Week 13 - Ancestral Pueblo in the Southwest

Southwestern presence

farming, pottery styles, villages with multi-room architecture

Southwestern absence

large cities/monuments, social stratification, writing

Southwest agriculture

maize (1750 BC)

squash (1000 BC)

beans (500 BC)

Upper Sonoran Agricultural Complex

Fullt fledged argiculture can be identified in parts of the SW about 800 BC, but it does not take off everywhere until __

AD 600

Sedentism accelerate AD 200 - 900 with advent of __

pithouses

AD 700 - 900, some pithouses were larger and had specialized features. These may have been early __ - communal ritual structures

kivas

basketmakers

begins in AD 900, corresponding with an increase in exchange

transition is well-documented (but still enigmatic) at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

pithouses to pueblos

“mouth of the wash”, used captured rainwater run-off to irrigate fields

ak-chin

Chaco Canyon location and time frame

arid canyon in northern New Mexico

occupied AD 500 - 1500

Chaco Canyon significance

center of a major cultural phenomenon in the Southeast

features:

• long-distance exchange networks for goods and ideas

• great house construction: large, multi-room stone buildings

• kiva ceremonialism: the roots of ancestral and modern-day Pueblo culture

great kivas

large, circular, subterranean ceremonial structures used for community-wide rituals

• ex: bottom of great kiva in Chetro Ketl (Chaco Canyon)

clan kivas

smaller kivas associated with specific family or clan groups within the pueblo

pueblo bonito

aerial views show complex multi-room arrangements surrounding kivas

casa rinconada

contains a possible summer solstice marker on the wall of the Great Kiva, suggesting astronomical and ceremonial significance

grayware

Chaco Black-on-White

duck effigy vessels

Chaco was a ___ location; they needed regional and long-distance trade

resource-poor

__ brought in and crafted into ornaments; workshops were common at Chaco

mascaws, shell, and copper also came into Chaco Canyon

turquoise

Chaco Road Network

Extensive system of roads connecting Chaco to outlying communities and distant trade partners

Jackson Stairway

example of road integration with the landscape, alllowing access between canyon levels

petroglyphs and markings along roads suggest they may have served as __ or guides within the Chacoan landscape

road signs

extensive network connecting Chaco Canyon’s major great houses (___) with surrounding settlements

Pueblo Alto and New Alto

equal constituencies with shared power; some gain status by performing activities that support the collective

communalism model

elites controlled staple (food) economy through irrigation and importation, and reinforced status with prestige goods. Leadership required for growing population

inequality model

Chaco controls the ritually salient turquoise exchange system, and becomes ritually important in itself

ritual exchange model

chaco essentially functioned as a pilgrimage site with monuments and feasts

pilgrimage model

Mesa Verde, Colorado location

San Juan Basin, north of Chaco Canyon

Mesa Verde, Colarado: Time Frame and Significance

Became a center of Puebloan culture after Chaco Canyon was abandoned.

Mesa Verde, Colorado Community and Lifestyle

• Emphasis on defense: cliff dwellings suggest protection from potential threats.

• Focus on ritual and ceremonial life, with kivas and communal spaces.

• Archaeological assemblages indicate everyday domestic life, showing people were living there without significant social inequality

__ area not great to agriculture, adn very vulnerable to environmental fluctuations. Drought and resulting competition over resources likely contributed to the abandonment these sites in AD 1300

Mesa Verde

Cliff Palace (Mesa Verde, Colorado)

• Largest cliff dwelling in North America, with ~150 rooms and ~23 kivas.

• Multi-story stone construction integrated into natural alcoves for protection and insulation.

• Reflects both domestic life and ceremonial use, combining living spaces with communal kivas

Wampum is":

 strings or belts of shell beads that were often used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and for recording important agreements

The Haudenosaunee League (also known as the Iroquoian Confederacy) was made up of what five nations? 

Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Onondaga

When the Haudenosaunee moved their villages every decade or so, they would rebury their dead in an elaborate community ritual known as:

Feast of the Dead

fast, durable, and lightweight way to travel in the Northeast and easy to carry over land

birchbark canoe

heavier cooking vessels made of steatite, trade and produced widely in the Terminal Archaic

soapstone bowls

ceremonial items produced in the Woodland/ Meadowood phase, made of polished slate

birdstones

Iroquoian large structure that housed many families within the same clan

longhouse

Native peoples in the Northeast never farmed any cultigens like maize because it was too cold and the growing season was too short.

false

Archaeologists use differences in pottery styles, burial practices, and house forms, along with changing settlement patterns, to interpret when Iroquoian groups divide into different factions and nations.  

true

What tribe assisted the colonists at Plymouth, Massachusetts and had 90 warriors share in the "first" Thanksgiving feast in 1621?

wampanoag

Archaeologists in the documentary "Pocahontas Revealed" found the location of what type of feature at Werowocomoco, that signaled the separation of the secular and sacred space and indicates this was a sacred, powerful place on the landscape? (Also discussed in the Gallivan 2007 article)

a pair of parallel ditch enclosures

Estimates indicate the Native American population was reduced approximately 90% in the 16th century by:

epidemics such as smallpox and influenza