by Padre Art

Created on: February 20, 2009

The ancient Americans that emerged as a culture in what is now called the Four Corners area of the United States are commonly known as the Anasazi people. This is a term from the old Navajo language which variously translates (according to pronunciation and interpretation) as the "ancient ones", "ancient strangers", "ancient enemy", "enemy ancestor" or more broadly as "ancient people who are not us". The modern day Hopi tribe, the closest direct descendants to that legendary culture, prefer the name "Hisatsinom".

Northwest New Mexico, southwest Colorado, northeast Arizona and southeast Utah make up the Four Corners, the only place in the U.S. where four states meet. About 10,000 BC this region was moist, forested and home to mammoths, bears and a group of nomadic people called the Clovis culture. The climate began to get hotter and dryer which led to the disappearance of the forests, the mammoths and the end of the Clovis as a viable group.

The loosely knit nomadic tribes that journeyed through this same area began to coalesce into what is known as the Anasazi people about 1200 BC. These hunter-gatherers started a primitive form of cultivation wherein they grew maize and squash at the lower altitudes and hunted the higher altitudes in the summer. Using stone tipped spears that were accurately and powerfully thrown with the aid of an atlatl they brought down big horn sheep and rabbits with equal ease. They wove intricate baskets, sandals and some clothing from plant fibers but had no pottery for almost another thousand years.

During the period between 1200BC and 500 AD they built pit houses with storage spaces that indicate an extended period of residence, developed a shamanistic religious structure evidenced by the petroglyphs and other rock art they created and ground the maize they cultivated using mano and metate. The high incidence of severe arthritis in the female skeletons from this era suggest they spent long hours kneeling and rocking back and forth as they rolled the heavy, rolling pin shaped stone mano across the shallow depression in the metate rock to crush the kernels of maize and other seeds they gathered into flour.

Between 500 and 900 AD the climate became more extreme with less moisture and higher temperatures but the process of civilization continued. The pit houses began to have above ground rooms attached, the bow and arrow came into general use and a simple round bottomed form of pottery, made of sandstone and shale clay, was developed.

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