The Enduring Mystery Of The Anasazi

Time-worn pueblos and dramatic “cliff towns”, set amid the stark, rugged mesas and canyons of Colorado and New Mexico, mark the settlements of some of the earliest inhabitants of North America, the Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “ancient ones”).

By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first indentifiable villages in the American Southwest, where they hunted and grew crops of corn, squash and beans. They developed sophisticated dams and irrigation systems, created a masterful distinctive pottery tradition, carved intricate, multi-room dwellings into the sheer sides of cliffs that remain among the most striking archeological sites in the United States today.

Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements, leaving their pottery, implements, even clothing – as though they intended to return – and seemingly disappeared into history. Their homeland was settled by new tribes, the Navajo and the Ute, followed by the Spanish and other European settlers.

The Anasazi lived in a communal society that evolved very slowly over the centuries. They traded with other peoples in the region, but signs of warfare are few and isolated. And although the Anasazi certainly had religious and other leaders, as well as skilled artisans, social or class distinctions were virtually nonexistent.

Religious and social motives undoubtedly played the part in building of the cliff communities and their final abandonment. But the struggle to raise food in an increasingly difficult environment was probably the main factor. The population grew, the land was losing fertility from constant use and the natural disasters were hard to withstand. It is proved that a final drought lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299, finally forced the last groups of Anasazi to leave permanently.

But the Anasazi did not disappear. Their legacy remained in the remarkable archeological record that they left behind, and in the Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo peoples who are their descendants.

Early Men, Indians And The Mound Builders

When the first Europeans arrived to the continent they were met by some two million indigenous Indians, the members of some 600 tribes and the speakers of about 500 distinct languages. These Indians were the descendants of a far earlier group of immigrants. According to all present evidence, the species Homo sapiens did not evolve in the new world. Instead, between the years 40,000 to 8,000 B.C., early Asiatic peoples crossed over the Bering Strait land bridge.

Over millennia, these newcomers penetrated southward, eventually spreading widely over the North and South American continents. Unlike the complex civilizations of the Maya, Aztecs and Incas that later developed from Mexico to Peru, the peoples north of the Rio Grande River remained strongly individualistic and unregimented, as far as can be determined. The North American Indian cultures ranged from nomadic groups to the inhabitants of century-old towns.

The most fascinating and monumental archeological remains in North America are those of the Mound Builders. The ancestors of present-day Indians the Mound Builders occupied a wide area in the Mississippi River valley. They left a series of elaborate earthworks, some over 2000 years old and some as recent as the mid-16^th century. They created impressive weavings, pottery, stone carvings, and other artifacts. Their mounds, which served as foundation for temples and dwellings, as fortifications, as burial chambers and as religious sites and totems, varied in size from 1 to 100 acres. The mounds were in the shape of cones, pyramids and representations of animal forms. The largest still-existing structure is the Cahokia mound near East St Louis, Illinois. This 100-foot tall truncated pyramid sits on a 17-acre base. The most complex mound is the Ohio Great Serpent Mound – the elaborate coiled earthwork representing a snake is 5feet high and 1350 feet long.