Pithouse Ancestral Pueblo
Refers to the prehistoric peoples of the Southwest Colorado Plateau. This group has also been known as the Anasazi, a Navajo term meaning "the ancient ones" or "the ancient enemies". We do not know what these people called themselves. Each community or language group probably had its own name, as among the Pueblo peoples of today. These people are believed to be among the ancestors of the present-day Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona (i.e., Hopi, Zuni, and the Rio Grande Pueblos).
Anthropology
The comparative study of human cultural and biological variety worldwide and through time, since the emergence of humanlike species 4 to 6 million years ago. Anthropology includes the study of present-day and recent human cultures (cultural anthropology); cultures of the past (archaeology); human evolution and biological variation (physical anthropology); and language (linguistics).
Archaeology
The study of past cultures, using material remains such as artifacts and structures as the primary evidence. Although history is also the study of past cultures, history relies on written records as the primary evidence.
Artifact
Anything made and/or used by humans, including tools, containers, manufacturing debris, and food remains. Technically, architectural structures are also artifacts, but archaeologists usually apply this term only to portable items.
Colorado Plateau
This is a very large upland area which is underlain by layers of sedimentary rocks. Bounded by the Uinta and Wasatch mountains on the north and northwest, the southern Rocky Mountains on the east, and the Basin and Range province on the west and south, the Colorado Plateau covers a large portion of western Colorado, eastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, and northwestern New Mexico. The Anasazi culture developed and flourished in the southern part of the Colorado Plateau.
Context
The location in which something occurs. In archaeology, the location of an artifact, feature, or structure (along with the other remains that occur near it) provides information that goes beyond the characteristics of the item itself. For example, artifacts found on the floor of a structure may provide evidence of how the structure was used; artifacts found in the fill just above the floor may indicate that refuse was thrown into the structure after it was abandoned. Some artifacts have artistic value of their own (for example, a beautiful Mesa Verde black-on-white mug), but they may be of little information value to archaeologists unless their context was recorded.
Culture
The artifacts, language, ideas, customs, etc., created by a group of people. The environment is not a part of culture, but cultures help people use and adapt to their environment.
Curation
Long-term care of collections of artifacts, specimens, notes, photographs, and maps in a museum or repository. Well-curated collections provide opportunities for research and serve as a source of specimens for educational use or interpretive displays.
Environmental Archaeology
The study of present and past environments of an area in order to reconstruct the setting in which peoples lived. Environmental archaeologists also study what happens to artifacts and sites through time as a result of processes such as weathering, erosion, and burrowing animals. These studies help us understand site formation processes.
Ethnobotany
The study of the interrelations of traditional cultures and plants.
Feature
Features include hearths, storage pits, ashpits, bins, and doorways. Features differ from artifacts in that they are not portable; they must be recorded and studied in the field. They are usually smaller than structures and often occur within structures as floor features or wall features.
FS Number
Field Specimen number. Despite its name, this number is assigned in the lab to each artifact or group of artifacts of the same type from a given PD (provenience designation) unit.
Fill
The sediment and rocks deposited either during the occupation of a site or after abandonment. Artifacts, charcoal, and other evidence of human activity are frequently found in fill.
Four Corners Area
The area around the point where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet.
Kiva
A Hopi word for a special type of room or structure used primarily for religious and social ceremonies in present-day pueblos. In the Mesa Verde area, archaeologists apply this term to prehistoric structures that are usually round in floor plan; have special features such as benches, pilasters, and ventilators; and are either subterranean or enclosed in an architectural roomblock. These prehistoric structures were probably used for ceremonies as well as domestic activities such as cooking, eating, and sleeping.
Mesa Verde
A term that refers to (1) a large escarpment in southwestern Colorado, i.e., the Mesa Verde; (2) the park located on this landform, i.e., the Mesa Verde National Park; and (3) the group of Indians who lived in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah from about 500 to 1300 A.D., i.e., the Mesa Verde Anasazi.
Midden
Refuse deposit resulting from human activities, generally consisting of soil, food remains such as animal bone and shell, and discarded artifacts.
Montezuma County
A county in the southwestern corner of Colorado, with Cortez as its county seat. It has twice the area of Rhode Island, with less than 25,000 people.
Navajo
The largest Indian tribe in the United States, the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners area covers over 25,000 square miles, an area about the size of the state of West Virginia. The Navajo people are closely related to other people who speak Athapaskan languages, including the Apache Indians and a large group of tribes in interior Canada and Alaska. Archaeological and historical evidence indicates the ancestors of the Navajo entered the Four Corners area in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, after the Pueblo peoples (Anasazi) had moved further south.
Nomadic
This refers to a way of living in which people move from place to place, usually to exploit seasonally differing sources of food for themselves or (in the Old World) for their herds of domestic animals. Hunter-gatherers and herders are more likely to be nomadic than are farmers.
Pithouse
Wood and earthen structure lived in by early Puebloan people.
Provenience
The location in which something is found. Keeping track of the provenience of artifacts and samples is critically important to documenting archaeological contexts.
Provenience Designation (PD) Number
In the Crow Canyon recording system, the PD number is a unique catalog number applied to each specific space that is excavated or studied.
Provenience Designation (PD) Unit
A PD unit is defined horizontally and vertically as all, or a bounded part, of a study unit. All materials, notes, maps, and photos from a single PD unit have the same PD number.
Pueblo
A Spanish term meaning "town". Currently, it is applied to a style of building (pueblo, lowercase p), and to particular Indian groups (the Pueblos, uppercase P). The Spanish were the first to apply this term to the Indian people they found living in towns in New Mexico. These towns were composed of apartment-house-style dwellings of adobe or masonry with many adjoining rooms. Some Pueblo groups of today are the Acoma, the Zuni, the Zia, the San Ildefonso, the Santa Clara, the Taos, and the Hopi. Pueblo is also used to refer to the prehistoric period Anasazi, whose mud or masonry dwellings usually had adjoining rooms. The Pueblo people are not thought to be closely related to the Navajo or to the Ute, who entered the Four Corners area after the Anasazi moved farther south.
Roomblock
A group (often a row) of contiguous rooms, i.e., rooms that are built side-by-side with shared walls.
San Juan Region
The area defined by the drainage basin of the San Juan River, which heads in the mountains of southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico and flows through the Four Corners area, eventually emptying into the Colorado River. The San Juan region is considered the Anasazi homeland and includes the regions occupied by the Mesa Verde, Chacoan, and Kayenta branches of the Anasazi culture. The San Juan Basin is a term that refers to a smaller, geologically defined basin within the southern portion of the San Juan region.
Sedentary
This refers to a way of living in which people stay in one location through all or most of the year. Farmers are more likely to be sedentary than are hunter-gatherers or herders.
Settlement Pattern
The way that archaeological sites of a particular period are arranged over the landscape. The spatial association of sites with resources such as farmlands or raw material sources may help archaeologists infer something about the economy of a past culture. The arrangement of types of sites or structures can also be informative about the size and elaboration of dwellings or there may be centrally located political, ceremonial, or defensive structures that suggest a more complicated social organization than where such structures did not exist.
Site Formation Processes
The numerous ways in which the archaeological record of a past culture is formed and altered. These include (1) pre-abandonment processes such as building, tool manufacture, and refuse disposal; (2) abandonment processes such as discarding broken or complete tools or transporting materials to a new habitation site which affects what, if anything, is left on living surfaces; and (3) post-abandonment processes such as decay, deposition, and erosion of sediments, and animal disturbance. Archaeologists need to understand these processes in order to "read" the archaeological record and infer such things as how people lived and when and how they abandoned a site.
Site Number
The unique number assigned to each site, using the Smithsonian System. For example, the number 5MT765 (Sand Canyon Pueblo) indicates that this was the 765th site recorded in Montezuma County (MT) in the state of Colorado (5).
The Southwest
This term is usually used to refer to the American Southwest, a geographic portion of the United States composed of Arizona, New Mexico, the southern part of Utah, and the southwestern part of Colorado.
Sterile
Dirt with no artifacts or other indications of human activity in it. Sterile sediment can be interpreted as having been in place prior to human occupation of a site and not having been disturbed during the occupation of the site.
Stratigraphy
The study of natural and cultural sediment layers on an archaeological site, the relationship of these layers, and the interpretation of the depositional events.
Study Unit
The major subdivisions of the site that are defined for excavation and study. A study unit may be defined by architectural characteristics (structures), functional characteristics (courtyards or middens), or the need to archaeologically sample particular spaces (arbitrary units).
Ute
Several small Ute-speaking tribes today have reservations in eastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Until the late nineteenth century, these people lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers over most of the Rocky Mountains and the eastern Colorado Plateau. The Utes are linguistically related to Indians living to the west and southwest in the Basin and Range area. They are not ancestral to the Pueblo peoples and are thought to have moved into the northern part of the Four Corners area after the Anasazi left; perhaps as late as the sixteenth 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
