When the first Europeans entered northeastern Arizona, they found the area occupied by the Hopi (an agricultural people people living in permanent villages, many of which were centuries old) and the Navajo (relative newcomers to the area). Geographically, northeast Arizona includes the Shonto Plateau, Black Mesa, and Antelope Mesa. It is bordered on the south by the Little Colorado River.
Archaeologists working in the Southwest sometimes make a distinction between the Eastern and Western Anasazi areas. Northeast Arizona falls in the Western Anasazi area.
By 560 BCE, the Native Americans living in northeast Arizona were growing some crops. Throughout the world, the transformation from hunting and gathering to food production via agriculture brought with it many cultural changes. In his book The Ice-Age History of Southwestern National Parks, Scott Elias writes:
“The development of corn ushered in the single greatest change in North American native life-styles, because people who could cultivate corn year after year in the same place had no need to roam the landscape in search of food.”
In northeastern Arizona, the earliest domesticated food crop was maize, commonly called corn in American English. Maize had originally been domesticated in Mexico. In his book House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest, Craig Childs writes:
“Corn—the rudiment of Southwest culture—was first cultivated in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico about five thousand years ago. Derived from a tropical grass that still grows in Central America and southern Mexico, the domestic version known as Zea Mays reached the Southwest around the fourth millennium B.C.”
In her chapter in The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Deborah Pearsall reports:
“Maize, beans (common and tepary), and pepo squash form the core of Southwestern agriculture, with cotton and bottle gourd also introduced early, and other beans and squashes later arrivals.”
The earliest archaeological evidence of maize in the Western Anasazi area comes from the O’Haco Rockshelter and may date to as early as 3000 BCE.
Throughout the world the transition to a food producing economy using agriculture has brought with it a number of other cultural and physical changes. Most readily apparent in the archaeological record are permanent habitation sites. With an emphasis on growing food, people no longer have to engage in moving campsites in search of food. Living permanently in one place also means that more work can be expended in making houses.
Agriculture in many cases also increases the carrying capacity of the land, that is, more people can live in the area because there is enough food to support them in one place. This means that the social group can become larger.
One of the health changes brought about by agriculture was an increase in internal parasites. Scott Elias reports:
“Interestingly, studies of the coprolites of hunter-gatherer peoples from the Archaic cultural period on the Colorado Plateau turned up no evidence of internal parasites. The parasite problem took hold only when people began congregating in permanent villages and sharing a sedentary life-style.”
Basketmaker II
The prehistoric era which archaeologists often designate as Basketmaker II extends from 560 BCE to 700 CE. During this time, the people living in northeastern Arizona had a mixed economy based on hunting, gathering, and some farming. In their chapter in Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory, George Gumerman and Jeffrey Dean report:
“Gathering and hunting probably exploited the full range of upland and lowland habitats, while farming probably was concentrated on the aggrading floodplains of lowland and upland drainages.”
With regard to hunting, Fred Plog, in his chapter on Western Anasazi prehistory in the Handbook of North American Indians, writes:
“Principal hunted resources included elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, rabbit, and turkey. Various fish, small birds, and small rodents were probably important subsistence items, although the small size of their bones results in infrequent preservation of their remains in archaeological context.”
During this time there is a shift from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles. For housing, people were making pithouses—dwellings which are built into pits dug into the ground. The pithouses were framed with logs, then covered with sticks and mud. In his book Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest, Stephen Plog reports:
“Typical in the northern Southwest were subterranean dwellings or pithouses with floors that were excavated as much as 4-6 feet (1-2 m) below the surface of the ground and roofed with wooden beams, brush, and soil. These often had internal support posts and were entered either from the side or via a ladder placed through a hole in the roof.”
Another archaeological change during Basketmaker II in northeastern Arizona was that kivas began to appear in some villages. Kivas are underground ceremonial rooms. According to archaeologist Watson Smith, in his book When is a Kiva? And Other Questions About Southwestern Archaeology:
“The kiva, defined as a specialized ceremonial room, with few or no functions of a domestic nature, is apparently limited to the Anasazi area, and seems to have been one of the defining features of Anasazi culture.”
During this time period, the bow and arrow is introduced and begins to replace the atlatl.
In addition to maize, people were also cultivating squash and beans by 2,000 years ago. Like maize, both beans and squash were originally domesticated in Mexico. Concerning the importance of beans to the diet of Southwestern peoples, Stephen Plog reports:
“Beans complement maize and squash because they contain high amounts of lysine, the amino acid missing from the other two cultigens; together the three plants provide a complete protein source.”
The archaeological evidence from the village of Homol’ovi near the present-day town of Winslow, Arizona shows that the Hopi were growing corn by 185 BCE.
About 500 CE, the Hopi Bear Clan established the village of Shungopavi. Other clans, such as Bluebird and Strap, soon joined the Bear Clan in the village.
Basketmaker III
The prehistoric era which archaeologists often designate as Basketmaker III extends from 550 CE to 825 CE. During this time, the settlement pattern shows more permanent sites with an increased emphasis on farming. Fred Plog writes:
“Basketmaker III peoples were somewhat more dependent on agricultural resources than their predecessors, but hunting and gathering were still the major food procurement strategies.”
George Gumerman and Jeffrey Dean report:
“Site structure also underwent major changes reflecting increasing sedentism. Domiciles consisted of stone slab-sided pithouses with single or double ventilators and sometimes with antechambers. These houses possess a fairly standard set of floor features including fir and ash pits, low clay ridges delineating functionally specific areas of the floor, small intramural storage pits, and sometimes grinding equipment. Commonly, one to three circular slab-lined storage cists were set into the ground behind each pithouse.”
George Gumerman and Jeffrey Dean also report:
“Individual residential units, consisting of a pithouse and associated storage facilities, were integrated into large villages, which, in one locality, were organized into a multi-settlement community through great kiva ceremonialism.”
Large permanent settlements tended to be established along the edges of alluvial floodplains. The floodplains were used for farming.
It is clear, however, that hunting continued to be an important part of life as evidenced by the continued production of arrow points.
Ancient America
Ancient America: The prehistoric Southwest, 1375-1425 CE
Ancient America: A very short overview of the prehistory of the Grand Canyon
Ancient America: Windust Phase Indian Artifacts (Photo Diary)
Ancient America: California Changes 1,500 Years Ago
Ancient America: Life in a California Rock Shelter (Photo Diary)
Ancient America: A very short overview of Clovis
Ancient America: Colorado Prior to 6000 BCE
Ancient America: Changing Technologies and Trade in California