The Neolithic Arrives in the American Southwest

Breaking ground

NORTH AMERICA New York

COLORADO

The Neolithic arrives in er,

North the American Southwest Atlantic Ocean The Neolithic Revolution was not a single event, Denver MESA VERDE ated but took place at many different times and places NATIONAL PARK Crow Canyon Archaeological Cent Archaeological Canyon Crow around the world. Bill Lipe reveals how this momentous : i m ages all unless otherwise st unless otherwise transition gave rise to the Dillard site near Mesa Verde.

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below Looking west-southwest across the Dillard site, with an archaeological screen in the foreground and Ute Mountain in the distance. The Dillard site is the earliest fully Neolithic settlement in the Mesa Verde archaeological area.

above Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park: in the AD 1200s, people in the Mesa Verde region built villages on canyon rims and in natural shelters below the rims. Intercommunity conflict was common at this time, and the canyon settings offered increased security.

largest site, and the civic and ceremonial centre of this sprawling, low-density community, is the Dillard site. Here, there is a great kiva, a large circular structure that indicates that social institutions devoted to community organisation had been established. This building was in use from about AD 600 to 700, and is the earliest great kiva to be excavated in the Mesa Verde archaeological area. The term ‘Neolithic’ was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 to distinguish the ‘new’ stone age from the old one – the Paleolithic. In the 1920s, new life was breathed into the concept by the Australian-born British archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe. He recognised that the Neolithic represented

isitors to the Mesa Verde that archaeologists from the Crow Canyon National Park in the Archaeological Center have discovered American Southwest come evidence for the emergence of a fully The most in search of the spectacular fledged Neolithic society of maize farmers, significant but mysterious 13th-century dating to c.AD 600-700. PuebloV Indian cliff dwellings that nestle They are investigating sites that events in the under the protection of the dramatic lie within a present-day residential overhanging rocks. Yet, just a few miles development, which contains at least 65 human story away, one of the most significant chapters sites from the Basketmaker III period (c.AD were being in human history was being played out 500-750) scattered across at least 650ha. more than 600 years before those cliff Most of the sites are small, and not all would played out here. dwellings were built. It is at the Dillard site have been occupied at the same time. The

www.world-archaeology.com CurrentWorldArchaeology 25 above & right Basketmaker III decorated pottery sherds. Pottery-making was not a specialised occupation, and most households made their own pottery. The styles of manufacture and decoration changed over the next several hundred years, allowing archaeologists to use potsherds to determine when sites were occupied. a true revolution in how humans lived. systems all ultimately depend on the half of the Southwest. Though the ancestral As farming replaced the older hunting- Neolithic Revolution that occurred in Pueblo Indians moved in the late 1200s to gathering lifestyle, it triggered a cascade Antiquity. Or rather, ‘those’ revolutions, as places in New Mexico and Arizona where of other changes – mobility gave way to archaeologists investigating the Neolithic their descendants now live, the Mesa year-round villages; new technologies, such around the world find it happened, not Verde region still looms large in their oral as pottery for cooking, were developed; as a single event, but in multiple places histories and traditions. population increased dramatically; and through the culmination of multiple permanent social institutions capable processes that usually took hundreds, Settled community of managing larger groups of people if not thousands, of years to unfold. For four field-seasons, Crow Canyon began to be formed. At the Dillard site, One area where this occurred was the archaeologists have focused their discovery of the great kiva demonstrates Mesa Verde archaeological region that attention on the Dillard community. this last element of Childe’s revolution had stretches across south-eastern Utah and In addition to excavations, they have used appeared, and a well-developed Neolithic south-western Colorado, down into New surface survey, remote sensing, and auger community was in place. Mexico. Between the late AD 500s and probing to investigate some of the small Today’s huge world population and 1300, its central portion was the most residential pithouse sites scattered over our large-scale economic and political populous part of the upland (non-desert) the study area. Most of the excavations, however, have focused on the Dillard site itself. Here, the team found a complex of tightly clustered pithouses, pit rooms, and the great kiva. Fieldwork has established that the community began in the late AD 500s, and endured until about 700, with the great kiva being in use from about 600. This was a community made up of farmers whose crops and farming skills were well adapted to the area’s meagre annual rainfall of only 35cm. Their fields were located close to their houses in areas of deep, wind-deposited silt. Maize (Zea

left The northern part of the American Southwest, showing the Mesa Verde archaeological region in the northern part of the San Juan River watershed. The central Mesa Verde region was the most populous part of the area. In the late AD 1200s, its ancestral Pueblo population moved south and south-east to areas of Arizona and New Mexico. Locations of the present-day Pueblo communities at Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and along the Rio Grande are shown. Albuquerque, with a population of 560,000, is the largest city in New Mexico.

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left A large, partly excavated residential pithouse. (Southwestern archaeologists typically excavate only part of structures such as this, to preserve deposits and features that could be excavated at some time in the future when additional methods of investigation may have become available.) The main chamber of the pithouse is shown, with its central firepit, and several additional pits and postholes. The antechamber is in the background. above An artist's reconstruction of a residential pithouse from the AD 600s (Basketmaker III period). Each pithouse was occupied by a nuclear or small extended family. The superstructure was supported by four posts and a rectangular framework of beams, with smaller logs and then smaller pieces of wood and a layer of dirt completing it. The antechamber was used for entry and exit, for storage, and as extra living and sleeping space. The subsoil is quite stable, and formed the lower portion of the house walls. mays) probably made up more than 75 accommodated all the heads of households from the great kiva shows a higher than per cent of their diet; squash, beans, wild in the community, or other similar-sized average ratio of serving-bowl to cooking-jar plants, and game filled out the menu. groups. It would have been a place where sherds – an indication that feasts often The pithouse residences had floors dug people gathered for events ranging accompanied these gatherings. The great well below the ground surface, and were from religious rituals to coming-of-age kiva must represent the emergence of occupied by a single nuclear or small ceremonies. Preliminary analysis of pottery organisations such as religious societies extended family. Each habitation site in the community had at least one pithouse; remote sensing and test excavations show that some had several. The dispersed scatter of pithouses must extend outside right The great kiva at the parts of the study-area boundary, so the Dillard site – owned by Jane full size of the community has not yet Dillard – was only partially been established. However, it is likely excavated, but some of the unexcavated floor features have that it had several hundred people at any been inferred on the basis of given time in the AD 600s. Although not research at similar structures. a typical ‘village’ with tightly clustered The great kiva had four main residences, the community would have posts that supported a sturdy functioned like a regular Neolithic village, framework for the roof and walls. The stone slabs shown on the with its own identity in the eyes of its map were found in the fill well residents, and with a recognised but above the floor, probably placed relatively egalitarian leadership. on the dirt roof and sloping walls The Dillard site discoveries show that to mitigate erosion. The structure it represents the completion of Childe’s was probably entered through a hatchway in the roof, as in kivas Neolithic Revolution in the Mesa used by Pueblo people today. Verde region. The site is at the highest The floor ‘vault’ and the two point in the cultural landscape, with pits just north of it are probably a commanding view to the east and symbolic representations of south, clearly the social centre of the Pueblo cosmology – the belief surrounding residential community. Its that people emerged from worlds below this one. Kiva is a most striking feature is a large meeting Pueblo Indian term referring to house, a 11.5m-diameter great kiva. underground structures still used This structure is large enough to have today for religious purposes.

www.world-archaeology.com CurrentWorldArchaeology 27 that drew membership from across the and far-western parts of the community. This is not to say that earlier Mesa Verde region, but the and smaller communities lacked leadership, central area, which later became but that here, practices promoting group by far the most populous, had only sparse identity and cohesion had become formal settlement until the very late AD 500s. top left Clearing the floor in the Dillard great kiva. enough to require a permanent building. The rapid growth in regional population Note the perimeter bench; some roof slabs can be The Dillard community was established that gave rise to the Dillard community at seen in the profile of the kiva's fill. The floor of the just as farmers began to flock into the that time included groups arriving from great kiva was covered with a thin layer of fine sand, and a number of projectile points (including some central Mesa Verde area near the end of the different geographic origins, creating from much earlier sites) had been laid on the floor. AD 500s. The ‘dry-farming’ potential of conditions for intra-community conflict. Evidence of ‘closing ceremonies’ has been found its deep soils had been discovered. In the The leaders whose existence is implied by the at a number of pithouses and kivas dating from preceding Basketmaker II period (500 BC- construction and use of the great kiva must Basketmaker III through the end of Pueblo occupation AD 500), people had also depended on have been kept busy settling quarrels and in the Mesa Verde region. top Rocks from the collapsed roof and walls around maize farming, but the full complement of keeping the community from breaking apart. the perimeter of the kiva (see plan on p.27). Neolithic traits was not present. There are Remote sensing at the Dillard site has above Artist's reconstruction of the spacious interior, sites of that period in both the far-eastern revealed at least 13 pit structures close roof construction, and entrance of the Dillard great kiva.

A 2,700-year-long revolution

Maize (Zea mays) was initially domesticated in Mexico and spread north from there, but the evidence is not clear whether it was a primary or supplementary there, becoming the staple food for pre-Hispanic farmers throughout Middle food source. However, by about 500 BC, people living in the Mesa Verde region and North America. The earliest maize in the upland Southwest dates to about and in some areas south of the San Juan River had become heavily dependent 2200 BC at the Old Corn Site, located south of present-day Zuni Pueblo in New on maize. Recent isotopic studies show that, by about 100 BC, Basketmaker II Mexico. This was the beginning of a shift away from the hunting-and-gathering farmers were probably getting about 70 per cent of their diet from maize. economy and mobile lifestyle that characterised the preceding Archaic period. This earliest period in the ancestral Pueblo tradition – Basketmaker II The introduction of maize was followed by a long and generally not well (500 BC-AD 500) – was initially recognised in the 1890s in the dry caves of understood Early Agricultural Period. People were cultivating maize here and south-eastern Utah by Richard Wetherill, who also did the initial excavations at

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RIghT Projectile points discovered by local inhabitants in the great kiva. The example on the right is a typical Basketmaker III arrow point (length 2cm). The point on the left undoubtedly comes from a much earlier site, and was intended for ritual use.

left The Dillard site. The site boundaries to the great kiva, clustered too tightly to mark the limits of conform to the general community pattern the surface artefact- of each household living close to its fields – scatter. Many features though not all may have been occupied at shown here were the same time. discovered by remote The pit structures located near the great sensing. Structures with antechambers kiva are varied in size and architectural are termed style, suggesting that the people who ‘pithouses’; those formed the core of the community may without are called have come together from different areas. ‘pit rooms’, and may This interpretation is bolstered by the also have been used as overflow housing, widely varied geographic sources for or as work areas for the obsidian artefacts found at the site, other activities. indicating the presence of multiple social

left A panorama, taken from the Dillard site, that includes the La Plata Mountains and Mesa Verde. below Basketmaker III pottery recovered during excavation at the Dillard site.

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde proper. Basketmaker II is a well-developed pre-pottery Neolithic complex marked by finely made basketry and other textiles, use of the atlatl (throwing stick) and small spears rather than the bow and arrow, and cultivation of maize and squash, but not beans. Turkeys were domesticated by about 100 BC, though valued primarily for their feathers rather than as food. Communities were small, and no great kivas have been found. People lived in shallow pithouses, as well as in natural shelters in the canyons. Temporary camps and other non-habitation sites occur in a greater

www.world-archaeology.com CurrentWorldArchaeology 29 right Close-up of sherds belonging to a jar, found broken and discarded on the floor of the main chamber of one of the pithouses belonging to the Dillard site, and (below) the reconstructed vessel.

networks through which distant materials could come into the community. Dating evidence indicates that individual family pithouses were seldom occupied for more than a generation. However, households often relocated within the community boundaries, so the community as a whole sustained itself economically and socially for a century or more. A contributor to this longevity was surely the great kiva, which was maintained and used throughout the AD 600s. The excavations completed so far at the surrounding area continued to have Dillard and some of the small residential a sizable population in the AD 700s and sites indicate a pattern of orderly 800s. It shows that the Dillard community withdrawal from individual structures, – and its ceremonial and political centre and eventually the abandonment of the at the Dillard site – did not come to a community as a whole. Still-useful portable catastrophic end. For whatever reason, the items such as corn-grinding stones, residents moved, probably as individual cooking pots, and serving bowls were taken households, to join or help form other when people moved out: relatively few nearby communities, taking their portable complete artefacts have been recovered so possessions with them, and probably usable far, and few structures were destroyed by wooden posts and beams as well. fire. The sturdiest roof beams were probably salvaged for use elsewhere. source Bill Lipe is Professor Emeritus at Washington State University, and a past president This is consistent with other (1995-1997) of the Society for American Archaeology. archaeological evidence that suggests

above Petroglyph at a site in south-eastern Utah, showing lines of people coming and is characterised by a several-hundred-year period of increased birth from different directions to meet in a circle, which possibly represents a great kiva. rates coupled with stable mortality, leading to dramatic rates of population The petroglyph dates to the Basketmaker III or the following Pueblo I period. growth. In the upland Southwest, the NDT triggered a series of changes that variety of environmental contexts than is characteristic of later periods. produced the complex of traits that archaeologists call Basketmaker III, and Storage facilities are not large, suggesting that people expected to fall back which eventually led to the formation of the Dillard community. on hunting and gathering if their crops failed. This might have been possible, The addition of beans to the roster of crops helped balance the diet by because there were substantial areas of the northern Southwest, including providing a source of vegetable protein that compensated in part for the the central Mesa Verde region, that did not yet have large populations. poor supply of essential proteins provided by maize. The need to cook beans Recent studies indicate that the upland Southwest had a very high rate was one of the spurs that led to the adoption of ceramic wares (already being of population increase in the late BC and early AD years. The Neolithic used by groups further south). Although stored dry maize can be cooked Demographic Transition (NDT) is a pattern seen in many parts of the world relatively rapidly by dropping hot stones into water held in a gourd or basketry following the appearance of farming, though often with a considerable lag, container (‘stone-boiling’), beans take much longer to cook, so pottery vessels

30 CurrentWorldArchaeology Issue 68 United states left Team members, taking part in the Crow Canyon programme, excavate in the great kiva. The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a non-profit organisation that was established in 1982. It is supported by donations, grants from state and federal sources and private foundations, and fees paid by students and volunteers who take part in Crow Canyon programmes. Research at the Dillard community is funded in part by grants from the US National Science Foundation and a state agency, History Colorado. The Center's mission is to advance and share knowledge of the human experience through archaeological research, education programmes, and partnerships with American Indians. Fieldwork is supervised by professional archaeologists, but much of the actual excavation is carried out by students and those enrolled in research participation programmes. Visit the Center's website, www.crowcanyon.org, for research reports The Project Study Area and further information. The sites being investigated by the Crow Canyon archaeologists are in a residential development called Indian Camp Ranch (ICR), with large houses My people, my on lots that average 15ha each. Although US law allows landowners to ancestors… legally destroy archaeological sites on their property, the developer, Archie Hansen, commissioned a high-quality professional archaeological survey it’s as if they (1991-1993) before any building occurred, and then required the purchasers are here right of the lots to agree not to disturb sites when they built their houses. In now and we can 2010, the ICR homeowners' association endorsed Crow Canyon's proposal to conduct an archaeological project at the development, and fieldwork talk to them. has been carried out at several sites, with most of the work focused on the Dillard site, located on Jane Dillard's property. Jane is a long-time volunteer left Tessie Naranjo, of Santa Clara Pueblo, courtesy San Juan Mountains Association Association San Juan Mountains courtesy o: in the analysis lab at the nearby Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, and t with her great-niece Rose Simpson, from the video Visit with Respect on YouTube. has participated in many of its digs over the years. ph o

at the base of slopes. By the end of the 500s, however, people were moving into the abundant dry-farming lands of the central Mesa Verde region, perhaps because drought-resistant strains of maize were becoming more available, or because of minor improvements in the climatic conditions necessary for farming. The founding of the Dillard community and construction of the great kiva at about AD 600 depended, as with any particular event, on the history of what went before. Archaeology still has much to reveal about this history and the ‘revolutionary’ community described here. And there is even more to learn LM-Anasazi Heritage Center, Colorado Center, Heritage B LM-Anasazi about the next 600 years of ancestral Pueblo history in the Mesa Verde region. ages: i m ages:

that can be set on a low fire are much more efficient. Reorganisation of household activities to promote longer-term residence and greater reliance on stored maize may also have promoted the use of pottery. Most important in the emergence of the Basketmaker III pattern was probably the development of larger, more stable communities as localities filled up with growing populations. Communities with organisations that promoted group cohesion (such as those associated with great kivas) would have been more stable than those without them. This ‘full-Neolithic’ type of community appears in the AD 500s in a few places above Examples of Basketmaker III ceramic ware: a decorated pottery serving-bowl (LEFT) and a plain grey cooking-jar (RIGHT). Pottery-making was not a specialised south of the San Juan. There are two settlement clusters at Chaco Canyon in occupation, and most households made their own. The styles of manufacture and New Mexico that have great kivas. South of the San Juan, most farming would decoration changed over the next several hundred years, allowing archaeologists have been ‘runoff farming’, i.e. based on summer flooding in small valleys or to use potsherds to determine when sites were occupied.