![]() Still, we see some interesting differences between these two ancient populations. People who lived in the Mogollon region in the distant past had much in common with people living in the Ancestral Pueblo region, and were probably also among the ancestors of modern Pueblo people and even other contemporary communities in the southern Southwest and Mexico. The Mogollon (pronounced muggy-own) region includes vast expanses of the Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico and northern Mexico, as well as the Mogollon Mountain range across east-central Arizona. The largest and most elaborate of these structures are located in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, which was an influential center between about A.D. Archaeologists call the most common forms of these structures great houses (large and impressively built pueblos) and great kivas (round, semi-subterranean structures used as spaces for religious purposes or other large gatherings). People in this region also built large structures that they probably used for religious observances. Later in time, people in the Ancestral Pueblo region began to build aboveground stone-masonry structures (commonly known as pueblos), and they commenced making beautiful black-on-white, red, and multicolored (polychrome) pottery. To form vessels, potters in the Ancestral Pueblo region built up coils of clay and then scraped them smooth, which we call the coil-and-scrape technique-an uncharacteristically straightforward term borrowed from contemporary ceramic artists. These villagers made gray ware pottery (referring to the color of the clay) and beautifully woven baskets and sandals. As the name “Ancestral Pueblo” suggests, people in this region were among the ancestors of today’s Pueblo people.Īt the earliest Ancestral Pueblo sites, people dwelled in deep pithouses (subterranean structures with a wood and earth superstructure) with roof entryways. Most archaeologists have ceased using “Anasazi” because many contemporary Pueblo people oppose the term. The Ancestral Pueblo (previously called Anasazi) region falls largely along the Colorado Plateau in the northern half of the Southwest. Map by Catherine Gilman, updated by Kathleen Bader. Archaeological cultures of the Southwest. All of these groups were settled farmers, but there are key differences. The largest and best-known culture areas in the Southwest include the Ancestral Pueblo, the Mogollon, and the Hohokam. Throughout this process of “settling in” across the landscape, the ways people lived and the things they made and built began to diverge.īy about 2,000 years ago-and probably even a bit earlier-there were clear regional differences across the Southwest, and archaeologists have used evidence of those differences to define archaeological culture areas. Soon thereafter, people in some parts of the Southwest began to construct irrigation canals and establish increasingly permanent settlements. The high degree of mobility that marked the lives of early residents of the Southwest probably accounts, in large part, for the broad geographic scale of the similarities researchers have documented.Ī little more than 4,000 years ago, maize (corn) agriculture arrived on the scene in the Southwest. Interestingly, archaeologists use the Paleoindian, Clovis, and Archaic archaeological cultural designations across much of North America (though timing and some of the specifics may differ), suggesting that the ways in which these early populations lived were similar across a vast area. People hunted bison and other, smaller animals and gathered an ever-increasing diversity of plant resources. Īrchaeologists recognize a widespread pattern, which we call Archaic, after the end of the last Ice Age. “Clovis” is the name for the earliest well-documented manifestation of this pattern, though people may have been in the Southwest prior to what we recognize as the Clovis pattern. We refer to these extremely mobile gatherers and big-game hunters (“big” as in mammoths!) as Paleoindians. The oldest archaeological remains documented in this region date to the end of the last Ice Age, about 13,500 years ago. Real mammoths were not cute and poofy like Manny in the movie “Ice Age.” Animated mammoth from pbs.org. Before we look at the three main culture areas of the Southwest, I should say a bit about the earliest lifeways in the region. On Monday, I wrote about how archaeologists define culture areas, which represent geographic zones in which people were living in generally similar ways and across which people were connected through shared history and practices.
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