The Anasazi
Few regions in North America have such spectacular archeological sites as the Four Corners area of the Southwest. This semiarid high plateau country, drained by the San Juan River, saw the development and later the disappearance of an Indian culture that archeologists call the Anasazi.
During the Great Pueblo period, the Anasazi developed three important regional centers: Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Kayenta country. Their influence extended deep into the territories of neighboring Indian groups, who followed different agricultural traditions. By A.D. 1100, all three had become heavily populated, and the Anasazi were building their largest towns and fabled cliff dwellings.
The fertile Chaco valley attracted aboriginals early in the 10th century. They first built on such sites as Pueblo Bonito, which expanded to a village of over 800 rooms. Their pueblos on the valley floor near the cliffs tended to be D-shaped, with central courts closed by walls often as high as four stories.
A hundred miles to the north, on the steep-cliffed fingers of rock of southwest Colorado, the Mesa Verdians built pithouses, pueblos, and about 300 cliff dwellings, the largest of which is Cliff Palace.
The decline of the Anasazi culture from its Great Pueblo period coincided with a concentration of population at Chaco, Mesa Verde, and Kayenta that made the people particularly dependent on a year-round flow of water. Long years of drought from 1270 to 1300 dried up the rivers and caused an exodus from the San Juan River region.
First the Chaco residents dispersed southwestward to join their cousins in the Little Colorado River area. Then the Mesa Verdians moved to the northern Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Finally, the Kayenta people, the last holdouts, gave up and joined the population in what is now the Hopi country.
Between A.D. 1000 and 1050 the culture of the Anasazi reached its height and became stable for a few centuries, until about A.D. 1275-1300. Their homes were now substantial buildings of stone masonry, containing numerous adjoining rooms. Their kivas followed standard lines and were often incorporated in the house structures, though they were sometimes built as separate, semisubterranean chambers. No other abrupt changes or new forms distinguish this late period, which was essentially a continuation and fulfillment of earlier times. The large pueblos, most of which were begun about A.D. 1000, are the most outstanding development of this period.
In Canyon de Chelly, construction was started on White House and Antelope House during these years. Other important population centers were developing simultaneously at Mesa Verde (Mesa Verde National Park, Colo.), where the largest concentration of surviving cliff dwellings is located, and at Chaco Canyon (Chaco Canyon National Monument, N. Mex.), where spacious apartment houses, one with more than 800 rooms, were constructed on the floor of the canyon. Other villages were built in the Kayenta-Marsh Pass area (near Navajo National Monument, Ariz.).
As permanent homes gave them social stability and well-developed agriculture ensured adequate food, the Anasazi had leisure and sufficient security for greater activity in their arts, crafts, and ceremonials. As a consequence, trade with other peoples seems to have grown and flourished because it brought in the specialized and exotic materials needed for rituals and pleasure. Parrots were traded from Mexico for their plumage, and ornamental shells from the Gulf of California and the West Coast found their way to Anasazi settlements. Turquoise, jet, and salt also became important trade items.