Why The Anasazi Lived

Cabeza de Vaca was lost and alone in the swamp wetlands of the San Antonio Bay. He was naked, his feet were covered in mud, and he was covered in mosquitoes, but he was still able to survive. Cabeza de Vaca was on a expedition with Panfilo de Narvaez along with 300 other men to establish settlements along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The 300 men were ordered to leave the ships by Panfilo de Narvaez on modern-day Tampa Bay, Florida to search for treasure. While they were all looking for their treasure, they didn't know that the would never see their ships again. Now the only thing that mattered was not colonization, it was survival. Cabeza de Vaca survived by healing the native americans, respecting the native americans, and using his wilderness skills to survive.

Which of the two (Anasazi or Incan) people had a better settlement? The Puebloan people used what was available in their environment to meet their needs as a society. The Inca people were skilled stonemasons and master builders. The Anasazi people were able to create many things and use them for other needs but, the Inca people were very successful.

One of the challenges was the part for the Colorado River near in a two called El Mayor, Mexico. The people of the Cocopah Indians have fished and farmed for about 2,000 years. It had dried up all the way to Baja California because of this.

Read excerpt # 3 The Anasazi: Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and excerpt # 4 The Mississippians: Cahokia and Moundville (pp.29-33) by following the link Pre-Columbian America (Learner.org). Type responses to the following questions on Google Doc and save.

This tribe no longer exists due to natural disasters. The Nazcans flourished on the southern coast of Peru, they also lived in the river valley of Rio Grande de Nazca. Within their society, they had chiefdoms. Chiefdoms were the known leaders of their civilization as well as the leaders of their households. When speaking to one another, they had a distinct language that only they knew.

The Pueblo Indians lived in the area of America that is now named New Mexico. Just like the Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts, the Pueblo Indians tied spirituality to the land they lived on. Their creation story shows some of the spiritual bonds to their land. “…With the aid of Badger and Locust, the sisters climbed though a hole in the ground and at once created the mountains, lakes, and canyons of Pueblo country” (Sando 22). Since the Pueblos believed that their people had actually

The tribe we chose for our report is the Jemez tribe and they are located near Bernalillo, New Mexico. The Jemez people built huge fortresses on top of hills that they built their houses in. In this fortress they had huge houses and places within the wall where they stored their food ,supplies and weapons. In the Jemez tribe the men wore deer hides and the women wore black cotton shirts , they also used rabbit skin for robes and other types of clothing. To survive the Jemez people had crops such as corn, beans and squash which was there made source of food.

- Hopi and Zuni in AZ and NM built large planned towns and traded as far as Miss R and Mexico

It was during the time period that Christ was born that the Anasazi Indians appeared in the Four Corners area which is the area where the boundaries of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet. For the over a thousand years the Anasazi thrived and built their homes into the side of cliffs. These cliff dwellings could only be reached by climbing and made for a great defense system against enemies; some dwellings reached five stories in height and contained hundreds of rooms. Many of the elaborate cliff dwellings and terraced apartment houses built of stone, mud, and wood that dot the Four Corners region still stand today and date back to about 9,000 CE., but the people who comprised this desert culture did not begin to settle into an agricultural lifestyle until around A.D. 400. The Anasazi, which is a Navajo word meaning “the ancient ones”, likely received corn, squash and beans, which are a prime source of protein, added to their diet and the knowledge to raise them from their southern neighbors in Mexico. Vegetable crops provided a reliable food source that made an increase in population possible and also allowed time for other interests such as religion, art, ritual, public works and handicrafts. This allowed the Anasazi society continued to evolve and progress. The ancient ones also possessed beans, a prime source of protein and new varieties of corn. Other innovations included the bow and arrow which eventually replaced spears and at least two varieties of dogs

The Cahuilla were a Native Southern Californian tribe that occupied the Riverside County, Higher Palomar Mountain Region and East Colorado Desert. The tribe was divided into two groups or moieties know as Wildcats or Coyotes. The Cahuilla lived in small clans that varied in population, and together all the separate clans made up a larger political group called a sib ”http://www.aguacaliente.org/content/History%20&%20Culture/.” The tribe was at first considered to be very simple and savage because they were never interacted with. As the Europeans and Spanish Missionaries considered the desert an inhospitable place that was better to avoid because

Last but not least, the Anasazi is also important to the history of American Indians before the European invasion. By 750, the Anasazi built the house that it was raised earth before and it this included the famous "rock Palace”, which was Important places of worship. The Anasazi settled in the Grand Canyon of Colorado in the sixth Century. However, they suddenly abandoned their homes and moved to other areas and never returned.

The story of the Sevier-Fremont people’s evolution and existence in the Great Basin parallels Williams’ life in Utah during the 1980s. They Sevier-Fremont evolved from the Anasazi

American archaeologist and anthropologist, Stephen Plog, wrote an account of the pre-Columbian natives of the Americans titled Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest. Plog’s purpose is to communicate the cultural and ritualistic lifestyles of the prehistoric natives of the southwest, which spans across the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada with some mention of trade with Mexico. The author has demonstrated an effective approach of an objective viewpoint on the lives of the prehistoric south westerners using sources from excursions from previous archaeologists such as, Paul S Martin and David R Wilcox among many others who excavated the vacant villages of the southwest.

The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)

The Indians stayed to the swamps and Grijalva and his men advanced to the town. There they found masonry buildings used to make sacrifices to their idols. They explored the surroundings for three days but found nothing of value to take. They returned to their ships and traveled along to Rio de Tabasco. (Díaz)