The Anasazi
By Lisa Feiner
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THE ANASAZI
• A thousand years ago in what is now
the American Southwest, the Anasazi (a
Navajo word meaning "ancient ones" or
possibly "ancient enemies") built
dramatic adobe dwellings, or pueblos.
Chaco Canyon was the center of
Anasazi civilization.
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How the Anasazi lived
• Pueblo Bonito, one of the largest of the Chaco Canyon pueblos,
is a good example of how the Anasazi lived. Pueblo Bonito rose
four to five stories high ﾑ an astounding achievement for the
time. Rooms surrounded a central plaza, and throughout the
settlement were a number of kivas, meeting places that served a
ceremonial purpose. The total population of Pueblo Bonito was
probably around 1,200 people at its height. Surrounding the
pueblo were a number of smaller dwellings and structures.
Numerous communities looked to Chaco Canyon for political
and religious guidance.
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Reminder of 8 categories:
1. Deforestation & Habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, & soil
fertility loss)
3. Water Management problems
4. Over hunting
5. Over fishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native
species
7. Human population growth
8. Increased per-capita impact of people
Reminder of 5 factors:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Environmental damage
Climate change
Hostile Neighbors
Friendly trade partners
(5th is always a significant factor:)
5. Societies response to its
environmental problems.
4 of 5 factors played a roll in
Anasazi Collapse:
The only factor that did not have
convincing evidence for the collapse
was External Enemies.
This is mainly because they were too
distant from any external enemies.
“The Anasazi collapse…illustrating well
our themes of human environmental
impact and climate change intersecting,
environmental and population problems
spilling over into warfare, the strengths
but also the dangers of complex nonself-sufficient societies dependent on
imports and exports, and societies
collapsing swiftly after attaining peak
population numbers and power” (p 137).
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology= Tree ring dating
• Used to get relatively accurate dates
about Anasazi
• Used to reconstruct past climate
3 main alternative types of
agriculture:
Fundamental problem: how to obtain enough
H2O to grow crops in an environment where
rainfall is so low that little or no farming
occurs there today.
1. Dry land agriculture- relying on rainfall from
higher elevations
2. Water Table in ground reached close
enough to plant roots to extend down.
3. Collecting water runoff in ditches or canals
to irrigate fields.
Previous solutions lasted up to
1000 years, but all succumbed to
human impact & climate change.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Live at higher elevations.
Farm at warmer low elevations.
Plant crops only in areas with reliable springs &
groundwater tables.
Occupy an area for a few decades until soil & game
was exhausted.
Plant crops at many sites, and harvest those which
were successful (required complex political & social
system)
Plant crops & live near permanent or dependable
sources of water, on landscape benches above
main floodways.
Risks for all 6 solutions:
• Cause increase in population
• Society becomes more complex
• Turned into a mini-empire (3 levels) well-fed elite
living in luxury to less well-fed peasantry doing
work and raising food.
• Become more interdependent
• No longer locally self-sufficient
• Chico Canyon soon imported all goods, and
nothing tangible was exported.
• Deforestation- in a dry climate tree re-growth
too slow to keep up with the rate at which
Anasazi use wood.
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Controversy over Cannibalism
Cannibalism takes two forms:
1. Eating bodies enemies killed in war.
2. Eating one’s own relatives who had
died of natural causes.
Although many deny that the Anasazi
participated in cannibalism, there is
much evidence that this did occur.
The final blow: drought
• Around 1130 A.D.
• Society now held more people, more
dependent on outlying settlements, & no
land left unoccupied.
• Around 1150-1200 A.D. Chaco Canyon
was virtually abandoned.
The Anasazi did not vanish as
people.
• Other Native American societies have
incorporated aspects of Anasazi into
their lifestyles.
• Such as Hopi & Zuni pueblos.
• Exists because Anasazi didn’t just
disappear, they had a planned
evacuation.
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Conclusion/Summary
“Over the six centuries the human population of
Chaco Canyon grew, its demands on the
environment grew, its environmental
resources declined, and people came to be
living increasingly close to the margin of what
the environment could support. That was the
ultimate cause of abandonment.
The proximate cause…was the drought that
finally pushed the Chacoans over the edge, a
drought that a society living at a lower
population density could have survived.”
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