Types of prehistoric Southwestern architecture

by Jesse Walter Fewkes

This same idea of protection led to another line of development in which the cave is wanting. The construction of a stone cairn in the open would also serve for protection of the food supply. Such a building, erected simply for storage, naturally drew about it subordinate rooms for dwellings, at first temporary in structure but later, as ability in stone-working improved, permanent buildings or community-houses of durable material. This second type of prehistoric building, erected independent of caves, evolved along lines different from the first; in forms of construction the two types are similar, but they differ as to sites; one became a cliff or cave dwelling; the other, what is called a village or pueblo.

Consider another line of development. The buildings we have already considered were erected primarily for the preservation and protection of material possessions. Man, in whatever stage, regards it as necessary to construct a building for religious purposes; in many instances this structure is nothing more than a row of upright stones enclosing an area devoted to his gods. No roof was considered necessary since the objects of worship were practically forces of nature. As time went on, priests or congregations gathered to perform rites within the circular or other areas, or in their neighborhood. These ceremonies rendered secrecy necessary. A priesthood developed with a systematic ritual, which had to be hidden from the eyes of the inquisitive by roofs and side walls, thus forming a building, from which developed the temple or sacred room. Subsequently other buildings were annexed for habitations of priests or laymen. A condition of this kind occurs in our prehistoric Southwestern architecture. The sanctuary in this region is a well-constructed circular building, of peculiar type. It was not a dwelling but a place of ceremonious worship. Habitations distinct from these ceremonial rooms had walls so perishable that traces of them are hard to find, the sanctuary walls alone remaining as an indication of the building art of that period. A more advanced stage along this line of evolution was the addition of rooms with permanent walls to the base of the sanctuary, by which a union of two different kinds of buildings, sacred and secular, was brought about. These three lines of architectural development in our prehistoric Southwest verged in a parallel development into the same form, all starting from the rudest structure and culminating in an almost identical type, one the cave habitation, the other the storage room with its annex, and the third the sacred building or sanctuary, around which are clustered rooms for secular purposes. A combination of the three types, producing a composite cluster, gives us what is called the terraced community house or pueblo.

The term “pueblo,” signifying a village or town, was applied by Spanish explorers to Indian villages in our Southwest at the close of the sixteenth century. Certain other collections of houses, to which the word “rancherias” (ranches) was applied, were also mentioned, the distinction between the two being that the buildings of the latter were more widely scattered. At present we speak of pueblo and pueblo culture in a more exact way, and in a scientific discussion of the origin of this culture it is necessary to restrict the Spanish terms, or to define a pueblo from a cultural point of view. This leads to an enumeration of distinctive architectural features which characterize the two types.

The Spaniards, giving little attention to ruins in the country through which their route lay, confined the term “pueblo” to inhabited towns. These early travelers found the majority of these in a limited area along the Rio Grande or along the Little Colorado and in the mountains of what is now northern Arizona. There were wide expanses of country not visited by the Spaniards, which we now know had at that time ruined buildings indicative of a past population, that are similar in form to those inhabited. We find on scientific examination evidence that the life in them was higher in development than in the villages seen by the explorers. Manifestly our subject must be so treated that all pueblos, whether uninhabited or inhabited, should be taken into account in morphological studies. On comparison of ruined pueblos with those inhabited in the sixteenth century certain identities in form are revealed, but there are found also radical differences showing degrees of culture. Indications exist that certain arts of the later pueblos have degenerated: the masonry is not so good and pottery, textiles, and other manufactured articles are inferior.

The accounts given by early Spanish chroniclers afford scanty information on details of arts, and historical documents are correspondingly imperfect. In consideration of the subject from the point of view of chronology, our knowledge must be derived, not from previous histories but from archeological remains that are fortunately very abundant through the whole region.

The simplest type of pueblo building, called the unit type, consists of one or more rectangular rooms and a circular chamber. This form passes imperceptibly into the linear type, a row of single rooms united by the side of one circular room midway in length. The linear type naturally may have single or multiple rooms, or it may be composed of one or more rows parallel with each other, the doorways opening on the same side or in the same direction. When the lines of rooms are double, and the doorways of each row open in opposite directions, we may designate this the double linear having external doorways. Linear ruins may be one or more stories high; when there is more than one story, doors or lateral openings are generally wanting. On the ground floor, which is entered from the roof, the superimposed rooms have lateral passageways from the roof of the lower story.

A double row of buildings may be set in such a way that the doorways face each other, or four such rows may form a rectangle enclosing a court, which often lacks one side. Another type has the pyramidal form, made up of rooms crowded together with the superimposed stories opening in all directions.

Wholly different in form from the various linear types above enumerated are the circular buildings enclosing a central court on which the doorways of the lowest story open, and which those of the upper stories face.

Pueblos both ancient and modern can be placed in one or another of the above-mentioned types, although in some cases two of these types may be combined, making a composite building reaching a considerable size. In whatever type the pueblo is placed, the circular-form room also exists, either enclosed in the rows or free from the rows of secular rectangular chambers. The pyramidal, rectangular, and linear types are comparatively modern, having persisted to the present day, when many are inhabited; the circular type is confined wholly to ancient times and is no longer inhabited. Open pueblos are independent of cliffs as distinguished from those dependent or those built within caves. Dependent and independent buildings are morphologically the same, but the dependent or so-called cliff pueblos were not inhabited at the advent of the Europeans.

An examination of the main features of the groups above mentioned reveals certain common features, an enumeration of which still further defines the pueblo type. All have both the terraced and the community form. They are all accompanied by a sacred room of circular form compactly enclosed in the mass of building or built separate from it. If we examine the distribution geographically of the pueblo type, ancient and modern, we find it limited to the area including the southern parts of Colorado, Utah, and the greater part of New Mexico, its highest development occurring in the mountains. It is preeminently limited to a plateau region, and theoretically we may suppose that it owes its peculiarities to the characteristic physiographic conditions of this environment. If we consider this type chronologically we find the oldest and best examples situated in the northern part of the area; the evidence is good that influence from that nucleus extended west and south, the architecture as we recede from the place of origin becoming inferior or losing some of its essential features, probably on account of contact with unrelated peoples. This modification and the accompanying departure from the type are especially marked in extensions that came in contact with people who constructed rooms compactly united, from southern Arizona, where environmental conditions show a great contrast to the mountain region in which the pueblo originated. The plains bordering the Gila and its tributaries are low and level, covered with a vegetation wholly different from that of the mountain canyons in which pueblo buildings originated. Climatically southern Arizona is very warm throughout the year; the mountains of Colorado are covered with snow from November to March, inclusive. These conditions have led in the former region to the separation of the dwellings or a more open life of the aborigines; the rooms are larger and not crowded together as in pueblos; the material used in their construction is also different; stone is not available; its absence led to the use of clay and mud as the only materials out of which man could construct his dwellings. Another powerful influence created architectural modifications in these two regions. In the mountains the village builders were beset on all sides by hostiles or nomads bent on plunder. It was here necessary for man to construct his building with a view to defense by concentration of the rooms. The level plains of southern Arizona and the rivers with a constant flow of water brought about irrigation along the Gila, thus making possible a larger population. All these conditions, reflected in the character of the buildings in the southern region, as contrasted with the northern, have greatly modified the culture and sociological conditions of the aborigines of the two localities. In their extension their boundaries met each other and their contact has led to types of buildings with characters of both. In one locality, Hopi, the circular kiva has disappeared, and a rectangular room has taken its place. Both Hopi and Zuñi pueblos have descendants of the ancestral clans from the Gila still surviving, and there we find the pueblo type with rectangular kivas both enclosed in house masses and separated from them.