Anasazi

Cultural characteristics

The Ancient Pueblo culture is perhaps best-known for the jacal, adobe and sandstone dwellings built along cliff walls, particularly during the Pueblo II and Pueblo III eras. The best-preserved examples of those dwellings are in parks such as Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, and Canyon de Chelly National Monument. These villages, called pueblos by other Mexican settlers, were often only accessible by rope or through rock climbing.

However, these astonishing building achievements had more modest beginnings. The first Ancestral Puebloan homes and villages were based on the pit house, a common feature in the Basketmaker periods, and a not unusual dwelling in later periods in less urban locations. Over time, these homes were expanded by the addition of storage structures made of adobe and poles or adobe and stone, eventually evolving into independent homes grouped in L-shapes, semicircles or rectangles. These complexes became more elaborate over time, with thicker walls made of jacal worked stone, until the beginning of the great Pueblo period about AD 1150.

 
Ceramic bowl from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico which belonged to the Pueblo III phase.

Anasazi, North America: A canteen (pot) excavated from the ruins in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.The Ancestral Puebloans are also known for their unique style of pottery, today considered valuable for their rarity. They also created many petroglyphs and pictographs.