Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest

by H. M. Wormington

It might seem that as soon as written records become available for a period it should be classed as historic rather than prehistoric. The Pueblo Indians, however, were sufficiently successful in withstanding outside influences that the terminal date for the Regressive-Pueblo period is usually given as 1700, and only the period from 1700 to the present is called the Historic-Pueblo period.

The trend during Regressive-Pueblo times was toward larger houses. In the Hopi area the early houses were characterized by fine masonry and covered about an acre of ground. Later they became much larger and, in some cases, covered from ten to twelve acres of ground. These houses were sometimes made up of long rows of buildings with plazas between them. Kivas were rectangular, with a niche at one end of the room containing a bench. The normal size was about ten or fourteen feet square. On the floor, which was usually paved with stones, are found loom blocks. These are sandstone blocks with depressions designed to hold poles on which the warp threads are wound. The finding of these loom blocks in prehistoric kivas is most interesting, for, among the Hopi even today, the weaving is done by the men in the kivas. The use of commercially woven fabrics for most clothing has naturally curtailed the practice of this craft, but ceremonial clothing and fine white blankets which serve as wedding robes are still woven in the kivas.

The early pottery was largely black-on-yellow, but some polychrome ware was made, and there was also plain cooking pottery and some corrugated. The latter became progressively less widely used, and later cooking ware is almost entirely plain. In some later sites some of the black-on-yellow ware is marked by a distinctive stippling technique as black paint was splattered over the yellow background. During the period from 1400 to 1625 some of the most beautiful pottery ever made in the Southwest was being produced in the Hopi country. This is a polychrome ware which bears exceptionally fine designs, which include geometric and life forms and particularly graceful patterns, applied in red and black paint on a yellow background. Over forty years ago, archaeologists were excavating ancient villages in the Hopi country and finding examples of this beautiful ware. A woman of the village of Walpi, named Nampeyo, was the wife of one of the workmen employed by the expedition. She was already a fine potter, and she recognized the great artistry represented by these ancient vessels. She began to use similar designs and continued to produce remarkably fine pottery for over thirty years, although, for much of that time, her sight was failing and eventually she became blind, and the final painting of the graceful vessels which she had shaped had to be entrusted to others. The influence of this talented woman can still be seen in the fine pottery made by Hopi women of the First Mesa.

Fig. 36—Cavate dwellings and talus houses at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico. (Courtesy National Park Service.)

In the Zuñi district houses and kivas were much like those of the Hopi country. Pottery in this area was largely decorated with glaze paints. These are vitreous mixtures obtained by the use of lead in the paint. Glaze paints were difficult to apply and had a tendency to run or settle in masses. As a result, designs were poor, but the use of glazes was confined to decorations and entire vessels were not covered.

In the Rio Grande drainage, people with an earlier Pueblo [culture] were just beginning to come together into large communities when this period began. Doubtless, the advent of people from other parts of the Plateau province did much to intensify this trend. As time went by, houses became larger and fewer in number. [Tuff] blocks and adobe were widely used in their construction and there was some use of cavate dwellings. These are rooms, excavated into the back walls of caves, which have porchlike chambers in front.

Two famous Regressive-Pueblo sites in this region, which are known to many tourists, are Puye,[62] on the Pajarito Plateau, and Tyuonyi in El Rito de los Frijoles.[60] Beams from Puye have yielded tree-ring dates ranging from 1507 to 1565. This settlement, perched on a huge mass of yellowish gray [tuff], consists of two aggregations of buildings. Forming a quadrangle on top of the mesa, were four, terraced community houses built around a court. There were also houses built in and against the cliff walls, usually at the top of the talus slope. At Tyuoni, whose dates range between about 1423 and 1513, there is a great communal house which was, in part, two stories high and roughly circular in form. It was made of tuff blocks. Three small kivas were built in the center court or [plaza]. A few hundred yards to the east of the ruin lies a large [kiva]. For a little over a mile along the canyon wall were cave rooms dug into the cliff and rows of small houses built of tuff blocks. Some of the cave rooms had porchlike structures erected in front of them, but others did not.

The largest and strongest pueblo during this period was Pecos, which lay at the headwaters of the Pecos River in northern New Mexico.[73] The first buildings were erected shortly before 1300, and final abandonment did not come until 1838. Such a long record is, of course, of tremendous archaeological importance, and it is indeed fortunate that some of the most extensive and painstaking excavations ever undertaken in the Southwest were at this site. There was evidence of at least six distinct towns. Great masses of pottery have been excavated, with careful attention being paid to stratigraphy, and very detailed studies have been made.[75][77] Well over a thousand skeletons have been obtained and given careful study.