The people whom we have come to call the Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloans) and related groups from the Four Corners area of the United States had already constructed a sophisticated civilization by the time the Spanish arrived in the fifteenth century. Although they never developed a writing system, these ancestors of today's Hopi and Pueblo Native Americans constructed houses and ceremonial centers that survive in surprisingly good condition.

Native Americans see themselves as having always been here, on the land that we now know as the United States. Although archaeological evidence indicates that the first peoples may have actually arrived in this area a few thousand years ago (12,000 years before the present seems to provide a rough estimate, but evidence of much earlier dates is currently being unearthed and interpreted), the first settlers hold a strong claim of long-time residence; even a few thousand years would seem "forever" compared to the 500 years in which Europeans have known about this continent's existence. During their long habitation in the diverse regions which make up North America--from the Arctic Circle to the Western deserts to the Florida Everglades--these people developed distinctive and enduring traditions. Massive disruptions of these cultures occurred during the centuries following the arrival of Columbus in the "New World," but many native peoples have managed to endure into the twenty-first century. In the last half century or so, surviving Native American peoples have begun to rediscover and reassert cultural practices which had all but disappeared.

In our own "back yard"--the American Southwest--several related groups of people have lived and flourished for thousands of years, and their descendants still live in the Four Corners area (the juncture of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona), where native arts are enjoying a resurgence. One of these groups--popularly known as the Anasazi--and their descendents--the modern Pueblo peoples--will provide the focus for this class session and will illustrate the congruence of the old and new Pueblo cultures. The Chaco Anasazi, who occupied a large area centered on northwestern New Mexico, had developed a complex, sophisticated culture by around CE 1100. During the next two hundred years, however, the Chaco culture suffered a number of environmental and perhaps economic difficulties which caused them to move on to less marginal areas of New Mexico. Although often thought of as having "disappeared," the Chaco people--like the Maya in Mesoamerica--seem simply to have moved on, and to have sacrificed some of their wealth and cultural complexity for a more dependable existence. Their descendants live today primarily in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Their cultural survival depends to a large extent on the efforts of modern Pueblo artists such as the late Acoma potter Lucy Lewis, who have kept Anasazi ceramic traditions alive. Lucy and two of her children are featured in a short film called Daughters of the Anasazi, which documents the process of making traditional pottery just as their ancestors had done.

The Anasazi peoples never developed a writing system, although their artistic traditions are rich in symbolic representations of natural phenomena--primarily animals and astronomical features. These symbols survive today in petroglyphs left by the ancients, and in the designs on modern Pueblo pottery. Because of the lack of written records, however, our understanding of ancient Southwestern cultures depends primarily on two sources: the survival of stories told and retold over generations, and the efforts of archaeologists working in the region to enhance the oral tradition with material evidence. Field workers, like those depicted in the Archaeology segment, "Ancients of North America," are helping to fill in the missing pieces of the story of Anasazi culture--from the Archaic, through the Basketmaker, to the Pueblo peoples of today.

For an overview of Anasazi history, see the Chronology of Southwestern Archaeology from the University of California at San Diego. For a number of sources on peoples throughout the entire region, go to the Center for Desert Archaeology home page; or visit Sipapu for an overview of Anasazi prehistory and culture. Archaeology magazine (available in the Kelley Library) frequently features articles on recent research in the Southwest, and American Archaeology (available at some local bookstores) usually contains at least one article on Southwestern archaeology per issue. Avoid a magazine called "Ancient America"; its only value is to indicate how silly some people can get about this area of the world.

As a result of new information and new archaeological practices, revised interpretations of Anasazi life are emerging. Our understanding of Chaco Canyon, for example, is being enhanced by new evidence about ancient astronomy. As they have with current archaeological investigations into Maya life, scholars' increasingly interdisciplinary methods continue to enrich the stories available to us. The lifeways of Ancient North and Central Americans can provide valuable lessons about how both art and technology have contributed to the history of human creative thought and to the study of the humanities.

Chaco Canyon photo credits: Hungo Pavi (Candace Uhlmeyer); Pueblo Bonito and Petroglyphs (Rebecca King). Rebecca was so inspired by what she learned in this class about the Anasazi, that she and her friends spent their summer break driving around the Southwest, visiting sites like Chaco.

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07.04.07