DEVELOPMENTAL PUEBLO PERIOD. 750 to 1100 A.D.
As we move into this new period it should be stressed that there was no radical change in the culture. The same people continued to occupy the Mesa Verde and they showed the same progressive tendencies which we have seen in the earlier periods.
At this time, however, the people did a surprising thing. They adopted a new cradle. Offhand, this may not seem especially important but it had a startling effect and early archeologists were confronted with a baffling problem. The new cradle caused such a radical change in the appearance of the Indians that until recently the archeologists thought a new people had moved into the region.
When the Basket Makers first were recognized half a century ago it was noticed immediately that their skulls were strikingly different from those of the people who had lived in pueblos and cliff dwellings. Skulls of the Basket Makers were longer and narrower and there was no deformity on the back. In contrast, skulls of the later people were broad and this broadness was emphasized by a flattening on the back, a deformity caused by the hard cradle board. The head shape was so radically different that early archeologists assumed a new, broad-headed people had moved into the region during the eighth century and merged with the Basket Makers.
As southwestern archeology progressed through uncertain early years this assumption that the Basket Makers and Pueblos were two different people was generally accepted. In those early days there was not enough skeletal material for an exhaustive comparative study and while many questions were unanswered and doubts were often expressed by archeologists, the separate identity of the Basket Makers and Pueblos was generally accepted.
Now the story has changed. Recent intensive study of a large amount of skeletal material, ranging from the ancient Basket Makers to recent Pueblo Indians, has thrown new light on the problem. The result is that after all these years it now becomes apparent that there was no radical change of physical type at all. The Basket Maker type seems to have persisted with little evidence of any great addition of new blood.
The radical change in the shape of the heads seems to have resulted from the new cradle which the people adopted during the eighth century. The soft, padded cradle of the Basket Makers was discarded and within a short time all of the women of the tribe were using a cradle made of wood. No pillow was placed under the baby’s head and the result was inevitable. The back of the head flattened, the sides bulged and a broad, deformed head resulted.
How can this change of cradles be explained except by saying that it was a craze, a new beauty fad which caught the fancy of the people. Where it came from is not known: surely it must have been borrowed from other people with whom the Basket Makers came in contact. Evidently the new head shape became fashionable for within a short time the new cradle was adopted throughout the area. Instead of changing the hat or “hairdo”, as is the custom among modern people, they went to the very root of the matter and changed the shape of the skull itself.
Basket Maker cradle
Pueblo cradle board
From this time on we are going to know the people as Pueblo Indians. “Pueblo” is a Spanish word meaning village, or town, and was applied by the early Spaniards to Indians whom they found living in large, compact, many-roomed villages. It is an excellent term, as far as architecture is concerned, for from the eighth century on the Indians of the Mesa Verde showed an increasing tendency to join their houses together to form compact villages. The term, Developmental Pueblo period, means exactly what it says. It was a time of development and expansion and during this period the groundwork was laid for the Great Pueblo period which followed.
Once again we should stress a very important point. Even though we have changed names, even though we have stepped from the Modified Basket Maker to the Developmental Pueblo period there was no abrupt cultural change. The only real difference as we move from one period to the next is in the appearance of the people. Because of the adoption of the hard cradle their heads became broad and deformed but otherwise the changes were gradual and it is difficult to draw a sharp line between the two periods.
During the Developmental Pueblo period there was the same gradual development in all lines that we have seen throughout the earlier periods. The people were alert and curious: they were energetic and ambitious and the result was steady development. It was a period of peace and the people seem to have lived without fear of an enemy. The caves were deserted and villages were built on the open mesa tops or in broad valleys near the fields of corn, beans and squash which provided them with food in abundance. The population grew rapidly and spread over a vast area in the Four Corners region where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico now meet at a common point. It was a far-flung culture and there is every evidence that for a long time there was peace and prosperity among the people.
The most important development during this period was in the field of architecture. At the end of the previous period most of the villages consisted of groups of individual pithouses. Some of the villages, however, were made up of long curving rows of flat-roofed houses built of poles, stone slabs and adobe. In front of the living rooms were one or more pithouses which probably served as ceremonial rooms.
At first the Developmental Pueblo villages were merely continuations of these earlier villages. As time passed improvements came, indicating that the builders were doing a great deal of experimenting. Walls of many types were built and with each generation there was progress. During this period the population of the Mesa Verde evidently was large for the mesa tops are dotted with scores, perhaps hundreds, of ruins.
Recently five ruins dating from this period have been excavated in the Mesa Verde. Two of the ruins are at the Twin Trees site, with one ruin sitting on top of the other. The other three are less than three hundred yards away at Site 16. And here again the ruins are piled up one on top of another. The people showed a strong tendency to build villages on the ruins of earlier villages.
The five ruins, taken in chronological order, show very clearly the architectural progress of the Developmental Pueblo period:
850 A.D. The first ruin is a slab-house pueblo. The floors of the living rooms were a foot or more below ground level and the earthen walls were lined with slabs. The upper walls consisted of slender posts, set a few inches apart, with the intervening spaces filled with adobe. In front of the long row of living rooms were four pitrooms, each one being about six feet deep. The roof of each pitroom was supported on four posts set in the floor of the room.
900 A.D. The second ruin is a post-and-adobe pueblo. The floors of the living rooms were not dug below ground level and no stone slabs were used. The walls consisted of posts, set upright a foot or more apart. The spaces between the posts were filled with adobe into which had been forced many small stones. In front of the living rooms was a kiva of a very early type. The walls were of plastered native earth. The roof was supported on four posts but instead of rising from the kiva floor the posts were built into the face of a bench which encircled the room.
950 A.D. The third ruin is a small masonry pueblo. The walls were built of stones and adobe but the masonry was exceedingly crude. The stones were irregular in shape and only a few were laid in even rows. An excessive amount of adobe was used; actually the walls were about fifty percent adobe and fifty percent stone. In front of the living rooms was an early type kiva. The walls were of plastered native earth and the roof, instead of being supported on posts, was supported on four stone pillars, or pilasters, which rested on the bench.
1000 A.D. The fourth ruin is a small pueblo built of single-coursed masonry. The walls of the living rooms contain stones which were well shaped but without smoothed faces. The stones were laid in even rows but the walls were only the thickness of a single stone, measuring less than a foot in width. The kiva, which was located in front of the living rooms, approached the standard Mesa Verde type. The walls below the bench were faced with stone and the roof was supported by six stone pilasters which rested on the bench.
1075 A.D. The fifth ruin is a pueblo built of thick, double-coursed masonry. The faces of the stones were smoothed and some retain the peck marks of the tools used in the shaping process. Some of the walls were two stories high. The kiva, located in front of the living rooms, was of excellent construction. The roof was supported on eight stone pillars which rested on the bench, and the walls, from the floor to the top of the pillars, were faced with masonry of good quality. One new architectural feature, the tower, appears in this ruin. There are three of these tall, circular structures—we shall consider them in a moment.
The five ruins demonstrate graphically the steady architectural progress of the Developmental Pueblo period. In the beginning the houses were crudely built of posts and adobe and the underground rooms, which may not have been entirely ceremonial at first, were merely deep pitrooms. At the end of the period the houses were of good masonry and the standard Mesa Verde kiva had developed. Certainly this development shows that the people were constantly experimenting and as a result the architecture improved steadily. During the latter part of the period few large pueblos were built. Usually a village consisted of a few living rooms joined together in a compact unit. A short distance south of the living rooms was a single kiva.
Pottery also made rapid advances during this period. The women had become convinced of its value and they experimented endlessly, probably in a spirit of friendly competition. During the preceding period pottery was dull gray in color and the crudely painted designs did not contrast well with this drab background. The women now learned to apply a thin wash of white clay to the vessels. This wash or slip, as it is called, produced a clear white background and against this the constantly improving designs stood out in bold contrast. Corrugated pottery appeared and vessels of this type were used chiefly for cooking purposes.
Good baskets still were made but pottery vessels were superior to baskets for most purposes. As a result the quality of the baskets began to decline. Sandals were much like those of earlier periods except that the toes were rounded and there was less elaborate decoration. Cotton came into use about the middle of the period and loom-woven cloth made its appearance. Recent experiments have indicated that cotton will not grow in the Mesa Verde so it must have been imported from warmer areas to the south.
Minor arts and crafts improved as the people became more proficient in the use of bone, stone and wood. An interesting change occurred in the metate, or milling stone, during this period. Earlier metates were trough-shaped, with a shallow groove for a grinding surface. Now a flat metate came into use and the entire surface was used for grinding the corn.
As the Developmental Pueblo period ended, thousands of peaceful farming Indians occupied the Mesa Verde and a vast area around it. The population had grown steadily since earliest Basket Maker times and the region may have known its greatest population at this time or in the early part of the following period. Most of the villages were small; usually they consisted of a few living rooms and a single kiva. These villages are often called unit pueblos and it has been suggested that each one may have housed a number of closely related families forming a single clan.
That the people were vigorous and ambitious is indicated by the progress which they made. Now we see them nearing their cultural peak and it is time for us to leave the Developmental Pueblo period and move into the golden age of the Pueblos.