World Prehistory: Class 15

© Copyright Bruce Owen 2000

• The setting: Southwest of US, northwest of Mexico
• mostly arid
• hot in lower elevations, high desert with cold winters and snow at higher elevations
• First inhabitants arrived around 9,000 BC, hunting big game in the immediate Post-Pleistocene (as far as we know!)
• mammoth, giant bison
• highly mobile
• As megafauna disappeared, they shifted to more diversified foraging
• Maize was adopted from Mexico between 2000 and 1000 BC, but it had little impact
• people continued mostly foraging, with small supplemental farming
• By 1 AD, people were settling down more and eating more farmed crops
• year-round dwellings
• ceramics (not very portable, good for boiling plant foods)
• metates and manos for grinding grain
• food storage structures
• in the higher, cooler, northern areas of the Southwest
• villages in defensible locations
• with specialized storage structures
• maybe because of pressures during harsh winters
• in the lower, hotter, southern desert areas
• villages of just houses in open, undefended spots
• maybe because of reliable crops near rivers
• typical dwellings were pithouses with mud-plastered superstructures
• three main ceramic/ethnic/etc. groups developed
• Hohokam in southern Arizona, northern Mexico low desert
• Anasazi in the high desert four corners area
• Mogollon near the Mogollon rim, edge of the high plateau in central Arizona, and in eastern Arizona/western New Mexico
• Hohokam
• in low desert
• "basin and range" terrain, divided by parallel mountain ranges
• little rainfall, very hot in summer
• saguaro, barrel, cholla, prickly pear cactus
• mesquite, etc. in washes
• by 300 AD, they were diverting river water into many canals to irrigate maize fields
• example Hohokam site: Snaketown
• located in the Phoenix basin
• near the confluence of the Gila and Salt rivers
• early stage, starting around 300 AD
• maybe 100 people living in pithouses
• arranged in pairs facing a common patio
• probably small family units
• maize agriculture plus foraged foods
• by 600 AD, many more villages, rising regional population
• Snaketown grew, reaching 1 square kilometer by its peak at 900 AD
• maybe 125 pithouses, holding 500 - 1000 people
• still arranged in groups around patios
• some still had only two houses, but others had up to six pithouses per patio
• but the houses tended to get smaller
• so the total size of the economic unit may not have changed much
• just divided into smaller, more private parts
• maybe a shift from more communal to more nuclear family living arrangements
• larger patios also had one square structure (rest were oblong rectangles)
• possibly a special-purpose building: shrine? men's house? etc.
• they began to build ball courts, including one at Snaketown
• oval depressions 60 m (195 feet) long, with sloping sides 4.5-6 m high (15-20 feet)
• a ritual "game" also played in mesoamerica
• based on Spanish observations, mesoamerican art, etc:
• a team sport
• had to hit a rubber ball without using hands
• some versions had a hoop to hit the ball through
• losers sometime sacrificed!
• rubber balls found at Snaketown, similar to mesoamerican ones
• this and other ties to mesoamerican traditions has suggested to some that contact with the south was crucial to the development of complex Hohokam society
• others think that this contact was secondary to an essentially local development
• platform mounds of adobe and dirt fill
• one is 29 m x 23 m, and 3 m tall (95 x 75 feet, 10 feet tall)
• plastered with clay or caliche (natural lime)
• probably had ceremonial structures on top
• complex site layout
• central plaza with dwellings around it
• surrounded by 60 mounds and two ball courts
• more habitation beyond these
• larger patios tended to be near the center of town, near the platforms and a central plaza
• suggesting that large domestic units were of high status
• maybe they could mobilize more labor for farming, craft production, defense, etc.
• Snaketown and similar large towns with ballcourts and platforms presumably served the ritual needs of smaller, surrounding villages without them.
• craft specialization
• ceramics
• shell work
• material from Gulf of California
• bracelets, beads, pendants, rings, etched ornaments
• stone work: beads, earspools, ornaments, axes, sculptural vessels
• exchange
• rubber, shell, jewelry stones, copper ornaments etc., many from the more complex societies further south in Mexico
• yet still relatively minor status differences in residences and burials
• biggest canal systems were north of Snaketown on the Salt river
• largest extent of irrigation was probably reached after 800 AD, coinciding with the maximum size of Snaketown
• 14 main canals up to 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) long
• two examples near Phoenix were several meters wide, 60 cm deep
• hundreds of secondary canals
• allowing the irrigation of areas as much as 50 km long along the edges of the rivers
• ethnohistorical analogies in the US Southwest and the Andean coast suggest that systems like these can be run by up to several thousand people without too much coercion or administration
• but probably a lot of arguing!
• canal systems declined around 1150 AD
• maybe due to a global warm period
• Snaketown and other sites were abandoned
• many people moved out of the Gila river basin, apparently to the Salt river basin
• dwellings changed from pithouses to above-ground apartment blocks
• possibly for defense in times of scarcity
• some were several stories tall
• others were located on top of mounds, presumably for high-status families
• suggesting some change in organization
• both more communal
• and more stratified
• by 1500's, all these sites were abandoned, and local mobile foragers had no memory of their occupants
• why?
• Mogollon
• very roughly similar to Hohokam
• known especially for their beautiful ceramics
• lacking a clear story to tell about them yet, we won't do more than mention them here...
• Anasazi
• a widespread culture; we will focus on one dramatic variant within the larger Anasazi region
• Chaco Canyon
• in Northwestern New Mexico
• on the Colorado Plateau
• in one of the largest valleys cut into the high plain (over 1500 m / 5,000 ft)
• dry, only occasional, strong rains often causing flash floods in washes
• farmed by building low walls to catch the runoff, concentrate it, and direct it in channels to fields
• called "floodwater farming"
• 100 AD: mobile foragers began to settle down, building the first permanent Anasazi sites
• 5-10 pithouses
• in defensible positions on top of mesas
• gradual increase in dependence on maize-beans-squash farming
• but still a lot of foraging
• piñon nuts
• rabbits, deer, antelope, etc.
• 500 AD: probably permanent villages on the valley floor
• some villages got up to 50 or 100 pithouses
• 3-7.5 m diamter (10-24 feet)
• roofed with logs supported by posts, roof plastered with mud
• interior walls plastered with mud or faced with stone
• access by a ramp or vestibule
• began to build kivas
• circular sunken roofed ceremonial structures
• Anasazi pottery style developed
• example: Shabik'eschee village, 550 - 750 AD
• up to 68 pithouses
• but many robbed to build others
• so only a fraction in use at any given time
• storage pits
• one kiva
• 700 AD: Anasazi started building above-ground masonry dwelling blocks
• maybe these were originally storage structures, with people still living in pithouses?
• developed into consolidated blocks of rooms, some for residences, some storage, some ceremonial
• mostly close to farmland (no surprise...)
• may coincide with a wetter period in which Chaco Canyon was more productive
• 900 AD: structures got larger, turned into full-on apartment buildings or "pueblos" (called "Great Houses")
• at least 9 Great Houses in Chaco Canyon
• hundreds of rooms each
• huge, up to four stories tall
• at least roughly planned, not just random accretions of rooms
• large portions were built at once, with uniform masonry style
• that is, expansion happened as coordinated, large projects
• one or more Great Kivas, multiple smaller kivas
• probably derived from the pithouses of earlier times
• example: Pueblo Bonito
• 160 x 100 m (525 x 325 ft)
• D-shaped plan
• front is the flat side
• over 800 rooms stepped up to the curved high back wall
• rooms opening to outside had most air and light, were used for living, while interior rooms were for storage
• up to 1000 people lived in Pueblo Bonito
• debate about whether some rooms were abandoned while others were still being built, or if the whole thing was used at once
• precisely dated (and construction sequence analyzed) using tree-ring dates
• first built around 919 AD
• last construction around 1115 AD
• 196 years of building episodes, mostly in large bursts
• apparently lots of trees cut in short episodes, stored for use in construction
• construction is well-laid stone facing with rubble core
• yet walls were plastered
• also smaller villages of 10-20 rooms each
• 1020-1130 AD: peak of Chaco system
• at least 125 Chacoan villages
• "roads" radiating out from Chaco Canyon
• mostly dead straight, sometimes with kinks
• some with stone edging
• including stairways up rocky parts
• up to 190 km (120 miles) long
• some go to Chacoan towns, others have unknown purposes
• probably not just for travel, but also for some ritual processions or other non-obvious purposes
• lots of exchange and movement of goods
• wood beams from 80 km (50 miles) away
• turquoise, jet, shell, pyrite, colorful feathers, cast copper bells (probably from northern Mexico) imported from distant sources
• and especially concentrated in the larger villages
• suggesting that size really did indicate higher status people living there
• but still no strong indications in burials or residences of a significantly elite class
• around 1100 AD, the Chacoan system began to decline
• population and construction declined, although not abruptly
• Chaco canyon was fully abandoned by around 1300 AD
• this coincides with a global warm period, which may have shifted rainfall enough to make Chaco unattractive or unable to support a large population
• people apparently moved to higher elevations with more rainfall
• and to defensible locations like the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde
• which were occupied by people with a late variant of the Anasazi culture
• the cliff dwellings presumably were a response to a rise in conflict, maybe associated with food scarcity
• although there are other suggested explanations
• 1300 AD: the remaining pueblos were mostly abandoned, and most people had returned to a more mobile lifestyle
• which is what the first Spanish visitors mostly saw