Paleo-Indian (10,000 [?] - 6500 B.C.) -- During this time period, small bands of hunters and gatherers roamed over the landscape, preying upon late Pleistocene megafauna (e.g., mammoth, large bison) when available. The environment was becoming cooler and drier, becoming more like the present. Small bands of people were moving over large areas. Artifacts are characterized by distinctive, large, well-made spearpoints; groundstone is rare or absent. Paleo-Indian evidence in the Four Corners is almost exclusively from small surface campsites and isolated projectile points.
Archaic (6500 - 1500 B.C.) -- Life during the Archaic period was based on hunting and gathering wild foods in environments generally like those of present. These people used natural shelters and open campsites in a seasonal round, traveling from place to place as different resources became available. Storage pits are present, though not common, at these sites. Lightly-built house structures were probably used at some sites, but these are rarely preserved archaeologically. Population density at this time is still relatively low. The atlatl and the dart were the principal weapons. Still no pottery during this time period.
Basketmaker II (1500 B.C. - A.D. 500) -- People who lived during the Basketmaker II time period lived in shallow pithouses. These are grouped into small, low density villages in some areas; although campsites and caves are important as well. The period has elaborate coiled and twined basketry, though still no pottery. Principal weapons are still the atlatl and the dart along with large corner- or side-notched projectile points. Corn and squash are being grown. Hunting and gathering are probably still important.
Basketmaker III (A.D. 500 - 750) -- Basketmaker III shelters are slightly deeper pithouses, often with an antechamber and separate storage pits, cists, or small glossy surface structures. Settlement patterns show dispersal with occasional small villages and occasional great kivas. During this time period, people begin to make plain gray pottery and some black-on-white pottery. In another change, the bow and arrow replaces the atlatl. Beans are added to the crops.
Pueblo I (A.D. 750 - 900) -- PI people begin to live in large villages in some areas. Their communities now include above-ground mostly wood and adobe roomblocks and below-ground pitrooms as well as plazas and middens. Plain and neckbanded gray pottery is abundant in assemblages, with low frequencies of black-on-white and decorated red ware. The lithic assemblages include notched pebble axes.
Pueblo II (A.D. 900 - 1150) -- In this time period we see the maximum northern and western extent of the Pueblo culture in the Four Corners area, the Chacoan florescence. "Great Houses", elaborate great kivas, and roads are constructed in many (but not all) regions. There are strong differences between these Great Houses and the surrounding "unit pueblos" composed of a masonry-lined kiva and surface masonry roomblock. Corrugated gray and elaborate black-on-white pottery is widespread; in some areas decorated red or orange types are also seen.
Pueblo III (A.D. 1150 - 1350) -- The Pueblo III time period exhibits large pueblos and/or "revisionist great houses" in some areas, dispersed pattern in others. Settlements show high kiva to room ratios. Cliff dwellings, towers, and tri-walls are common in some areas. Corrugated gray and elaborate black-on-white pottery is widespread, plus decorated red or orange pottery in some areas. The lithic assemblages contain grooved axes. During the Pueblo III time period, we see the abandonment of the Four Corners area (by A.D. 1300) along with a population increase to the south in the Rio Grande, Hopi, Zuni, and Mogollon Rim areas.
Pueblo IV (A.D. 1350 - 1600) -- Large plaza-oriented pueblos arise in the Rio Grande valley and western Pueblo areas; these habitations have low kiva to room ratios. Corrugated pottery is replaced by plain utility types; black-on-white pottery declines relative to red, orange, or yellow types. The overall area occupied by Puebloans continues to shrink as the Mogollon Rim area is abandoned. Present-day Pueblo groups begin to form.
Pueblo V (A.D. 1600 - present) -- The Puebloans adapt to Spanish presence during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and to the Anglo-Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Puebloan population declines due to European diseases, Spanish oppression, and raiding by horse-mounted nomadic Indians. During the Pueblo V time period the reservation system is established. The Pueblo people incorporate many elements of European material and economic culture but tenaciously preserve languages, religion, and aspects of social organization and subsistence. In the Four Corners region, the Navajo Reservation is established in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah; Ute Reservations are established in southwest Colorado. Indian crafts and arts revive and expand in response to tourism and market demand during the twentieth century.
More Cool Stuff!
HSFS home page * Lifestyles * Fieldwork * Lab * Mountain Camping * Desert Camping * Shields Site * Ancient Pueblo/Anasazi * Photo Album
The following web pages were written and photographed by Drew Coffin, Jason Epstein and Rebecca Rehkop. ~ HIGH SCHOOL FIELD SCHOOL 1998
