El Centro's Ancient Pueblos Page

Basket Maker (1-400 CE) abundance of fine quality basketry; basically Desert Culture life; by 100 CE began settling down; dogs domesticated; Mogollon influenced pottery or some suggest Caddo influences.

By 400-700 Modified Basket Maker Stage - pit houses often in caves or rock overhangs of cliffs; cotton and beans added; bow and aroow, stone ax came into use, turkeys domesticated

By 700 development quickened - more foods, gardens expanded, drafts/arts flourished; surplus led to lesire time with expanded interest in esthetic and spiritual impulses

By 700, contiguous rooms - "Pueblos" - from Spanish word "town"

Families joined together, became bigger and bigger - apartments

Pit houses turned into round subterranean ceremonial chambers called "kivas"

Pueblos also developmental stages - at peak, Great Pueblo period - 1100-1300 CE; classic age of beautiful textiles, pottery, jewelry; kivas smaller

Included Chaco Canyon Cultures (11 major sites, hundreds of smaller sites)

Tower-like structures and other new architectural forms appeared

Life in Pueblos:

A. Close knit units, individual subordinated to the group
B. Generally good-natured and peaceful (Hopi means "peaceful ones")
C. Did fight fiercely in defense but not offensive
D. Directed by religious societies - theocracies
E. Seems to have been no class structure
F. Religion permeated all of life
G. Pueblo men are said to have devoted a least 1/2 time to religious activities
H. Numerous dieties and beneficent spirits called Kachinas (Katcinas)

(1) No women and children in kivas
(2) pits of kivas symbolized Sipapu - a place of great mystery in the north where men had first entered the world from the underground
(3) "scare Kachinas" masked, whipped bad out of young boys as preliminary initiation
(4) Most well-known kachina - Kokopelli, a fertility kachina

I. Rigidly conformist society; individualistic - witches
J. Also one of most tranquil and cooperative in world
K. Practiced intensive agriculture
L. Matrilineal so women owned crops, houses, furniture
M. Dryland farming; in east, river bottoms
N. Communal rabbit hunting; gathering
O. Men wore loincloth of cotton with second piece over in sort of kilt; sometimes pancho-like shirt; women cotton garments tied above right should secured with belt
P. Men wore hair with bangs and knot in back but loose in ceremonies; women variety including Hopi and Zuni coiled hair symbolized squash blossom; older women wore braids
Q. Women did cooking and much of construction of houses; made excellent pottery and basketry although not weavers
R. Monogamists; little courtship or emotion; divorce simple, put his stuff out

From 1300 to 1540 prospered in new locations including Chihuahua and Phoenix areas

New traits appeared including lead glaze pottery, murals on kivas, roots of Kachina "cult", plazas

But at peak also began to decline and disappear on northern and western frontiers

Return to Desert Culture - and many had continued to live this lifestyle throughout Pueblo period - Yuman-speaking peoples like Havasupais, Walapais, Yavapais, Mohaves, Hakhidhomas, Maricopas, Yumas, Cocpas, and Utaztecan-speaking Chemehuevis

About 1450 large scale withdrawals; by time Europeans arrived, many Pueblos abandoned

Don't know why - theories include change in climate, erosion, hostile invaders, intrapeublo factionalism, all of the above

But, Zuni and Hopi remain - inheritors of Ancient Pueblo Culture

Largest Pueblo today that of Zuni in Western New Mexico - about 2500 people To Capstone Main Page