Episode 18: The Ancestral Pueblo
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)
Film Review
The Ancestral Pueblo evolved from Basket maker cultures around 750 AD and lived in three main regions: Kayente, Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. At their height, they boasted a population of tens of thousands, some living in cities of thousands of people. Their ancient dwellings are well preserved, mainly because early Europeans had no interest in their desert lands. Also known as the Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning enemy, contemporary Pueblo reject this designation.
From an archeological point of view, there are five main periods of Pueblo history:
- Pueblo 1: 750-900 AD characterized by a transition from pit houses to above ground homes, along with expanded black and white pot production.
- Pueblo 2: 900-1150 AD golden age of Chaco Canyon, linked to increased rainfall and agricultural production. Chaco Canyon was a massive building project associated with dry farming (ie without irrigation), an extensive trade network and a population explosion in the Mesa Verde complex (consisting of numerous interconnected villages).
- Pueblo 3: 1150 – 1350 AD Chaco Canyon and other heavily developed sites abandoned, owing to repeated droughts, with population dispersed into new smaller settlements. Associated with construction of cliff room blocks. One cliff palace housing 100 people had 150 rooms with pens for domesticated turkeys and dogs. By 1275 AD, people had vacated these dwellings as well (migrating south) as the Southwest experienced its most deadly drought.
- Pueblo 4: 1350 – 1600 AD Pueblo people gave up on San Juan basin, most moving east to the northern Rio Grande (between Sante Fe and Albuquerque). Those in larger towns lived in apartment-like room blocks initially built with jackal (a form of waddle and daub) and later with masonry.* The room blocks were square or rectangular and residents used ladders to access upper stories. They used flat roof irrigation for farming and trash middens for burials. They also built subterranean kivas with sipapu holes** where dancers in Kachina*** costumes performed ritual dances.
- Pueblo 5: 1600 to present
*The Pueblo didn’t adopt their modern adobe buildings until the Spanish introduced them to adobe in 1500.
**Sipapu were holes in the kiva floor related to the creation story in which the first people emerged from underground.
***Kachina were Pueblo spirits who protected people and crop fertility.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act 