Anasazi
Haley Conde
Thesis
Background
- 100 B.C.E. - 1300 C.E.
- Important culture to present day Southwest
- Core Area: Four Corners (present day: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico)
-- Dry, rugged country with high mesas and deep canyons
- 1150 C.E. Anasazi evacuated Chaco Canyon & most pueblos
- Built Pueblos (multistory residences)
- Pueblo phase of Anasazi culture is known as "Anasazi Golden Age"
-- During the Pueblo Phase, Mesa Verde was built (The largest complex of Anasazi cliff dwellings)
-- During the Golden Age the Anasazi influenced other Native American regions
- Traded through a network of stone roads within the Chaco Canyon
-- Traded with Toltec/ Aztecs/ Mayans
Vocabulary
- Chaco Canyon: An urban center established by Anasazi located in southern New Mexico. There, they built a walled city with many of three-story adobe houses . Community religious functions were carried out in two large circular chambers called kivas.
Drought
In 1276 C.E. , a extended drought struck the undivided Southwest. This drought had lasted twenty-four years. With no rain whatsoever, The Native Americans were forced to migrate, and leave their farmlands, and villages behind to find new game, and tracking hunting, swell as find a new food source elsewhere. Scientists have found evidence that the varying width of the tree rings, they indeed see a harmful dry spell in the Southwest during the final quarter of the 13th century, around the hight of its collapse, even with severe previous droughts. Closley following the collapse of the society, the drought lifted. “The tree-ring reconstructions show that at 1300 to 1340 it was exceedingly wet,” said Larry Benson, a paleoclimatologist with the Arid Regions Climate Project of the United States Geological Survey. Anasazi civilization began an extended period of migration and decline after these years of drought and famine. By the 1300s, it had reached a major decline in Chaco Canyon. Anasazi civilization began a long period of migration and decline after these years of drought and famine. By the 1300s, it had all but died out in Chaco Canyon. They stored water in holes and ditches to use during droughts. The Anasazi were always prepared for droughts. They saved dried corn in clay jars, which supplied enough dried corn to feed their civilization for two years during a long drought. For the most part the Anasazi society were prepared for occurring droughts, but after the "Great Drought" it can be inferred that after twenty-four years without water its had to replenish the supply of the over used and needed resources with further caused them to relocate. The drought was the proximate cause of collapse for a society that was overpopulated compared to the lacked resources it had to maintain self-sufficiency. This is the foremost reason why many people find that this is because of the drought, that the Anasazi moved south and east.
"The Great Drought"
Reconstruction of Precipitation for Northwestern New Mexico, USA
Anna Von Mertens
Outside Invasions
Abuse of Resources
Twenty-four year drought began in the area of Four Corners. The Anasazi had not conserved wood for fuel. The farm fields had been over planted, and planting the same crops, year after year had removed the nutrients from the soil. The society began to starve when drought became severe, and they had no other resources to to take into account since they had ruined the soil, deforested the region, and were dependent upon outside regions of the area. Anasazi practices occurred to have a major impact on the forests, primarily through clearing and blazing. A larger population also took a major tole on the forests by clearing parts of the forests in order to create fields and to collect firewood. Because of this constant cycle the forest became depleted from the society. Culture change, population growth, more thorough farming practices, and a habit of collecting in large villages at numerous times in the period of the civilization. The deforestation , along with the over planting, caused an eroding of the soil which later caused a lack of water supply from stripping away the soil, and creating a lacked supply of food resources. The societies movements seem to be interconnected to a drought which spanned several decades and then resulted in climatic change, soil erosion, or overuse of the area's resources. Overall the factors of abusing the land itself took a crucial toll on the society's resources, environment, and population
Work Cited
Works Cited
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