods were also established between the Ancestral Puebloans and other
groups over a large geographic region. Trade goods from the Pacific Coast and Mesoamerica
have been found throughout the southwest, including large sites like Mesa Verde and Chaco
Canyon, which were centers from trade. Because of the well-established networks between
regions that we can see in recovered artifacts, it is easy to see how maize and agricultural
techniques would also have traveled on these routes as culture was shared with these trade goods.
Through dendrochronology, or tree ring dating, researchers can assign specific dates to
the use of an area or the construction of a dwelling based on the years that leave a specific
signature in the rings of harvested trees. This can only be done, however, in places that have an
established regional chronology used as a reference to determine age. Another thing we can
analyze through looking at trees rings is the patterns of quality growing years. We can assume
that when a tree had a heathier growing year that other plants, including agricultural crops,

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

would have had heathier season and had higher yields in those years as well. This can help us
determine years of drought, helping us understand one possible reason for abandonment. There
were likely many factors that may have encouraged an abandonment of large dwellings sites and
villages throughout the southwest. One additional event that many effected the change is
evidence of a large volcanic eruption; this could have contributed to a changing environment and
a hostile agricultural situation where crops had smaller yields than previous years (Slazer, 2000).
The Ancestral Puebloan occupied the modern day Four Corners region of the Southwest
for 1000 years. The remnants of their culture are found in what they left behind, including iconic
architecture and ceramics. The descendants of the ancient ones still occupy other regions of the
southwest today and add to the mosaic of the continents indigenous peoples. The Anasazi
culture, or Ancestral Puebloans, contributed greatly to the human history of North America.
From them we have some of our greatest examples of pre-colonialization life in North America,
and the remains of their culture have become national treasures.

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

References
Chazan, M. (2014). Mounds and Maize. In World Prehistory and Archaeology
(Third ed., pp. 207-211). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
National Park Servcie, (2015) Ancestral Puebloans and Their World, Retrieved from
http://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/education/upload/ancestral_puebloans.pdf
Green, L. (2010). Layman Field Guide to Ancestral Puebloan Pottery, Northen San Juan/Mesa
Verde Region. Minuteman Press.
Salzer, M. (2000). Temperature Variability and the Northern Anasazi: Possible Implications for
Regional Abandonment. Kiva, 65(4), 295-317.

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