Ancient dwellings of Pueblo peoples

Hundreds of ancient dwellings of Pueblo peoples are found widely across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before 1492 CE, these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest.

Many of these dwellings included various defensive positions, like the high steep mesas such as at the ancient Mesa Verde complex or the present-day Acoma "Sky City" Pueblo. Earlier than 900 CE progressing past the 13th century, the population complexes were major cultural centers for the Pueblo peoples. There were also settlements scattered throughout the region of varying sizes.

History

They included Paleo-Indian Llano or Clovis Culture. Until about CE 400–500, many cultural groups residing in the southwest practiced the Desert Culture of migratory hunter–gatherers. At that time, agriculture and sedentary life began to take hold, although the populations present are known to have relied on older economies in times of want. Cotton, beans, squash, and maize were cultivated, and the arts of basketry and textile weaving were developed.^[1]

Earlier inhabitants of the area are known as Puebloan cultures.

The people of many pueblos, such as Taos Pueblo, continue living in centuries-old adobe pueblo buildings.^[2] Residents often maintain other homes outside the historic pueblos.^[2][3]

The Pueblo culture developed from 700–1100, characterized by its distinctive religious practices and a large growth in population. The period from 1100–1300 CE is known as the Great Pueblo Period, and is marked by cooperation between the Pueblo peoples and the communal Great Kiva ritual.

In addition to contemporary pueblos, there are numerous ruins throughout the Southwest. Some are of relatively recent origin; others are of prehistoric origin such as the cliff dwellings and other habitations of the ancestral Pueblo peoples or Anasazi.^[4]

Cultures

Ancestral cultures

The ancestral Pueblo peoples referred to include the Fremont, Hohokam, Mogollon, Patayan, Sinagua, Salado, Trincheras and Rio Sonora people.

The Anasazi society is one of the most complex to be found in Oasisamerica, and they are assumed to be the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, including the Zuñi and Hopi. Their culture flourished in the region currently known as the Four Corners, between Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The territory was covered by juniper forests which the ancient peoples learned to exploit for their own needs. The Hohokam occupied the desert lands of southern Arizona and northern Sonora. Their territory is bounded by two large rivers, the Colorado and Gila Rivers, that outline the heart of the Sonora Desert.

In contrast to their Anasazi neighbors to the north, the nomadic communities of the Hohokam culture are poorly understood. The principal settlements of the Hohokam culture were Snaketown, Casa Grande, Red Mountain, and Pueblo de los Muertos, all of which are to be found in modern-day Arizona. A slightly different branch of the Hohokam people is known as the Trincheras, named after their most well-known site in the Sonoran Desert. The Hohokam lived in small communities of several hundred people.

The Mogollon was a cultural area of Mesoamerica that extended from the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, northward to Arizona and New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Some scholars prefer to distinguish between two broad cultural traditions in this area: the Mogollon itself and the Paquime culture that were derived from it. Either way, the peoples who inhabited the area in question adapted well to a landscape that was marked by the presence of pine forests and steep mountains and ravines.

Modern cultures

There are 21 federally recognized pueblos in the United States today. Rio Grande pueblos are known as eastern Pueblos; Zuni, Hopi, and sometimes Acoma and Laguna are known as western Pueblos.

The Eight Northern Pueblos are a collection of culturally and geographically related pueblos in New Mexico. They are the Taos, Picuris, Santa Clara, Ohkay Owingeh, San Ildefonso, Nambé, Pojoaque, and Tesuque.

Geography

The dwellings of the Pueblo peoples are located throughout the American Southwest and north central Mexico. The American states of New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona all have evidence of Pueblo peoples' dwellings; the Mexican state of Chihuahua does, too.

Pre-Columbian towns and villages in the Southwest were frequently located in defensive positions, including high steep mesas such as Acoma.

Eras

Archaeologists have agreed on three main periods of ancient occupation by Pueblo peoples throughout the Southwest called Pueblo I, Pueblo II, and Pueblo III.^[5]

• Pueblo I (AD 750 to 900). Pueblo buildings were built with stone, windows facing south, and in U, E and L shapes. The buildings were located more closely together and reflected deepening religious celebration. Towers were built near kivas and likely used for look-outs. Pottery became more versatile, not just for cooking, but now included pitchers, ladles, bowls, jars and dishware for food and drink. White pottery with black designs emerged, the pigments coming from plants. Water management and conservation techniques, including the use of reservoirs and silt-retaining dams also emerged during this period.^[6] Mid-way through this period, about AD 900, the number of Hovenweep residential sites increased.^[7]
• Pueblo II (AD 900-1150). During the Pueblo II period there was an increase in population that resulted in creation of more than 10,000 sites in 150 years. Since much of the land was arid, the people supplemented their diet by hunting, foraging and trading pottery for food.^[8] By the end of the period, there were two-story dwellings made primarily of stone masonry, the presence of towers, and family and commuity kivas.^[6][9][10]
• Pueblo III (AD 1150-1300). Rohn and Ferguson, authors of Puebloan ruins of the Southwest, state that during the Pueblo III period there was a significant community change. Moving in from dispersed farmsteads into community centers at pueblos canyon heads or cliff dwellings on canyon shelves. Population peaked between 1200 to 1250 to more than 20,000 in the Mesa Verde region.^[11] By 1300 Ancient Pueblo People abandoned their settlements, as the result of climate changes and food shortage, and south to villages in Arizona and New Mexico.^[11]

Architecture

The ancestral Puebloan people built a unique architecture with planned community spaces. The ancient population centers such as Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Bandelier for which the Ancestral Puebloans are renowned, consisted of apartment-like complexes and structures made from stone, adobe mud, and other local material, or were carved into the sides of canyon walls. Each were influenced by themselves and design details from other cultures as far away as modern-day central Mexico. In their day, these ancient towns and cities were usually multi-storied and multi-purposed buildings surrounding open plazas and viewsheds and were occupied by hundreds to thousands of Ancestral Puebloan People. These population complexes hosted cultural and civic events and infrastructure that supported a vast outlying region hundreds of miles away linked by transportation roadways.

Among ancestral Pueblo peoples, housing, defensive, and storage complexes were built in shallow caves and under rock overhangs along canyon walls. The structures contained within these alcoves were mostly blocks of hard sandstone, held together and plastered with adobe mortar. Specific constructions had many similarities, but were generally unique in form due to the individual topography of different alcoves along the canyon walls. Kivas, towers, and pit-houses were common features throughout these dwellings. In some instances, the space constrictions of the alcoves where cliff dwellings were built necessitated far denser concentration of populations.

Decorative motifs for these sandstone/mortar constructions, both cliff dwellings and otherwise, included T-shaped windows and doors.^[12][13]

Construction characteristics

Most notable Pueblo structures were made of adobe and built like an apartment complex. Generally speaking, Pueblo buildings feature a box base, smaller box on top, and an even smaller one on top of that, with the tallest reaching four and five stories. There were floors for storage and defense, living and religious ceremonies. Generally, there were no doors on the bottom floor until recent times. This limited access to the buildings so movable ladders were key elements. One ladder would take inhabitants to the patio, or second floor, and another led through an opening through a roof and onto the first floor.^[14] Other ladders led to higher floors. At night, ladders would be taken inside for protection so no outsider could come in without permission. The ladders were also key to defense.

All Pueblo buildings are made from the natural resources of the nearby desert. Adobe, the building-block, is made by mixing clay, sand, water and organic materials such as sticks, straw, and dung. These are mixed into blocks and left to dry. A hole was dug where the new building was constructed and supporting poles are planted firmly in the ground to make a frame. When the blocks of adobe were dry and hard, they were laid around the building and bounded by wet clay. At active pueblos, every year a new coat of adobe mixture/clay is added to the wall to keep them firm.

Architectural elements

The key technology of the Pueblo peoples was their irrigation techniques. These were used throughout their dwellings, and often determined the siting of communities. Distinctive elements of Puebloan architecture included the kiva and the false kiva, which were used for religious ceremonies, and the sipapu, which is a small hole or indentation in the floor of kivas. Moki steps and ladders were used to access dwellings. The souterrain, an underground room found occasionally. The Pueblo peoples also carved stairs into rock faces throughout the Southwest, or used logs bored into the rock face as spiral stairways, as at the Acoma Pueblo.

Many pueblos feature T-shaped doors in adobe walls. Usually one meter wide, they are wider on top and narrower below. Theory states that the door shape is associated to the prehistoric kachinas. The Great house-style pueblos were constructed on a box system. Builders used molds to pour compacted mud without organic material. The exterior was stuccoed with sand, lime and oyster dust shells, then it was painted blue, green, or pink. Made without foundations, the walls were built from slots that were 25 centimeters deep. Furnaces and ventilation were used to control interior temperature. Doors were used for ventilation and smoke outflow. The doors were proportional to the size of the room. Stairs, ramps, and ladders were built to allow access to the buildings.

There are a number of consistent features surrounding the dwellings. They include water retention structures like the Mesa Verde Reservoirs, and stone towers. Oval shaped fields, such as those found at Snaketown, have been identified as ballcourts. Each were about 60 meters long, 33 meters apart, and 2.5 meters high. In 2009 it was suggested that the shape of an oval bowl with curved sides and the uneven embankments on the long sides are unsuited for any kind of ball game; On the other hand, they correspond with dance floors of the Tohono O'odham, used for their Wigita ceremonies until at least the 1930s.^[15]

Another exterior feature of the pueblos was the horno, an outdoor oven made of clay. For a period of time, pueblos throughout the Southwest were connected by a network of roads that radiated from Chaco Canyon, which was a cultural epicenter. Remnants of this roadway system are evident throughout New Mexico and Arizona today.

Types of dwellings

In addition to the movable structures used by other Native Americans across North and South America, the Pueblo peoples created distinctive structures for living, worshiping, defense, storage, and daily life.

• Pueblo - Referring to both a certain style of Puebloan architecture and groups of people themselves, the term pueblo is used in architectural terms to describe multistory, apartment-like buildings made of adobe. In this article they are called "great houses".
• Great houses - Generally built on flat plains throughout the Southwest, the great house-style Pueblo dwelling sat independent of cliffs.
• Pit houses - Most of the populations of the Southwest lived in pit houses, carefully dug rectangular or circular depressions in the earth with branch and mud adobe walls supported by log sized corner posts.
• Cliff dwellings - Constructed in the sides of the mesas and mountains of the Southwest, cliff dwellings comprised a large number of the defensive structures of the Pueblo people.
• Trincheras - The Hohokum or Trincheras culture used these distinctive type sites in the Southwest and northwest Mexico. Trincheras sites are defined by location on a hill or low mountain peak and terraces, walls, and other constructions of local stone. Remains of the terraces and walls reminded early explorers of "trincheras," the Spanish term for entrenchments or fortifications.
• Jacal is a traditional adobe house built by the ancestral Pueblo peoples. Slim close-set poles were tied together and filled out with mud, clay and grasses, or adobe bricks were used to make the walls.^[16]

Lists of dwellings by state

Arizona

Chihuahua (Mexico)

Colorado

Nevada

New Mexico

Sonora

Texas

Utah

Unknown locations

See also

• List of the oldest buildings in the United States
• Navajo pueblitos
• Pueblo Revolt
• Spanish missions in New Mexico
• Tanoan languages
• Timeline of Chacoan history
• Trail of the Ancients

References