Who were the Ancestral Pueblo People (Anasazi) ?
The following information came fro the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado at the above link.:
The Anasazi or Anasasi people were the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, who still live today in New Mexico and Arizona. There is extensive literature available about the culture of modern and historic Pueblo people.
Archaeologists identify a culture through its artifacts, since members of a culture share traditions of architecture, crafts, symbolisms, etc. When the Anasazi or Pueblo culture began is a matter of definition, because there is no single event or trait which defines it. . The earliest traces of the culture date before AD 1 (perhaps as early as 1500 BC) in characteristic kinds of basketry, sandals, art, tools, architecture, settlement patterns, and incipient agriculture.
According to Pueblo oral traditions, different groups came from different directions and points of origin before meeting to form the clans and communities of today. Modern Pueblos speak several different languages and do not share a common term for their ancestors. The Hopi name is Hisatsinom.
The ancestral Puebloan homeland was centered in the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau-- southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and a lesser section of Colorado-- where their occupation lasted until 1280 or so. By 1300 AD the population centers had shifted south to the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona, where related people had already been living for centuries. The Spanish who arrived in the 1500s named them the Pueblos, meaning "villagers," as distinct from nomadic people.
There never was an "Anasazi tribe", nor did anyone ever call themselves by that name. Anasazi is originally a Navajo word that archaeologists applied to people who farmed the Four Corners before 1300 AD. Modern Pueblo people dislike the name "Anasazi" which they consider an ethnic slur. This Navajo word means ancient enemy (or old-time stranger, alien, foreigner, outsider) although it has been in common use for about about 70 years. Here is an excerpt from Dr. William Lipe's comments on the subject:
"The earliest published reference was by Kidder in the mid-1930s.... J.O. Brew (1946) rails against the use of the term 'Anasazi' on the grounds that a Navajo term is inappropriate for an obviously Puebloan culture, that 'Basketmaker-Pueblo' or 'Puebloan' had precedence in the literature, and would do just as well for continued reference to this cultural tradition... My guess is that this Navajo word... caught on in the middle 1930s [with archaeologists because] it did not imply any particular cultural relationship... It was bad practice to pre-judge the historical conclusions by identifying a prehistoric archaeological complex with some historically or ethnographically known culture."
Today, however, no doubt remains that these prehistoric people were ancestral to modern Pueblos, who insist that their ancestors did not permanently "abandon" their former territories. Modern Pueblos still make pilgrimages to ancestral village sites, have oral histories about them, and maintain shrines in the Four Corners region.
The following information came fro the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado at the above link.:
The Anasazi or Anasasi people were the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, who still live today in New Mexico and Arizona. There is extensive literature available about the culture of modern and historic Pueblo people.
Archaeologists identify a culture through its artifacts, since members of a culture share traditions of architecture, crafts, symbolisms, etc. When the Anasazi or Pueblo culture began is a matter of definition, because there is no single event or trait which defines it. . The earliest traces of the culture date before AD 1 (perhaps as early as 1500 BC) in characteristic kinds of basketry, sandals, art, tools, architecture, settlement patterns, and incipient agriculture.
According to Pueblo oral traditions, different groups came from different directions and points of origin before meeting to form the clans and communities of today. Modern Pueblos speak several different languages and do not share a common term for their ancestors. The Hopi name is Hisatsinom.
The ancestral Puebloan homeland was centered in the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau-- southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and a lesser section of Colorado-- where their occupation lasted until 1280 or so. By 1300 AD the population centers had shifted south to the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona, where related people had already been living for centuries. The Spanish who arrived in the 1500s named them the Pueblos, meaning "villagers," as distinct from nomadic people.
There never was an "Anasazi tribe", nor did anyone ever call themselves by that name. Anasazi is originally a Navajo word that archaeologists applied to people who farmed the Four Corners before 1300 AD. Modern Pueblo people dislike the name "Anasazi" which they consider an ethnic slur. This Navajo word means ancient enemy (or old-time stranger, alien, foreigner, outsider) although it has been in common use for about about 70 years. Here is an excerpt from Dr. William Lipe's comments on the subject:
"The earliest published reference was by Kidder in the mid-1930s.... J.O. Brew (1946) rails against the use of the term 'Anasazi' on the grounds that a Navajo term is inappropriate for an obviously Puebloan culture, that 'Basketmaker-Pueblo' or 'Puebloan' had precedence in the literature, and would do just as well for continued reference to this cultural tradition... My guess is that this Navajo word... caught on in the middle 1930s [with archaeologists because] it did not imply any particular cultural relationship... It was bad practice to pre-judge the historical conclusions by identifying a prehistoric archaeological complex with some historically or ethnographically known culture."
Today, however, no doubt remains that these prehistoric people were ancestral to modern Pueblos, who insist that their ancestors did not permanently "abandon" their former territories. Modern Pueblos still make pilgrimages to ancestral village sites, have oral histories about them, and maintain shrines in the Four Corners region.