TYPES OF PREHISTORIC SOUTHWESTERN ARCHITECTURE
By J. Walter Fewkes
Among primitive peoples the calendar, sun worship and agriculture are closely connected. When man was just emerging from the hunting or fishing stages into early agricultural conditions it rarely happened that he replanted the same fields year after year, for it was early recognized that the land, however fertile, would not yield good crops in successive years but should lie fallow one or more years before replanting. The primitive agriculturist learned by experience that a change was necessary to insure good crops. To effect this change the agriculturist moved his habitation and planted on the sites where the soil was found to be fertile. There was thus a continual shifting of planting places which accounts in part for frequent migrations. In our Southwest this nomadic condition was succeeded by a stationary agricultural stage. Necessary water was supplied by irrigation which also contributed nourishment necessary for the enrichment of the soil. When an agricultural population is thus anchored to one locality, permanent, well-constructed habitations are built near farms that are tilled year after year.
The following ideas on the relation of agricultural people, the calendar and sun worship were practically adopted from Mr. E. J. Payne’s “History of the New World called America.”
It is obligatory for the agriculturist, especially when the country is arid, to have a reliable calendar; he must know the best time for planting that the seeds may germinate, the epoch when the rains are most abundant that the plants may grow, and the season when the hot sun may mature the growing corn. Agricultural life necessitates an exact calendar.
Several methods are used by the primitive agriculturist to determine the time for planting, the most reliable of which is the position of the sun and moon on the horizon rising or setting. The movements of the latter, especially the phases of the new moon, although important, do not serve as the best basis of the annual calendar. The time of the year cannot be told by observations of the moon. The phases of the moon play a certain rôle among agricultural people, since this planet takes a subordinate place in determining the calendar. The positions of the sun, or the points of its rising and setting on the horizon and its altitude at midday, afforded the primitive agriculturist data that could be relied upon from year to year to determine the season. The position of the sun at midsummer and midwinter, rising or setting, is associated with most important events; the winter solstice indicates the time when the fields should be prepared for cultivation; when the irrigating ditches should be cleared out and prepared for planting. We consequently find the winter solstice, which occurs at the close of December, is practically set aside by all agricultural people as an occasion of a great festival in which sun-worship is dominant. At this time we also find a complicated ceremony, the object of which is to draw back the sun and prepare the people for the work before them. Around this midwinter festival were crowded rites of the purification of the earth from evil influences of winter, a dramatic personation of the return of the sun god, preliminary to the call to the husbandman to begin his work. The planting itself occurs somewhat later, or when the sun reaches the vernal equinox, the determination of which is less important than the solstice.
When agricultural man had discovered a reliable calendar and was able to definitely determine the time for planting, growth, and harvesting of his crops, his life became still more rigidly fixed in sedentary conditions; he no longer was a hunter or shepherd; he ceased to have a nomadic tendency. The consciousness of being able to rely upon a definite food supply expresses itself in the art of building. He is led to construct more durable habitations. Successful agriculture, stable architecture, and a reliable calendar are thus closely connected. The most successful agriculture in aboriginal North America is found in regions where knowledge of the calendar was most highly developed. Early efforts to perfect the calendar by studies of the sun intensified sun worship. The most highly developed expressions of solar worship as well as the best constructed masonry on the American continent are associated with the highest development of the calendar. There can be adduced no better illustration than the masonry of Peruvian temples which compares favorably with any in the world. The surface ornamentation of these buildings is not as elaborate as in those of Central America, but there are few examples of masonry in the Old World with stones more accurately fitted together, the walls more enduring—a remarkable fact when we consider that the people who built these colossal structures in the New World were unfamiliar with the metals, iron and steel. Sun worship is the basis of the ancient Peruvian culture expressed by these extraordinary buildings. Although our knowledge of Peruvian calendric signs is not as accurate as of that of Central America, all evidence goes to show that the calendar of the Incas was not inferior to that of the Mayas.
In prehistoric North America we find remains of buildings constructed of masonry quite equal to that of the same epoch in the Old World. This may be illustrated by reference to the cliff-dwellers’ towers in our Southwest. If some of the towers of Sardinia were placed side by side with those of southwestern Colorado, any impartial observer would say that the masonry in the latter was equal to that in the former. The megalithic dolmens of England exhibit no walls superior in masonry to massive walls in the mountain canyons of Utah and Arizona constructed before the advent of the whites. In other words it is evident that the architecture of a people is not wholly an index of stage of culture. If the prehistoric aborigines of our Southwest be judged by buildings we may say they had progressed in historic development into a stage attained by nations more advanced because they were acquainted with metals.
The prehistoric people of our Southwest called pueblos and cliff-dwellers constructed many different forms of rooms which can be compared and reduced to a few types. It is the object of the following pages to examine the morphology of these buildings.
It will be found on examination that these prehistoric buildings were constructed on certain universal lines, reproducing with startling similarity types which are world-wide. It will also be found that habitations or buildings devoted to certain utilitarian purposes have one form, while sacred buildings have another, following a law geographically widespread. Man shares with the animal a desire for protection for his family or food accumulated or awaiting consumption. This holds true among agricultural peoples whose food is cereal and can be stored indefinitely or prepared for use when necessary. It is not necessary to suppose that man learned the habit of storing food from bees and squirrels; the same needs produced the same habits. The earliest storage places adopted by man were caves, trunks of trees or pits dug in the earth, the first mentioned being the most common. The first step taken to improve this storage place was the construction of a wall to close the entrance to the cave or pit. A further modification, practically an expansion of this simple idea, led to the construction of an elaborate dwelling having rooms specialized for different economical purposes within the shelter of the cave.