Anasazi

Anasazi is a Navajo term that means enemies of our ancestors.  The word is used to comprise a group of Paleo-Indian hunters who eventually settled into the Four Corners region thousands of years ago.  An alternative term, and one that is often preferred, is Ancestral Puebloan.  For those that are unfamiliar with both those terms, cliff-dwellers usually rings a bell.  The Anasazi built stone houses embedded into cliffs, often inside mesa walls on the Colorado Plateau in the high desert country.

Many of their homes are still standing, albeit with a few pieces missing, and they left pottery, baskets, and even drawings behind.  Leftover graffiti found on canyon walls is called either a petroglyph, which is a carving or engraving, or a pictograph, a painted image.  A lack of moisture in the desert has enabled these relics to remain visible today.

Periods of Anasazi history are often broken up into convenient categories to better understand their evolution.  The first period is referred to as Archaic, and these events took place from 2500 BCE to 200 BCE.  During this era, the Anasazi were hunter-gatherers who built temporary campsites in the canyon walls.  Deer, antelope, and rabbit were plentiful in the area.  Groups would roam through a network of canyons from rock shelter to rock shelter foraging for food.  Meanwhile, civilizations such as the Aztecs in Mexico were rapidly advancing, and a new way of life was created with the introduction of domesticated corn.

 

From the year 200 to around 750, an era known as the Basketmaker Period, the Anasazi started farming crops like beans, squash, and corn.  There are theories that many groups experimented with agriculture, but some may have reverted to their nomadic ways due to crop failures. 

In order for corn to be nutritional, for example, it needs to undergo a process called nixtamalization in which the grain is cooked in an alkaline solution such as limewater or ash.  Without this process, corn possesses no free niacin, an essential nutrient that prevents fatigue, headaches, skin lesions, and anemia.  If a population is dependent on corn that hasn’t been nixtamalized, they run the risk of malnutrition.  For some remote populations out of the loop, I could easily see how a trial-and-error period with farming could prove to be frustrating if you don’t have all the information. 

For those that stuck with farming, the groups tended to live a more sedentary lifestyle, and communities were built.  This particular period gets its name from the baskets weaved during this time.  If you hike into remote Anasazi areas, it is possible, although extremely rare, to find a basket completely intact. 

The Pueblo Period, from 750 to 1300, represents the climax of the Anasazi progression.  Villages such as those at Hovenweep National Monument were the norm.  Hovenweep is a Ute/Paiute term meaning deserted valley, and the monument stretches across the border of Utah and Colorado.  Clinging to the edges of a V-shaped channel stand stone houses with incomplete roofs and missing bricks.  Some towers are largely intact despite being over 700 years old, whereas others are piles of rubble.  Undoubtedly, there were more houses that were completely destroyed.

Anasazi ruins at Hovenweep National Monument in Utah. 

There is a loop trail that takes you to the canyon floor and along the rim where you can walk right up to the brick facades.  I can see a snow-capped mountain in the distance, but from where I stand in April the spring sun is warm and a cool breeze blows.  The American Southwest is not an easy place to live outdoors due to the intensity of the summer heat and winter snow, but there are certain pockets of the high desert that offer more suitable conditions. 

A popular question to ask when staring at an Anasazi ruin is:  Why would you build your house on top of or embedded into a cliff?  Flash floods in the desert are common on canyon floors.  Rainstorms are infrequent, and despite their brief appearances they are intense and relentless.  Dry washes quickly fill up and become creeks.  Narrow slot canyons become dangerous and life-threatening. 

Building inside a cliff also saves labor and resources, as the builders can utilize natural alcoves to avoid constructing ceilings and leveling out floors.  This strategy enables a village to take full advantage of the fertile valley.  Anasazi could plant crops both on the canyon floor and atop the mesas.

Due to the mysterious aura surrounding the Anasazi’s departure around 700 years ago, the most popular question is:  Why did they leave?  There are several theories ranging from warfare to drought.  My favorite theory deals with the Kachina Phenomenon.  According to western Pueblo religion, kachinas are spirits that personify objects in the real world, and these beings have the power to make the sun shine and the rain fall.  Like many Western religions, the Pueblos have ideas of how to conduct oneself morally.  There is an idea that the spirits told the Anasazi it was time to move on because they were sinning.  When you get too comfortable in one place, especially at a job you have mastered and have grown slightly bored with, it is much easier to get into trouble.  I’m sure the Anasazi were no different. 

For whatever reason you choose to believe in, the Anasazi abandoned their cliff-dwellings and relocated to valleys around the Rio Grande in New Mexico and the mesas on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona.  I’ve spoken to a few Navajos who believe they are the descendants of the Anasazi.  Given the Navajo definition of the word Anasazi (“enemies of our ancestors), I have serious doubts about this conjecture. 

I am by no means extremely knowledgeable about the Anasazi; I have read a book and a few online articles and visited a handful of sites.  With my limited research, I consider the Hopi to be the modern descendants of the Anasazi.  I don’t buy into the mystery of their “disappearance.” Like a frustrated suburbanite who moved out of his parents’ house to gain freedom and a change of scenery, I’m sure they packed up and found a more suitable place to live. 

     

The most popular place in the US to visit Anasazi ruins is Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado.  Cliff Palace is the largest dwelling of its kind in North America.  Although this park by no means achieves visitation rates like nearby Arches National Park, many visitors walk along the short, paved path to Cliff Palace.  This is the first Anasazi site I saw in person.  Despite the accessibility and large crowds, I was still amazed at the size of this neighborhood tucked inside the rock alcove.  Park Rangers are stationed there to answer questions and ensure there’s no funny-business, as it is the National Park’s duty to preserve these ancient ruins. 

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

To visit other cliff dwellings, you need to book a guided ranger tour, which only costs four dollars.  Two houses are usually closed for time-consuming renovation, and one is usually left open to a limited number of visitors.  To access Balcony House, smaller but equally as impressive as Cliff Palace, you have to climb a thirty-foot ladder and crawl through a tiny tunnel originally designed for defense against neighboring clans competing for limited resources.  Last fall I went on a guided ranger tour of Balcony House, and I was impressed by the Ranger, who used to be an archaeologist who worked in Mexico.  The obstacle-course-like nature of the trip also enhanced the experience.

The Park Service is obviously trying to juggle with the paradox of welcoming visitors and stemming the flow to both showcase and protect crumbling ruins.  Their funds are usually limited, and giving house tours to thousands of visitors to 700-year-old dwellings inevitably takes its toll.  I don’t blame them for their strategy, but it is difficult to envision an ancient civilization when you’re surrounded by forty-nine members of your tour group, all of whom, including yourself, drove a car to an outlook and hiked only a few hundred yards to visit a site that someone formerly had to climb wooden pegs up a steep cliff in order to reach their bedroom.

Hovenweep, on the other hand, is located on extremely remote Indian routes beyond open ranges where cattle and horses roam the grasslands.  The fact that the nearest hotel is several hours away means that the monument is often overlooked.  When I was there, only a few other cars were in the parking lot.  I could walk up to a stone house and peek through a window.  Aside from a trio of hikers and an occasional lone photographer, the canyon was empty. 

The route to Hovenweep through the open range.  

Even more remote are the ruins at Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona.  To get there, I drove over five hours and through the Navajo Reservation to reach the trailhead, where a certified guide took me and a friend five miles down the canyon floor through ankle-deep creeks to reach the Junction Ruins.  Rain was streaming from the sky and gushing into the canyon from the plateaus above us.  A waterfall materialized to the left of the Anasazi dwelling, and I could tell the ancient ones must have known where the water would fall and where they should build their homes to avoid being swept away in the flood. The grass in this cul-de-sac of Canyon del Muerto was greener than the surrounding areas.  This area is, and obviously was, livable.

Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona in the Navajo Nation.

Since visiting my first Anasazi site at Mesa Verde, I developed a mild curiosity about other cliff-dwellings in the Four Corners area, but it hasn’t yet become a passion.  I realize that many of the sites look the same, and sometimes it can be difficult to justify another six hour drive to see a place that resembles something you’ve seen a few times before.  But the farther you venture away from the interstate and the more research you have to conduct, the rewards are amplified.  The more you have to physically exert yourself, just as an Anasazi would have done, you can more closely imagine village life playing out before you.  You can see why they would settle in such a bountiful area.  But when thunder beckons and your toes become numb from wading in the creekbed that suddenly filled up during the flood, you, too, can see why they left.