10/6 notes Wolf essays due next time Paul out of town Office hour tomorrow at 11:00

1. 10/6 notes • Wolf essays due next time • Paul out of town • Office hour tomorrow at 11:00

2. Archaic and Anasazi • First: Folsom, Archaic, and corn • Anasazi: Chaco • Anasazi: Mesa Verde and Kayenta

3. Archaic • After Clovis, megafauna extinction • 5500 BC to 1500 BC • Some have it ending at BC-AD • Nomadic hunter-gatherers • Deer, rabbits, small game • Wild plants • Seasonal camps

4. Atlatl • Aztec word • A-tul-A-tul • At-LAT-ul • Spear thrower • You, too, can excel • Atlatl clubs • Bow, arrow by ~AD 500

5. Corn • Arrival of corn: 2000 BC • Full dependence on corn: 500 BC • Advantages: • Makes an abundance of food • Store it (especially when pottery evolved) • More kids • Disadvantages • Not very nutritional • Limited hunting activities • Ground with stones – teeth problems.

6. Teosinte

8. Anasazi Caveat • Yes, “Anasazi” is Navajo for “ancient ones” • Yes, many Anasazi prehistoric sites lie within present Navajo Reservation • Yes, Keet Seel and Betatakin House are in Navajo National Monument • But no, Anasazi and Navajo not otherwise ancestrally related • Anasazi  Hisatsinom (Hopi)

9. Anasazi Centers

10. Climate • Mesa Verde • Cool, wet • Kayenta • Warm, wet • Chaco • Cool, dry • SE Utah • Warm, dry

11. Pretty bleak at Chaco today • 6500 ft • PJ, Great Basin scrub

12. Pithouses • 500 BC – AD 800 • Mostly underground • Entry through roof

13. Great Houses • Beginning by AD 800 to 900 • Huge relative to nearby buildings • Symmetrical layouts • Banded masonry

14. Pueblo Bonito • 500 feet across • 310 feet deep • 4 stories • Could house 1000 people • Passive solar effects • Kivas

16. Chetro Ketl • 4 stories in back • Large plaza • Kivas up front • Completely enclosed

17. Over 200,000 ponderosa pine trees used • Packrats show no late Holocene ponderosa • Trees carried in? • From where? • How?

18. Chuska Mts. • 60 miles away • Today: • Rocky Mt. ponderosa pine • Also spruce and fir

19. Long distance transport • ~200,000 trees • Perfect for tree-ring dating

20. Chaco Irrigation • Peñasco Blanco “garden” • Diverted water from mesa top.

21. Chaco Canyon Abandonment • No major construction after AD 1150 • No tree ring dates after 1132 • Perhaps occupants, but stopped thriving • Why? • Drought • Resource depletion

22. Chaco Precipitation • Tree-ring based • Typical of today • High variability 1130 • Long drought, 1130 • Lasted 50 years

23. Piñon-Juniper Persisted Until Abandonment • Overuse? • No piñon now • Juniper coming back

24. Cliff Palace (~200 rooms) • Well preserved, little excavation needed • Perishables: food, clothing Cliff Dwellings

25. Keet Seel • Largest AZ cliff dwelling (155 rooms) • Well preserved: “like they left yesterday”

26. Keet Seel • Part of Navajo NM • Overnight hike • Tours in summer • Permit required: • (928) 672-2700

27. MV & Kayenta Chronology • 500 BC – AD 800 • Cultivation important • Pithouse dwellings • Ceramics (pottery) start • AD 800 – AD 1150 • Unit surface pueblos

28. MV & Kayenta Chronology • 1150 – 1300 • MV at AD 1200: Cliff dwellings, total population: 30,000 people • Kayenta at AD 1250: Cliff dwellings • 1300 • MV and Kayenta abandoned • Last tree-ring dates: mid 1280s.

29. Kayenta vs. Mesa Verde Farming

30. Kayenta vs. Mesa Verde Farming • MV farmed mesa tops • Valley bottoms too narrow • Reliance on summer rains for irrigation • Vulnerable to extended drought

33. Mesa Verde today

34. Kayenta vs. Mesa Verde Farming • MV farmed mesa tops • Valley bottoms too narrow • Reliance on summer rains for irrigation • Vulnerable to extended drought • Kayenta farmed valley bottoms • Upland soils too sparse • Reliance on groundwater for irrigation • Vulnerable to sediment loss.

35. Tsegi Canyon (“among the rocks”)

36. Canyon de Chelly

38. 100 ft. 20 ft.

39. ¼ - ½ mile

40. Why did they leave? • Drought • “Great Drought” of 1276 – 1299 • Mesa Verde affected

41. Why did they leave? • Sediment loss • Perhaps due to treecutting, over cultivation • Kayenta affected.

42. Where Did They Go?

43. Where Did They Go? Post-1300 • MV re-settlement: • Northern Rio Grande • Kayenta re-settlement: • Hopi Region • Considered ancestralto modern Puebloans(not to Navajo).

44. Pueblos Today • Hopi in AZ • Other Pueblos in NM

45. Anasazi and Environment Summary

46. Anasazi and Environment Summary • People affect resources, affected by them • Large communities of rock and wood • May have used up wood • Divert, trap, save water • Sediment loss, drought • Grow food • Still needed other food • Finally had to move to new resources • Could this apply to modern society?