Early man, a nomadic hunter of big-game animals, came to the Americas
from Asia over the Bering Strait some time between 20,000 and 15,000
B.C. Thousands of years later, after the big animals had become extinct,
larger bands of hunters and gatherers preyed on game animals of species
still living today. Still later, groups began to settle in favorable
areas and to grow maize (corn), which reached them from more complex
cultures in what is now Mexico. From this time on, the spread and
development of prehistoric Indian cultures in the northern Southwest can
be traced in increasing detail.
No one knows exactly when the first people arrived in the Canyon de
Chelly area. But a tree-ring date of A.D. 306 from the West Alcove at
Mummy Cave and the accumulation of sweepings and ashes at this site
suggest that people were living in Canyon del Muerto at about the
beginning of the Christian era.
These early people were primarily farmers rather than nomadic hunters,
although they still depended to some extent on game animals for food.
They established their homes in the shelter of the many caves and
alcoves in the canyon walls, and farmed the mesa tops and canyon
bottoms. Dogs were their only domestic animal, and corn was their major
crop and main source of food. Squashes (pumpkins) were grown in some
quantity, and beans were introduced at an early time. Pinyon nuts and
acorns, sunflower seeds, yucca and cactus fruit, and small seeds of
other wild plants were gathered for food.
[Illustration: This burial at Sliding Rock Ruin shows pottery,
baskets, corn, and the remains of a blanket used in the day-to-day
life of the Anasazi.]
[Illustration: Ring-baskets of split yucca leaves have been in
common use from about A.D. 1100 to the present.]
[Illustration: This coiled basket was used for carrying burdens.]
[Illustration: Indian women fastened rabbit fur to lengths of twine
by twisting them to form a rope of fur such as this one. A number of
these would then be entwined to form a blanket or a robe.]
The early farmers were accomplished makers of baskets, and for this
reason archeologists commonly call them Basketmakers. Instead of pottery
they used baskets for many utilitarian purposes: carrying sacks, burden
baskets, food containers, cooking pots, water carriers, storage
containers, and even “coffins.” Sometimes plain, often decorated, they
are the most impressive surviving artifact of the culture which produced
them. More baskets made by these early people have been found in Canyon
de Chelly caves than in any other locality.
The caves in Canyon de Chelly have produced no evidence of houses built
by these early farmers. If these groups had shelters at all, they were
little more than brush-and-pole windbreaks or lean-tos made of poles and
skins propped against the sides of the rock shelters. The only
architectural remains found so far are pits lined with stone slabs and
located in deposits on the cave floors. These pits were used to store
corn and wild plant foods.
Permanent dwellings apparently were not constructed until about A.D.
500. The first such houses of which we have knowledge were small and
generally insubstantial circular or squarish pits, shallowly dug into
the ground. They were walled and roofed with brush and dirt or
mud-covered poles. Later the people often built their houses in deep
excavations, and then the structures became essentially roofed pits.
The atlatl, or dart-thrower, and dart constituted the early implement
for hunting and warfare. There is no definite evidence that the Anasazi
used a bow and arrow until the 7th century, but one find in Canyon del
Muerto suggests that they were attacked by a group that did use such
weapons. The evidence was found in a cave across the canyon from
Antelope House at a typical dwelling site of the early people. It
appears that a massacre took place inside the cave and the remains of
the dead were scattered about the floor until almost completely dried or
skeletonized. The bones were then gathered up and dumped into one of the
many storage pits that dotted the cave floor, where the archeologists
found them. Among the artifacts discovered with the bones was a short,
slender piece of wood, more like the shaft of an arrow than a dart,
between the ribs and dried skin on the left side of an old woman.
Little clothing was worn in these early years. Men usually wore sandals
and a loin cloth and women an apron like skirt. In cold weather the only
additional body covering was a blanket woven from strips of fur.
Several exceptions to this mode of dress have been found. One mummy
recovered from the slope in front of Mummy Cave (perhaps of a tribal
leader) was elaborately dressed and had a great many possessions to take
with him to the spirit world. He was wrapped in a woven robe of rabbit
fur and had a basket over his face and one under his head. His feet were
covered with buckskin moccasins lined with soft juniper bark. Buckskin
leggings were wrapped around his legs from ankle to knee. Another piece
of buckskin was wound around his waist; one end fell like a breechclout
to his thighs, and the other end was thrown over his shoulder like a
toga.
The man’s moccasins are a surprising item, because the Anasazi of this
time usually wore well-made sandals. These sandals were typically woven
of plant fibers with intricate designs in several colors, and are
outstanding among the textiles of any prehistoric people.
In the 5th century A.D., the Anasazi acquired from the south the
technique of making fired pottery, and they adopted the craft rapidly.
Ceramics was a significant addition to the equipment which these people
needed to live in what was at best a difficult environment. It made the
everyday business of cooking food and storing water much easier. During
the next several centuries the Anasazi achieved a high degree of skill
in the art of ceramics and produced handsome pots in a variety of
shapes, decorated both by relief and painting. Various styles of design
were developed by different groups.
[Illustration: The Anasazi used black-on-white pottery jars at home
and also for trade with other groups.]
Basketry, the ancient craft, survived the competition from ceramics but
became less important. Sandals, coiled bowls, plaited yucca trays, and
rush mattings were still made, but were not as well manufactured or
designed as they once had been.
Other changes followed the introduction of pottery, and they profoundly
altered the culture of the Anasazi. More substantial and permanent
houses were developed, the bow and arrow replaced the dart-thrower and
dart for hunting and fighting, and handles were placed on stone axes and
hammers, greatly increasing the effectiveness of these tools. Turkeys
were domesticated, and their feathers replaced some of the fur in the
blankets which they used for clothing. New varieties of corn, squash,
and beans became known, and, more importantly, the cultivation of cotton
was introduced.
[Illustration: Gourd-shaped black-on-white Anasazi water jar from
the period A.D. 500 to 700.]
Sometime during these years of change the Anasazi adopted the practice
of deforming the skulls of their children by the use of rigid
cradleboards. The cradleboards of their direct ancestors were webbed and
lined with soft rabbit fur, but a new conception of beauty led them to
strap newborn infants onto flat, hard boards which flattened the back of
the skull and broadened the forehead.
These characteristics of the Anasazi developed slowly and were well
established only around A.D. 750. Sometime after that date they began to
live above ground, building their homes of upright poles and mud
plaster. Each family’s room adjoined one or more other rooms, making
more and more compact village units. In the 900’s, these pole and mud
structures gave way to masonry buildings, some of which eventually
became two-and three-story terraced apartment houses.
The ancient pithouse was not forgotten. Its counterpart survived in
almost all of the new villages in the form of a circular underground
room that soon lost all resemblance to a house. Each of the larger
villages had two or more of these underground rooms, which undoubtedly
were ceremonial structures, serving as meeting places for men of the
various clan societies and secret religious brotherhoods and for the
performance of rituals. The rooms may have functioned very much like
men’s clubhouses. Similar ceremonial rooms of present-day Pueblo Indians
are called kivas.
Much of the ceremonial activity in the ancient kivas can be inferred
from the religious practices of modern Pueblo Indians. A large part of
their ceremonials takes place within the privacy of the kiva and
includes praying, chanting, and dancing. Details of costumes, in which
feathers are extensively used, and of dance steps are important, for the
whole ceremony is a prayer. The rituals are performed as petitions for
rain, to insure a good harvest, or for success in hunting.
In testimony to the traditions which endure in some human societies, a
cache of bird feathers, undoubtedly saved to make a costume for such a
ritual, was found in Big Cave in Canyon del Muerto. A carefully worked
cylinder of wood was filled with packets of brightly colored feathers
and bird skins. There were dozens of blue-green skins from mallard
ducks, and even parrot feathers that must have come from Mexico. Skins
of a red bird, still not identified, and bundles of hawk and eagle down
were also found in the cylinder.
[Illustration: 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.
The mode of dress changed little. Feather-string blankets were still
commonly worn in winter. Cotton became almost the only fiber used for
making cloth. Sandals, which were woven from whole yucca leaves, were
crude, compared to those of earlier periods. But painted pottery reached
its highest development in both variety and quality.
These great pueblo centers flourished for about two centuries. But this
was a time of increasing dryness in the Southwest, and the end for these
settlements came during a severe drought late in the 13th century.
Tree-ring data indicate that there was not enough moisture to produce
crops during most of the years between 1276 and 1299. The drought
brought crop failures, and the ensuing erosion destroyed the fields.
Hunger, decline, and migration followed. Family after family and group
after group left their homes in the cliffs and canyons. Taking what few
possessions they could carry on their backs, they drifted away in search
of land with a dependable water supply suitable for farming.
The villages in Canyon de Chelly apparently lasted longer than most and
may even have provided a temporary haven for refugees from other regions
to the north. The four-story tower house at Mummy Cave might have been
built for such refugees by skilled masons from the Mesa Verde area.
By 1300, however, all the great cliff dwellings were abandoned, and the
people of the Canyon de Chelly area had moved on to new lands. Most of
them probably joined the tribes that were gathering around Black Mesa to
the west, near the location of the modern Hopi pueblos. Others may have
turned south, settling finally near the middle of the present boundary
between Arizona and New Mexico. Other Anasazi made their way to the
upper Rio Grande Valley in north-central New Mexico. In these localities
the Pueblo farmers renewed their way of life, and it was there that
Spanish explorers found them on their first trip through the region in
1540-42.
At White House and a few other ruins there is evidence of structural
additions made long after the villages were abandoned. These and other
indications of occupation well after 1300 probably represent the work of
Hopi Indians who used the canyons seasonally for agriculture, taking the
harvest back to their villages about 70 miles to the west. Peach trees,
which the Spanish introduced to the Hopi in the 17th century, were
evidently brought to Canyon de Chelly in either that century or the
next, and the small orchards still scattered through the canyons were
started. The use of the canyons by the Hopi probably dropped off rapidly
after the Navajos appeared in the area in the 18th century.
[Illustration: This pictograph of a soldier on horseback is taken
from the Navajo rock painting in Canyon del Muerto near Standing Cow
Ruin.]