Paleoindian period:
Clovis
Culture | Folsom Site
| Chaco Canyon Culture |
Mogollon/Mimbres | Bandelier
|
New Mexico's Nations:
Apache,
Navajo, Pueblo
Paleoindian
Period
New Mexico's food history begins
with hunting and gathering peoples who arrived from
the north, settled and later started growing crops.
World-famous paleoindian sites such as Clovis, Folsom,
Sandia Cave, Mimbres Valley, Chaco Canyon, to name
a few, provided much of our understanding of the
first Americans and what they ate.
Due to the efforts of many New
Mexican groups and individuals these important food
heritage sites are in various states of preservation
and public access. Others have established museums
and exhibits to educate the public about this prehistoric
food heritage.
Clovis
Culture
Blackwater
Draw Museum first opened to the public
in 1969 and displays artifacts and exhibits associated
with the Blackwater Locality No. 1 Archaeological
Site, one of the most important archaeological sites
in the New World. Over 13,000 years of site usage
are described, from mammoth hunting to modern culture.
Blackwater
Locality No. 1 is a National Historic
Landmark, one of the most important archaeological
sites in the New World. This unique site documents
and interprets the earliest Paleoindian cultures
in North America. It is a research entity and used
as a reference point for Paleoindian Studies in
North America and the Southern High Plains. Blackwater
Locality No. 1 is also listed on the National Register
of Historic Places.
About Clovis
Culture, Blackwater Drawc. 11,200
years ago
Clovis Culture is known for the
invention of superbly crafted grooved or fluted
stone projectiles (Clovis points) first found near
Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932. Clovis points have
been found throughout the Americas. The people pf
this era hunted big game, notably mammoths.
Blackwater Locality No. 1 is the
"Clovis Type Site" for the oldest accepted
widespread culture in the New World. Evidence of
their remarkable "fluted" points (a New
World invention), other stone and bone weapons,
tools, and processing implements are found at the
site. These implements are in association with extinct
Pleistocene megafauna such as Columbian mammoth,
ancient bison, large horses, and large turtles.
Other Pleistocene age animals that visited the site
for food and water were tapir, camel, four-prong
antelope, tampulama, llama, deer, dire wolf, ground
sloth, short-faced bear, saber-tooth cat, shovel-toothed
amebeledon, beaver, armadillos, and peccary.
Blackwater Locality No. 1 contains
the earliest water control system in the New World.
Clovis age and Archaic age wells were found here
indicating climate fluctuations and variable water
table in one of the most stable spring fed lakes
of the past, providing a much needed water source
in times of drought. The Clovis age hand dug well
is currently on display on the east side of the
South Bank at the site.
Food heritage site threatened
Gravel mining began in September
1932, beginning with two horses dragging gravel
with fresnal type buckets into piles to be loaded
onto trucks for road construction. In the 1950's
massive earth moving equipment and dynamite were
subsequently used to move the 20-30 feet deep overburden
(which contained cultural materials) resting above
the gravel.
Preservation efforts
Since the site's discovery, attempts were made
in 1940 by John Cotter, in 1956 by Fred Wendorf,
and 1963 by a host of New Mexico dignitaries and
local people, to save several acres of the in situ
cultural deposits from being destroyed by gravel
mining. Not until 1978 were the Site's 157 acres
purchased by Eastern New Mexico University. The
1983-1984 investigations revealed 800 meters of
in situ cultural deposits on the southwest side.
Buried camp sites are also thought to exist around
the former ancient lake edge.
Description
of a hunt using Clovis spear points
Artist interpretation of Paleoindians hunting Bison
antiquus (image
credit)
The time is 13,300 years ago. Imagine
that you are enjoying the view of the lush vegetation
on the Llano Estacado. The spring fed Blackwater
Draw Lake is a favorite place to hunt. You remember
how much better this water tastes than the last
water hole. It feels good to rest for the moment,
watching the insects and birds fly around. The group
of hunters you are with suddenly become alert. A
tense excitement is mounting as a loud, awesome
sound is heard. You recognize this as the sound
of a mammoth. The animal is tromping through the
tall grasses that surround the lake wanting a drink
of cool water. Your extended family members have
begun stalking toward the sound. They motion with
hand signals for you to go in a certain direction.
Everyone prepares for the flurry of action to come.
The spear throwing stick is aimed and ready. The
Clovis spear points are sharp. Hopefully one will
pierce a vital organ and cause the huge creature
to die. The signal is given and the attack proceeds.
The mammoth falls. The band of hunters rush to finish
the kill.
Plenty of food is available from one animal this
size. Tons of meat can be prepared for the coming
winter. Most of the group helps in the process of
preparing the meat, hide, and bones for future use.
Some members keep watch with their weapons ready.
Other large predators may be nearby and hungry.
This scene was repeated many times during the Clovis
occupation of the Blackwater Draw Site. Even though
other animals were killed for food, the mammoth
was considered the prize. It provided an abundance
of food and other natural resources, such as sinew,
tusks, and bone for weapons and tools. Brains for
tanning the hide and rib bones for shelter supports
were also obtained. Nothing was wasted. (A
Brief Scenario of Life at Blackwater Locality No.
1 Site)
Learn
more about Clovis vs. Pre-Clovis sites....the alternative
views
Folsom
Man
Folsom
Museum; Folsom
Site in 1928
"Folsom
Site" at Wild Horse Canyon, eight
miles west of Folsom, New Mexico is one of the most
widely known archaeological localities in North
America. It is routinely mentioned in archaeological
texts, regularly appears on maps of notable American
sites and, of course, served historically as the
type locality for the Folsom Paleoindian period
– a slice of time and a distinctive archaeological
culture dating from around 10,900 to around 10,200
years ago. Folsom is on the National Register of
Historic Places, it is a National Historic Landmark,
and it is a New Mexico State Monument.
Folsom
Museum (Folsom, New Mexico) is a community
effort to introduce the story of the nearby Folsom
site, where what became known as the Folsom
Culture (c. 10,900 years ago) was discovered in
1926. "Folsom Man" developed a smaller,
thinner, fluted spear point than Clovis type, hunted
big game, notably the huge bison ancestor of the
modern buffalo and used a spear-throwing device
called an atlatl (an Aztec word for “spear-thrower”).
Discovery of Folsom point in 1927 gave earliest
proof of humans in America.
Folsom Culture
The
original folsom point embedded in the ribs of a
bison.
The
Folsom Point, discovered near
Folsom, New Mexico, in 1927, was crafted from flint
some 10 thousand years ago. Discovered on a joint
expedition by archaeologists from the American Museum
of Natural History and the Denver Museum of Natural
History, this spear point stands among the most
important archaeological finds ever made on this
continent.
This single point settled a longstanding difference
of opinion about when the first humans arrived in
what we now call North America. Many believed the
first Native American cultures to be no more than
2 or 3 thousand years old, while others believed
that they were thousands of years older than that.
With the discovery of the Folsom Point, which was
embedded in the bones of a bison known to have been
extinct for 10 thousand years, the disagreement
was resolved: the point was incontrovertible evidence
that there were humans here as early as the Ice
Age. The real Folsom Point is displayed in a cast
of the bones in which it was embedded, re-creating
the way this momentous discovery appeared to members
of the expedition. ---source
Preservation
of Folsom as a food heritage site
 |
 |
The site is now protected from
elk and livestock damage by virtue of the 8 foot
high fence constructed by the state in 2002. The
banks of Wild Horse Arroyo are now partially covered
by vegetation (grasses and forbs), and these serve
to partially stabilize the slopes. The small check
dams in the main channel of Wild Horse Arroyo have
trapped 4 to 6 inches of silt behind them, allowing
plants to establish themselves on the floor of the
arroyo; and these serve to protect the arroyo bottom
during periods of runoff. The danger of catastrophic
erosive loss of some portion of the remaining cultural
deposits remains, as it has continuously since the
major flood event that first exposed the site. The
measures taken in 2002 address some of the small-scale
effects of animal activities and natural erosive
processes that occur on a regular basis but cannot
ameliorate the broader situation.
Conditions have improved to the extent that the
construction of the fence and small-scale check
dams allow. Encouraging the natural vegetation to
re-establish itself within the 10-acre state monument
area has stabilized the slopes considerably. Trapping
silt behind the small check dams provides a substrate
for the growth of vegetation within the drainage
channels. This is beneficial in that the vegetation
will lay down during a flood event, thereby protecting
the substrate and conveying runoff downstream with
a minimum of erosive effect within the monument
boundaries. The New Mexico State Land Office (SLO)
will continue to manage the property so as to preserve
and protect the locale and the remaining cultural
deposits. The SLO is developing a cooperative management
agreement with New Mexico State Monuments Division
of the Department of Cultural Affairs that will
assist in providing protection and stewardship for
the property.
(source)
Bison
antiquus
Bison antiquus (image
credit)
Recent find of Bison
antiquus near Folsom
The remains of a bison were recently discovered
along Archuleta Creek, a
tributary of the Dry Cimarron River, at a spot just
ca. 4 km from the Folsom
type site. The bones were exposed in a deeply undercut,
eroding section of the
south bank of the creek. They consisted of a series
of ordered vertebrae lying
flat with their dorsal surfaces protruding out of
the stream bank, suggesting
the skeleton was on its side, oriented roughly parallel
to the present drainage.
The remains were found ca. 4 m below the present
surface, lying along the
upper, undulating surface of what appeared to be
Pleistocene-age gravel, and
largely contained within and overlain by fine, overbank
sediments.
(Read the rest of the report)
The Discoverer
of the Folsom Site
In 1908, after the Folsom Flood
of August 27th, a Black Cowboy by the name of George
McJunkin discovered a large deposit of
bones protruding from the bank of the Dry Cimarron
River while riding in Wild Horse Arroyo with a friend,
Bill Gordon. Bill took some of the bones to Raton
and showed them to Fred Howarth. It was George McJunkin,
however, who was convinced that these bones were
unusual. An amateur archeaologist, George knew they
had to be of some extinct animal. Unfortunately,
George did not live to know that he had discovered
"Folsom Man." It wasn't until 1925 that
scientist determined that George's discovery was
one of the most important archaeological finds ever
made in North America.
Read
more here.
The Controversial
"Sandia Man" Cave
The controversy over the"Sandia
Man" Cave, began as a discovery by
Frank
C. Hibben, an anthropology graduate student
in 1936. It was excavated by University of New Mexico
archeological teams between 1937 and 1941. It (reportedly)
contained skeletal remains of such Ice Age beasts
as the wooly mammoth and mastodon and giant sloth,
as well as stone lance and arrow points, basket
scraps and remnants of woven yucca moccasins. The
diggers found no human bones in the cave debris.
At first, it was thought that Sandia Man may have
used the cave as a seasonal retreat about 22,000
years ago. But more recent dating shows that Sandia
Man actually lived periodically in the cave only
10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Even that revised age-estimate
would make Sandia Man one of the first recorded
inhabitants of North America, hunting game in the
Sandias during the same era as Folsom Man roamed
the plains of Northeastern New Mexico.
Controversy surrounds the
site. Is Sandia Cave the oldest site in
North America where
evidence of man’s presence more than 25,000
years ago was found or is it a less
significant finding where man was found less than
14,000 years ago? It depends on which
professional’s interpretation you believe.
In 1936, Wesley Bliss and Chester Stock found evidence
of man’s existence at Sandia Cave. Dr. Frank
C. Hibben, the principle investigator of the site,
later interpreted theevidence and concluded that
it was older than that found at Folsom, making it
at least 25,000 years old. Armed with new methods,
new technology, and decades of additional knowledge,
other investigators later disputed Hibben’s
findings. In their abstract published by the
Smithsonian Institution Press in 1986 after two
decades of study, C. Vance Haynes, Jr. and
George A. Agogino state, “We conclude that
Sandia points are definitely less than 14,000
years old and suggest they may be specialized Clovis
or Folsom artifacts used for mining
ocher.” In the Forward to that same publication,
Dennis Stanford, Curator of the North
American Archaeology, Smithsonian Institution said,
“cultural questions remain very much
enigmatic.” So what is the answer? When will
the mystery be solved? No matter the result, the
secrets of Sandia Cave continue to have a profound
impact on the archaeological community.
Sandia Cave is either very old or very, very, old.
An exhibit explaining the Sandia Cave controversy
can be found at the Museum of Archaeology and Material
Culture in Cedar Crest, NM. (source)
Here's an article about what its
like to visit the site:
"Sandia Man Revisited"
by Frank Zoretich The Albuquerque Journal
Editor's note: The following story was written as
part of a series called "Cheap Thrills"
for the Albuquerque Journal. The criteria for these
"thrills" are 1) a day-trippable circle
roughly 150 miles from Albuquerque and 2) fees of
no more than $10. Enjoy.
Take more than a few steps into the mouth of Sandia
Cave and you'll be swallowed by darkness.
If you forget to carry a flashlight, your exploration
of the ancient lair of Sandia Man will end not much
farther than a breadcrumb's toss from the entrance.
But that's far enough to achieve a cave-dweller's
sense of hole-in-the-wall shelter.
The wall, in this case, is a limestone cliff in
Las Huertas Canyon, about four miles above Placitas
along SR 156 (with three of those miles being gravel
road through Cibola National Forest). As you go
up this route toward the backside of Sandia Crest,
look for a narrow vertical sign that says "Sandia
Cave," which marks the parking area at the
beginning of a half-mile trail to the cave. Although
the trail is an easy hike, the cave isn't exactly
wheelchair accessible -- there's a concrete staircase
to scale and then a 12-foot spiral of metal steps
up the sheer face of the cliff.
Sandia Cave, discovered by an anthropology graduate
student in 1936, was excavated by University of
New Mexico archeological teams between 1937 and
1941. It contained skeletal remains of such Ice
Age beasts as the wooly mammoth and mastodon and
giant sloth, as well as stone lance and arrow points,
basket scraps and remnants of woven yucca moccasins.
The diggers found no human bones in the cave debris.
At first, it was thought that Sandia Man may have
used the cave as a seasonal retreat about 22,000
years ago. But more recent dating shows that Sandia
Man actually lived periodically in the cave only
10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Even that revised age-estimate would make Sandia
Man one of the first recorded inhabitants of North
America, hunting game in the Sandias during the
same era as Folsom Man roamed the plains of Northeastern
New Mexico.
Continue
reading the article here.
Location: In Las Huertas Canyon, about four miles
above Placitas along SR 156.
Hours: Open during daylight hours.
Cost: Free
Features: Cave contains skeletal remains and other
artifacts from the Ice Age?
Maxwell
Museum of Anthropology, University
of New Mexico
One of the nation’s finest anthropology museums,
the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology offers exhibits
and programs relating to cultures around the world,
with a special emphasis on the cultural heritage
of the Southwest. Even though the museum was founded
by the Frank C. Hibben, discoverer of the Sandia
Man cave, there are no exhibits about the controversial
site.
What happened to Frank
Hibben and the controversy he started? Well, here's
one view:
from Real
human history is clouded by Academic elitists' miss-information.
By Ron O. Cook
"I am reminded of Ales Hrdlicka,
who was with the Smithsonian in Washington for so
many years. His particular mindset was that man
could not have been in the Americas before the end
of the last Ice Ages, due to the gargantuan ice
sheets, which would have impeded mans progress into
the New World. He defended this position to the
point where it was academic suicide to go against
it, and all quailed in fear of his wrath. This man
was able to impress his notions on the anthropologists
of the Americas for decade after decade. It was
nothing except intellectual tyranny.
Professor Frank Hibben of the University of New
Mexico uncovered evidence in New Mexico that suggested
that man had been in the Americas before the end
of the last Ice Age. He documented his work, and
he published a very nice little book for the layman
called The Lost Americans (1946). Professor Hibben
was head of the Anthropology Department at his university
and was a well-respected archaeologist. Well, after
publication of this work, holy hell broke loose.
Hrdlicka had so impressed his views that other archaeologists
would not even consider the work that Hibben had
done at Sandia Cave, close to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
(This is the celebrated Sandia Cave Man controversy.)
Professor Hibben lost his tenure, and he was booted
out of the University of New Mexico. His professional
career was completely ruined, and he never taught
again. He was vilified beyond belief, and it was
even suggested that he had tinkered with his evidence.
However, let it be noted that no one went to look
at the evidence in situ, where he had carefully
left half of the site intact for study by future
scholars. In fact, someone went out to the Sandia
Cave and completely vandalized the site so it could
never be studied again. (How is this for spite and
malice?) Well, the poor man was ruined, but there
was a saving grace. He was married to a very beautiful
woman who loved him devotedly, and she was also
very wealthy. He lived the rest of his life in luxury
in a lovely section of Santa Fe. His material needs
were taken care of, but I am sure that he was saddened
by the loss of his professional life and interests.
And then what happened? Hrdlicka finally died,
and who was the wag who observed that Science progresses
from funeral to funeral? They then discovered the
Monte Verde site in southern Chile, which proved
that man was in the Americas long before the last
Ice Age ended. It was amazing how many archaeologists
went to the site before they could be convinced
of the truth. After they were finally persuaded,
then it was equally amazing how many pre-Ice Age
sites were discovered and are being excavated. A
theory had fallen, and a mind set had been conquered.
Please pardon me for going on at length about Professor
Hibben, but it exercises me no end. I am not sure
that this good man is still alive, but at least,
he lived long enough to see the archaeologists validate
the Monte Verde site, and surely that must have
pleased him."
Mimbres
Culture Pottery: an important source of information
about the foodways of prehistoric peoples of NM
image
credit
Western
New Mexico University Museum houses
one of the largest permanent displays of
Mimbres Pottery and culture in the world.
Fleming Hall, the museum's building, was built in
1916-1917 and designed by Trost and Trost Architectural
Firm from El Paso. The original function of Fleming
Hall was to serve as a gymnasium and science hall
for the New Mexico Normal School. In 1974 Fleming
Hall was opened to the public as Western New Mexico
University Museum.
Mogollon
Culture (Mimbres Valley)
The Mogollon (pronounced mo-goi-YONE)
is the name applied to one of the four major prehistoric
archaeological traditions of the American Southwest.
The American Indian culture known as the Mogollon
lived in the southwest from approximately AD 700
until sometime between AD 1300 and AD 1400. The
name Mogollon comes from the Mogollon Mountains,
which were named after a Spanish official, Don Juan
Ignacio Flores Mogollón.
The Mogollon culture shows some similarities to
cultures known as the Hohokam and the Ancient Pueblo
(Anasazi) who lived in the surrounding areas at
approximately the same time period. The Mogollon
and neighboring cultures emerged slowly from a people
who had resided in the American Southwest since
at least 9000 BC. Cultural distinctions emerged
in the larger region when populations grew great
enough to establish villages and even larger communities.
Trade networks moving valuable goods also helped
establish cultural traits which have been attributed
to the Mogollon.
The Mogollon settled high-altitude desert areas
in what is today New Mexico, northern Mexico and
western Texas. The Mogollon were an agricultural
people who lived primarily in cliff dwellings or
high plateau villages overlooking their farmland.
They supplemented their farming with hunting and
gathering activities. They developed pit houses,
later dwelt in pueblos. Were accomplished stoneworkers.
Famous for magnificent black on white painted pottery.
(read
more)
Mimbres pottery
It was not until the bowls captured
the interest of a few dedicated amateur and professional
archeologists that the true nature of their culture
emerged. It is now believed that the Mimbres built
the .first pueblo settlements—settlements
that were among the region’s largest before
their mortar dried with the passing centuries and
let these sophisticated structures of river cobblestones
dissolve into piles of rubble.
It was because of these extraordinary bowls that
archeologists first took an interest in the seemingly
unremarkable Mimbres culture.
The Mimbres villages were scattered throughout southwestern
New Mexico, big blocklike complexes of connected
storage and living rooms. The compact living quarters,
about 45 to 60 feet square, were lit by ceiling
hatchways and small vents in an outside wall. Large
plazas in the center of each village, surrounded
by the housing complexes, provided space for public
ceremonies, communal rituals, and food preparation—activities
depicted on the bowls.
The Mimbres gathered wild plants and hunted game,
but they also cultivated squash, corn, and beans,
and—at a time when the Anasazis relied on
scarce and unpredictable rainfall—constructed
extensive irrigation systems to ensure a steady
water supply for their crops. Although their agriculture
suggests a static existence, the group did not live
in complete isolation. Ocean fish depicted on their
bowls indicate the Mimbres traveled as far as the
Gulf of California, five or six hundred miles away.
And they seem to have traded with various groups
to obtain shell jewelry, feathers, stone axes, and
other luxury and ritual items.
Their remarkable success at managing their environment
may finally have led to the depletion of important
natural resources. Skeletal evidence suggests that
the Mimbres suffered from poor health and dietary
deficiencies. Ultimately, the group disappeared
around A.D. 1150, although there is little doubt
of their connection to the Pueblo people. (source)
The great value of the ceramic
collection obtained from the Mimbres is the large
number of figures representing men, animals, and
characteristic geometrical designs, often highly
conventionalized, depicted on their interiors. These
figures sometimes cover a greater part of the inner
surface, are often duplicated, and are commonly
surrounded by geometrical designs or simple lines
parallel with the outer rim of the vessel. It is
important to notice the graceful way in which geometrical
figures with which the ancient potters decorated
their bowls are made to grade into the bodies of
animals, as when animal figures become highly conventionalized
into geometrical designs.
The ancients represented on their food bowls men
engaged in various occupations, such as hunting
or ceremonial dances, and in that way have bequeathed
to us a knowledge of their dress, their way of arranging
their hair, weapons, and other objects adopted on
such occasions. They have figured many animals accompanied
by conventional figures which have an intimate relation
to their cults and their social organization. Although
limited in amount and imperfect in its teaching
this material is most instructive. (source:
Fewkes, Jesse Walter. The Mimbres Art and Archaeology
with an Introduction by J.J. Brody. Albuguerque,
New Mexico: Avanyu Publishing, Inc. 1989).
Important
food sources for Mimbres people
depicted on their pottery
image
credit
The black-tailed
jackrabbit is really a hare and was an important
food source for the Mimbres people and was often
pictured on Mimbres food bowls.
As rabbits are the most common
of this group, it seems probable that the Mimbres
depicted food animals.
image
credit
Fish (HM 4780, 4774, 4778, 99)
were also commonly depicted on Mimbres pottery bowls.
While many are images of the local Chihuahua Chub
the Mimbres caught for food
image
credit
Human figures make up only about
15% of the painted figures, and date to the last
150 years of Mimbres civilization. The Palmer collection
contains several of these figural pieces, most of
which depict hunting scenes (HM 96, 114, 4782,).
Mimbres hunters used animal guises (HM 104, 5098)
as a part of their hunting ritual. The idea behind
wearing the mask of an animal during hunting—not
necessarily that of the animal to be killed—was
to encourage the prey to approach closer before
it was killed. (Palmer
Collection in Maine Center for the Arts)
Chaco
Canyon
How did such a large and complex
community feed itself?
By AD 900, Pueblo population of
Chaco Canyon in present day NW New Mexico (part
of the San Juan rivershed) was growing and the communities
expanded into larger, but more closely compacted
pueblos. There is strong evidence of a canyon wide
turquoise processing and trading industry dating
from the tenth century. At this time, the first
section of the spectacular Pueblo Bonito complex
was built, beginning with one curved row of rooms
near the north wall.
However, the meticulously designed buildings characteristic
of the larger Canyon complex did not emerge until
about 1030. The Chacoan people combined pre-planned
architectural designs, astronomical alignments,
geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create
an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture.
Researchers have concluded that the complex may
have had a relatively small residential population,
with larger groups assembling only temporarily for
annual events and ceremonies. Smaller sites, apparently
more residential in character, are scattered around
the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon.
The extended Ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) community
also began to experience a population and building
boom about this time. By 1115, at least seventy
outlying pueblos with characteristic Chacoan architecture
had been built within the 25,000 square mile (65,000
km²) area of the San Juan Basin. Researchers
debate the function of these outlying settlements,
some large enough to be considered Great Houses
in their own right. Some suggest they may have been
more than agricultural communities, perhaps acting
as trading posts or as ceremonial sites.
Many outliers are connected to the central canyon
and to one another by the enigmatic Chacoan "roads."
Extending up to 130 miles (208 km), in generally
straight lines, these roads appear to have been
extensively surveyed and engineered. Common "road"
characteristics include a depressed bed between
twenty-five to forty feet wide with edges defined
by rock edging or curbing. When necessary, the roads
continued on their course over obstacles, using
steep stone stairways and rock ramps. Although the
"roads'" overall function may never be
known, archaeologist Harold S. Gladwin reported
that the nearby Navajo believed the Anasazi had
used the roads for transporting timber, while Neil
Judd believed the roads served a ceremonial function.
The cohesive system that characterized Chaco Canyon
began to break down about 1140, perhaps in response
to a severe region-wide drought, to water management
that led to arroyo-cutting, and to deforestation.
The food connection to the decline of Chaco Canyon
civilization is explained by Gary Nabhan in Enduring
Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant
Conservation. "Chaco Canyon deforestation
was driven by the use of one hundred thousand conifers
for the multi-storied pueblos, an Anasazi city-state.
Like the shapers and devenders of industrial economies,
the priestly elite of Chaco were preoccupied with
extra-regional trade of commodities rather than
with local self-dufficiency. They had left behind
the minds of subsistence farmers centuries before.
Julio Betancourt has hypothesized tht Chaco's farmlands
were abandoned when erosion followed the cutting
of lumber and fuelwood in the watershed above the
pueblos. At first, the loss of local natural resources
may have intensified the pueblo's dependence on
commodity imports. Soon, economic instabilities
must have toppled the puebloan power structure.
Although the Anasazi exodus from Chaco Canyon occurred
with hundred years ago, Betancourt believes the
vegetation there has not yet recovered."
The
Museum and Interpretative Center of Chaco Canyon
image
The Chaco Collection contains approximately one
million artifacts from over 120 sites in Chaco Canyon
and the surrounding region. Because most of the
artifacts were systematically collected and documented,
the collections are extremely valuable for scientific
studies.
The Archive documents over 100 years of excavation
in Chaco Canyon, and contains approximately 300
linear feet of records, 30,000 photographs, 7,000
color slides, 600 glass lantern slides, 2,000 maps,
1,000 manuscripts, and field notes, reports, and
other written records.
The objects in this exhibit represent the range
of materials in the Chaco Collection. They give
us insight into the remarkable achievements of the
Chacoan culture, and help us connect more directly
to the past.
digging
stick
The
Foods of Chaco Canyon
How a large and complex society fed itself.
Squash,
corn, watermelon and pinon seeds.
The Chaco
Mystery of Sustenance: one theory
"The Chaco Canyon Anasazi had no visible
means of support. How did they survive?
These Anasazi developed a sophisticated, though
previously unrecognized, knowledge of the earth,
particularly in relation to extreme fluctuations
in yearly rainfall and its effect upon agricultural
yields. I propose, therefore, that much of the Chaco
Canyon architecture was specifically designed and
constructed in response to this knowledge. The Chacoans
were able to identify a virtually unknown blue-green
algae which was common in the soil throughout the
region and produced soluble nitrates and as such,
could be exploited to produce fertilizer on which
the entire agricultural system was based. Astronomical
architectural alignments were clearly important,
but a dependable and ample food supply, through
ingenious growing and storage methods, was the foundation
of Chacoan civilization."
Explore
the full explanation here.
Bandelier
Best known for mesas, sheer-walled
canyons, and several thousand ancestral Pueblo dwellings
found among them, Bandelier also includes over 23,000
acres of designated Wilderness. The best-known archeological
sites, in Frijoles Canyon near the Visitor Center,
were inhabited by farmers from the 1100s into the
mid-1500s, and earlier groups had used the area
for thousands of years. The park was named for Adolph
Bandelier, a 19th-century anthropologist.
Frijoles Canyon, contains the
(restored) ruins of a number of dwellings, kivas
(ceremonial structures) and rock paintings. Some
of the dwellings were rock structures built on the
canyon floor; others were "cave dwellings"
produced by voids in the tuff of the canyon wall
and enlarged by human action; and still others were
constructed of rock but used the canyon wall as
the back wall of rooms. A 1 mile (1.6 km) paved
loop trail from the visitors' center affords access
to these features. A spur trail extending beyond
this loop leads to Ceremonial Cave, a shelter cave
produced by erosion of the soft tuff and containing
a small, restored kiva that the hiker may enter
via ladder.
About the
Anasazi (c. 300 B.C.–A.D.
1300)
Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “The ancient
ones or "ancient enemies"”). Their
descendants are the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians.
Inhabited Colorado Plateau “four corners,”
where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet.
An agricultural society that cultivated cotton,
wove cotton fabrics. The early Anasazi are known
as the Basketmaker People for their extraordinary
basketwork. Were skilled workers in stone. Carved
stone Kachina dolls. Built pit houses, later apartment-like
pueblos. Constructed road networks. Were avid astronomers.
Used a solar calendar. Traded with Mesoamerican
Toltecs. Important sites: Chaco Canyon, N.M.; Mesa
Verde, Colo.; Canyon de Chelly, Ariz.; Bandelier,
N.M.; Betatkin, N.M. The Acoma Pueblo, N.M., built
circa A.D. 1300 and still occupied, may be the oldest
continuously inhabited village in the U.S.
Learn
more about the major Pre-Columbian Indian Cultures
in the United States
