D.K. Jordan
Fremont (Utah), Hohokam (Arizona), Mogollon (AZ, NM, Chihuaha), Sinagua (Arizona).Other Materials: Sources for this chronology
Picture: Chaco Canyon Anasazi Rock Art
Dating: This term is used for the earliest phases of human occupation in North America. The opening date of the period is in theory fixed by whatever the earliest evidence of human occupation is. This continues to be pushed earlier and is an object of continuing disagreement because of the ambiguity of most of the earliest evidence. (Click here for a frivolous poem on the subject.)
Traits: Small foraging bands; open sites; spear hunting.
Dating: The term BM1 is no longer used. It was originally proposed for all pre-agricultural human societies of the Southwest. The term "Desert Archaic" now covers the societies that existed after the end of the era of big game hunting at the end of the Paleo-Indian period. Recent dates extend the Late Desert Archaic to about 200 BC.
Traits: Small foraging bands; open sites; spear hunting.
Dating: Some recent authors prefer to extend this period to AD 50. Most writers regard this as an early phase of BM2, since there is little abrupt transition between this and the following phase. The term "Late [Desert] Archaic" dated from about 2000 BC to AD 200 or so, is preferred by some scholars as a more accurate division of time.
New traits: Seasonal use of cave sites; burial; rock art; first corn and squash (no beans) grown.
Other Areas:
Dating: Authors who regard the previous period as an early phase of BM2 label this phase BM2 (late)." Authors who end the previous phase at AD 50 begin this phase at that date. Since some authors use the term "Post-Basketmaker" for BM3, they use the term "Basketmaker" without a number for BM2 (and "Archaic" for BM1).
New traits: Shallow pithouses; storage cists, atlatls, excellent baskets.
Other Areas:
Dating: Because of the appearance of some pottery, some authors refer to this as the "Modified Basketmaker" or "Post-Basketmaker" period. Some see it extending until AD 750.
New traits: Established villages with deep pithouses or slab houses.; bow & arrow; beans grown. Rock art occurs, including the first representation of Kokopelli.
Ceramics: Plain pottery (and small amounts of black-on-white pottery), although developed as early as 200, becomes more abundant.
Other Areas:
Dating: Some authors see this period beginning about 750. Some call it "Proto-Pueblo." Because of the relatively unclear transition between P1 and P2, some authors merge them under the name "Early Pueblo."
New traits: Some large villages, "unit pueblos," built of masonry above-ground (although often with associated pithouse chambers), containing room divisions of jacal or masonry; great kivas; basket working declines; cotton used for cloth; cradleboard comes into use among the Anasazi; cranial deformation.
Ceramics: Plain & neck-banded gray pottery and some black-on-white and decorated red pottery.
Other Areas:
Dating: Some authors would move the P2-P3 division to AD 1150.
New traits: Chacoan florescence; great ("apartment") houses, great kivas; roads in some regions; "unit pueblos" made up of one kiva plus a surface masonry room; small villages extending over large areas. Virtually all dwelling units are now above ground, the pithouse form, developed into a kiva, being largely or exclusively ritual in character. Substantial regional differentiation.
Ceramics: Corrugated gray and decorated black-on-white pottery; decorated red (or orange) pottery in some regions. (Corrugations are more than decorative; they provide a greater heating surface and allow faster heating of the contents over fire.)
Other Areas:
Dating: Some authors move the dates of this period fifty years later. Because of the great hiatus at about 1200, it makes sense to divide P3 into early and late periods, and some writers do so.
New traits: Large, multi-storied pueblos & cliff dwellings; towers; craft specialization; artistic production, but period of decline in the latter half of the 11th century. Mesa Verde & Hovenweep are major sites during this period.
Ceramics: Plain gray cooking ware gradually predominates as corrugated ware goes out of production. Black on white decorative ware is widespread. Two ways of making black paint occur at the beginning already in BM3. The New Mexico tradition was mineral based, usually using iron oxide. In northern Arizona carbon based black was produced from vegetable matter. Between about 1050 and 1200 vegetable colors came to predominate throughout central Anasazi territory. Ramos Polychrome, probably originating at Casas Grandes, is widely traded around that site and apparently made at other Chihuahua sites.
Kiet Siel occupied in Kayenta region, with an influx of population in the 1270s; some Mesa Verde style traits suggest stronger association with Mesa Verde than is exhibited at Betatakin.
The extraordinary abandonment of this region and (apparently) southward migration is difficult to interpret. Drought almost certainly played a role, but in recent years archaeologists have tended to suspect that it could not have been the whole explanation. For one thing, earlier droughts did not have a similar effect. For another, unicausal explanations are inherently suspect. Additional factors proposed have ranged from slight shifts in temperature to the attractiveness of the southern Katchina cults or social strife between settlements. On the whole, none of these scenarios has been convincing enough to attract widespread expert support. Whatever else was happening, only extreme archaeological fashion-mongering would cause one to ignore drought as at least a major factor.
Other Areas:
New traits: Large pueblos centered around plazas; Katchina cult. Ten to fifteen-fold increase in the ratio of rooms to kivas suggests significant social changes. Great kivas disappear.
Ceramics: Corrugated gray ware disappears; black-on-white ware becomes less common (and limited largely to the northern Rio Grande) than red, orange, and yellow types.
Earliest archaeological evidence of Navajo presence in Upper San Juan area, apparently living in temporary shelters, but raising corn and producing grey ceramic ware. Apache entered the area about the same time as Navajo.
Other Areas:
Dating: This period technically begins with the first Spanish contact in the Southwest.
Ceramics: Navajo Gobernador Polychrome, apparently inspired by Pueblo polychrome. Four Mile pottery, probably derived from Kayenta types, appears in association with the katchina cult.
New traits: Katchina cult, and associated material manifestations (mostly not preserved in archaeological sites), including representations of katchinas in kiva murals. Simultaneous widespread use of enclosed plazas, rectancular kivas, and stone griddles.
Dating: More than one scheme of periodization seems to be in use for the Mogollon. The first given here comes from the chapter in your textbook this quarter.First Breakdown:
Ceramics: Mogollon ceramics broadly contrast with the Anasazi ceramics up till about 1000 in being brownish, sometimes with red paint; after about 1000 ceramics are more likely to be finished with white slip, decorated with red or later black paint. The Mimbres period ceramics are generally the most elaborately decorated of prehistoric America.
Settlements often on ridges or mesa tops, evidently for defensive reasons; circular pithouses; pottery generally unpainted brown ware; hunting more important than in Anasazi areas.
Settlements on valley floors as well as higher areas, generally closer to farmland and water sources. Ceramics feature red slip or red paint on brown background.
Shift from pit houses to above-ground pueblos with contiguous blocks of rooms arranged around open plazas (as at Casas Grandes in Chihuahua); clay vessels in black-on-white stile, probably inspired by Anasazi ware; substantial population increase and expansion into agriculturally more marginal areas.
Note: Sinagua sites are found in an area ranging from Wupatki National Monument NE of Flagstaff, along a line to the southwest through Tuzigoot and Montezuma's Castle National Monuments on the Verde River to the SW of Flagstaff. Much of the history of settlement in this area is tied to the human consequences of an eruption at Sunset Crater in the north and of a prolongued drought in the XIIIth century. In general the southern area was better suited to human habitation over a longer period, and proved to be a magnet for migration in difficult times.
The volcano devastates thin population in surrounding area, but in most areas the volcanic gravel eventually results in better moisture holding qualities for the soil, increasing agricultural potential.
Improvement in moisture holding ability of the soil around Sunset Crater caused by the volcanic gravel attracts people into this region from a number of regions, apparently including hill peoples who come to be known as Sinagua as well as Hohokam, Mogollon, and Anasazi people in unclear proportions, although the Hohokam elements seems especially prominent, by about 1070 or so.
Population peaks about 1325 at the Castle, after which consolidation seems to occur largely around the Well area. Both sites are interpreted as defensive locations, and it is assumed that inter-group conflict over access to water and food may have grown severe by 1400 or so.