By Keli Holt
This column continues where last month left off, exploring the Native Nations inhabiting New Mexico by focusing on the Ancestral Puebloans, formerly called the Anasazi. (Anasazi is a Navajo word for “ancestors of our enemies” and is rejected by modern Puebloans).
The Ancestral Puebloans thrived in New Mexico from approximately 1200BC until around 1200AD. As their name suggests, they were the forerunners of the many Pueblo Nations with which we are familiar today. Nineteen of these call New Mexico home. Nations like Cochiti, Zuni, Sandia and others trace their origins back to the Ancestral Puebloans who dominated large portions of the Southwest and left behind tantalizing ruins as markers of their craftsmanship and astronomical abilities.
Originally hunters and gatherers operating in small bands due to the limited resources of the Southwest, the Ancestral Puebloans adopted the “trifecta” of Indigenous American crops: squash, corn (or maize) and beans. When grown together, the “Three Sisters” worked in a symbiotic relationship that simultaneously fed larger groups of people and nourished the soil. The corn stalks served as a trellis, providing a stem for the beans to wrap around, while the squash leaves provided protection from the searing Southwestern sun. Beans also replenished the soil by adding nitrogen back into the ground, allowing for continuous planting.
Having secured a reliable and nutritious source of food, the Ancestral Puebloans began to settle into sedentary farming villages. During the so-called “Basket-Weaving Years,” roughly 1200BC-750AD, the Ancestral Puebloans built villages of pit houses, which were semi-subterranean shelters covered with a roof. Remnants of these can be seen at Indian Camp Ranch in Cortez, Colorado, and at Talus Village in Durango, Colorado. During this time, they perfected the art of weaving intricate baskets to carry crops for both trading and consuming.
As the population expanded and the villages grew, the Ancestral Puebloans began to construct dams, reservoirs and terraces to capture rainwater, which in turn allowed them to cultivate more land. To store their abundance of crops, the Ancestral Puebloans also became adept at creating pottery. This allowed for the greater specialization of labor as fewer people were required to grow food. As their skills improved, the population expanded, and the Ancestral Puebloans began to build adobe and stone homes above ground.
To organize the labor necessary for ever larger infrastructure projects, governments were established, and each adobe village functioned as an independent entity. Each village was generally headed by a council composed of political and spiritual leaders. They performed the proper religious ceremonies to maintain the balance of society and nature. Many of the rituals revolved around rainmaking and the harvests and were conducted in underground ceremonial chambers called kivas.
Between 750AD and 1200AD, the Ancestral Puebloans had become so adept at working with masonry that they began to construct multistory “great houses.” This “Golden Age” saw them building large communities throughout New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, all of which were connected by an extensive road network. The Ancestral Puebloan villages were centers of trade, with Puebloan pottery and turquoise in particularly high demand. At Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the Ancestral Puebloans demonstrated how advanced their masonry skills were by building Pueblo Bonito. It stood almost five stories tall and contained over 350 rooms, and 32 kivas.
Not only was Pueblo Bonito an architectural marvel, but it was also an astronomical one. Parts of the building were perfectly oriented east-west and north-south, and precisely marked the equinox and solstice days. Indeed, the Ancestral Puebloans were masters at observing astronomical phenomenon, a feat that can only be accomplished by a group of people with the time to track and record celestial events.
Eventually, the Ancestral Puebloan trade networks reached as far as California and Mesoamerica, with oyster shells from the Pacific and cacao from Central America reaching the great trading center at Chaco Canyon.
However, the “Golden Age” of the Ancestral Puebloans occurred at a time of unusually abundant rainfall in the Southwest. Sometime around 1200, the climate became more arid and crops began to fail. The once great trading centers became traps for elites, who found their society collapsing around them. The spiritual rituals that were supposed to guarantee adequate rainfall and harvests no longer worked, and as less food was produced, the trading centers fell. Eventually, the “great houses” were abandoned and the people dispersed throughout the Southwest carrying with them a fear of concentrating large populations in an arid environment.
Today the descendants of this rich culture can be found in the 19 Pueblo Nations of New Mexico: Acoma, Cochiti, Laguna, Jemez, Isleta, Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Sandia, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zia and Zuni.
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