|
Pre-Anasazi
Period |
Archaic
|
6500
- 1200 B.C. |
The pre-Anasazi
culture that moved into the Southwest after the big game hunters departed are
called Archaic. There is little evidence of warfare. The people subsisted on wild
foods. Hunters used stone-tipped spears and knives,
atlatl and dart or spear, and hunted deer, bighorn sheep and antelope. They
moved regularly and gathered wild plants in season. |
|
The
Anasazi Period |
Basketmaker
II
(early) |
1200
B.C. - A.D. 50 |
These
early Anasazi camped in the open or lived in caves seasonally. During this period
they increasingly relied on cultivated gardens of corn and squash, but no beans.
They made baskets, but had no pottery. |
Basketmaker
II
(late) |
A.D.
50 - 500 |
Construction
during this period was shallow pithouses, storage bins or cists. Still no beans
or pottery. |
| Basketmaker
III |
A.D.
500 - 750 |
Deep
pithouses were developed, along with some above- ground rooms, surface storage
pits and cists. The bow and arrow replaces the atlatl and spear. Plain gray and
some black-on-white pottery is made. Cultivation of beans begins. |
| Pueblo
I |
750
- 900 |
Large
villages and great kivas appear. Deep pithouses still in use. Above-ground construction
is generally of jacal or crude masonry. Plain pottery and gray with neck bands
predominate; there is some black-on-white and decorated redware. |
| Pueblo
II |
900
- 1150 |
Chaco
flowers. There are Great Houses, great kivas and roads in some areas. Small blocks
of above-ground masonry rooms and a kiva make up a typical pueblo. Pottery consists
of corrugated gray and decorated black-on-white in addition to some decorated
red and orange vessels. |
| Pueblo
III |
1150
- 1350 |
Large
pueblos, cliff dwellings and towers are the rule. Pottery includes corrugated
gray, elaborate black-on-white, red and orange. Most of the traditional Anasazi
villages in the Four Corners Area are abandoned by 1300. |
| Pueblo
IV |
1350
- 1600 |
Typically,
large pueblos are oriented on a central plaza. The Kachina phenomenon continues.
Plain pottery supplants corrugated. Red, orange and yellow pottery on the rise
as black-on-white declines. |
| Pueblo
V |
1600
- present |
During
the first part of this era the Spanish military, church and civil domination and
rule of the pueblos drives the Pueblo religion underground. The number of Pueblos
shrinks from the more than 100 observed in 1539 to 20. However, the resilient
and resourceful Pueblo still live and maintain their thousands-of-years-old culture.
|
