Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery[Anasazi]

NY Times ^ | 08 Apr 2008 | GEORGE JOHNSON

[BGHater]

Perched on a lonesome bluff above the dusty San Pedro River, about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn’t seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising.

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style.

“Salado polychrome,” says a visiting archaeologist turning over a shard of broken pottery. Reddish on the outside and patterned black and white on the inside, it stands out from the plainer ware made by the Hohokam, whose territory the wanderers had come to occupy.

These Anasazi newcomers — archaeologists have traced them to the mesas and canyons around Kayenta, Ariz., not far from the Hopi reservation — were distinctive in other ways. They liked to build with stone (the Hohokam used sticks and mud), and their kivas, like those they left in their homeland, are unmistakable: rectangular instead of round, with a stone bench along the inside perimeter, a central hearth and a sipapu, or spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.

“You could move this up to Hopi and not tell the difference,” said John A. Ware, the archaeologist leading the field trip, as he examined a Davis Ranch kiva. Finding it down here is a little like stumbling across a pagoda on the African veldt.

[BGHater]

Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado was one of the settlements of the Anasazi. ("Mesa verde" is "green table" in Spanish.) The Anasazi first arrived in the sixth century A.D., and the remains of their buildings can still be seen on and around the mesa.

In the 1200s, the Anasazi built dwellings into the side of the mesa, including this one known as the Cliff Palace. Cliff Palace was probably an important administrative and ceremonial site. Its 150 rooms were home to about 100 people. Most of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde were far smaller than those at the palace; three-quarters of them had just one to five rooms. The buildings were made of sandstone, mortar and wood.

For modern people, the doorways would be too short. An average-size male Anasazi was five-foot-four or five-foot-five, and an average woman was about four inches shorter.

In southern Colorado, the Anasazi also built a giant ceremonial great house near the Chimney Rock buttes. It is now believed that the Chimney Rock site was an observatory aligned so that the moon rose between the two buttes during "a major lunar standstill," when the moon appears to rise at the same spot for two or three nights in a row.

The round room was a kiva, a ceremonial chamber.

In the 13th century, for reasons still not well understood, the Anasazi abandoned Chimney Rock, Mesa Verde and other settlements and moved to the south. The Hopi in Arizona are believed to be among their descendants.

[BGHater]

Ping

[BenLurkin]

Beautiful photos.

[blam]

The Zuni Enigma

"Did a group of thirteenth-century Japanese journey to the American Southwest, there to merge with the people, language, and religion of the Zuni tribe?"

[ReagansRaiders]

Anasazi was the second season finale of The X-Files. Good episode!

[PzLdr]

Did it have anything to do with the Apaches being driven south, then west by the Comanches?

[Little Bill]

ping

[Michael.SF.]

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these

Apparently Arizona has a long history of illegal immigration problems.

[353FMG]

“The round room was a kiva, a ceremonial chamber.”

The round room looks more like a cistern. Look at the water downspouts. At this elevation, water must have been a precious commodity.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“The round room looks more like a cistern.” Maybe it was a ceremonial hot tub!

[theBuckwheat]

Will the NYT state the obvious? The Anasazi ruins are tangible evidence that climate change is an ongoing process that man does not cause, nor can man prevent.

[UNGN]

"Anasazi" is supposedly like the "N-Word" for Navaho's to call Hopi's, so the PC term is "Ancestoral Puebloan People".

The Sunset Crater Volcano erupted around 1300, right in the middle of their civilization. I wonder if it played a role in their demise. I know I would be pretty upset if an active volcano (even a small one) started erupting in my neighborhood.

[rednesss]

"a central hearth and a sipapu, or spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth."

The very first "Vagina Monologues". Does Hillary know about this????

[Dog Gone]

There is a reason why the Anasazi typically built their settlements in cliffs, and it sure wasn’t convenience.

They had to climb down to get water, and they had to climb up to get to their crops. That’s hard work.

The logical inference is that it was for defense, and it might well be that each Anasazi settlement was not exactly on friendly terms with the others.

[rednesss]

On a more serious note, I lived in Cottonwood, AZ for a summer in 1987. Whilst there we went to a lot of these cliff dwellings and they are pretty impressive. Montezuma Castle is a sight worth seeing. Canyon de Chelly, Tuzigoot, and the old Army forts, Sedona, old silver mines.......lots to see down there.

[Continental Soldier]

Great photos! But ‘an inconvenient truth’ intrudes: The Anasazi, the darlings of the archaeological set, were stupid in the face of change, and that’s why they are dead.

[blam]

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

"Sunset Crater Volcano was born in a series of eruptions sometime between 1040 and 1100. Powerful explosions profoundly affected the lives of local people and forever changed the landscape and ecology of the area. Lava flows and cinders still look as fresh and rugged as the day they formed. But among dramatic geologic features, you'll find trees, wildflowers, and signs of wildlife – life returns."

[Dinah Lord]

bump and mark for later read

[george76]

Anasazi, which means ‘ancient enemy’ in the Navajo language, was used by the Navajo people to name the early pueblo dwellers .

The Hopi, who are the descendents of the Anasazi, called their predecessors the “Hisatsinom.”

[george76]

Pueblo Bonito, one of the largest of the Chaco Canyon pueblos, is a good example of how the Hisatsinom lived.

Pueblo Bonito rose four to five stories high — an astounding achievement for the time. Rooms surrounded a central plaza, and throughout the settlement were a number of kivas, meeting places that served a ceremonial purpose.

The total population of Pueblo Bonito was probably around 1,200 people at its height. Surrounding the pueblo were a number of smaller dwellings and structures. Numerous communities looked to Chaco Canyon for political and religious guidance.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/chaco/