DIGGING

into

PLS TORY

Explanation of Cover Design

Stone carving depicting sacred animal god and ear of corn

DESIGN FROM BOWL OF THE MIMBRES TYPE

Subject: three hunters following trail of a deer(?); hunters, probably
dressed in skin jackets, carry bows and arrows and possibly throwing
sticks. About a.p. 1100 to 1200.

Drawing taken from Figure 13, Archaeology of Mimbres Valley, by
J. Walter Fewkes, Smithsonian Misc. Collections, vol. 63, no. 10.

Digging into History

A Brief Account of Fifteen Years of

Archaeological Work in New Mexico

BY

PAUL S. MARTIN

CHIEF CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Drawings by GUSTAF DALSTROM

ARTIST, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
POPULAR SERIES

ANTHROPOLOGY, NUMBER 38

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS

Copyright 1959 by Chicago Natural History Museum

Second Printing 1963

Preface

The purpose of this book is to piece together all the bits of
the Mogollon Indian jigsaw puzzle that we discovered in New
Mexico in our fifteen years of digging there. We gleaned a lot
of odd facts and artifacts during that period, but they begin to
shape up a vast and exciting picture of five thousand years of
human history. My hope, here, is to connect these pieces in
an orderly manner, and yet to infuse them with at least some
of the dynamic overtones we all experienced during these years
of discoveries.

But when a specialist writes for a lay audience, he finds
himself in almost insurmountable difficulties of terminology.
In my profession—as in all others, I presume—there is much
jargon that is difficult to “‘translate.’” Sometimes it comes out
in bewildering circumlocution! In a number of cases, there-
fore, I have retained relatively unfamiliar words, accompanied
by explanations.

Writing this brief book has, in itself, been an adventure,
and I hope the reader will be able to share it with me.

I wish to thank the Board of Trustees, Mr. Stanley Field,
Chairman of the Board, and Dr. Clifford C. Gregg, President
of the Board, for their generous financial support and _per-
sonal interest in our archaeological research in the Southwest.
This book would not have been possible without their sus-
tained assistance.

Pau. S. MarTIN

Contents

Prologue

Brief Sketches of Southwestern Culture
Purposes of Work in New Mexico
Divisions of Mogollon Culture and Chronology
The Time of Limited Wandering
Emergence of Small, Sedentary Communities
The Beginnings of Town Life

Summary and Conclusions

Value of Archaeology

Bibliography

Index

103
13>
145
jag |
155

Headings and end-pieces represent pieces of pottery, stone

tools, a Katchina, a portion of a tablita, an animal effigy,

a “sun symbol,” and designs from pottery.

Prologue

This book deals with the history of a “‘lost”’ tribe of Indians
who lived long ago in western New Mexico. It will attempt to
tell you what we have found out about the origin of these
Indians, their development, changes that took place over thou-
sands of years in their lives, the kinds of houses they built, and
the kinds of crops they grew.

Columbus usually receives the credit for discovering the
New World, but this honor should be given to migrants from
northeastern Asia, whom we call the American Indians.

Detailed studies of the physical (racial) aspects of the Amer-
ican Indians show that they are all essentially Mongoloids,
although there is some diversity among the various tribes of
North, Middle and South America. This may be due to the
fact that the American continent was interpenetrated (via
Bering Strait) by successive groups of Asiatic migrants. These
may have represented a composite of several racial strains, but
primarily they were Mongoloid. In other words, some of the
divergences of physical types, now observable in the Indians,
first appeared in Asia and were then preserved in the New
World.

A Museum exhibit showing the way by
which the American Indian probably came
to the New World. The reconstructed
scene suggests the crowded condition of
men and animals in northeastern Asia after
the glaciers began to recede and emphasizes
the ease with which both men and animals
could journey across Bering Strait from Asia
to America.

Since no possible ancestral forms of modern man have ever
been found in the New World, we may be sure that man
did not originate here. Furthermore, since the American In-
dian may certainly be classed as belonging to the Mongoloid
branch that originated in the Old World, we may be confident
that he came from Asia. How he came and when and why
are fascinating questions about which we have some informa-
tion and some guesses. We guess that he entered by the easiest
and shortest route and that would have been by Bering Strait,
for here the distance between the Old and New Worlds is a
mere sixty miles at the present time. If man started drifting
into the New World about 25,000 years ago, it is safe to
assume that he walked from Asia to America on dry land,
for the two continents were connected by a land bridge. Even
in much later times, when the land connection between the
two continents was broken, man could have crossed by boat
or on ice for the strait was narrower and shallower then.

The date of the earliest migrations from Asia to America
cannot be exactly stated at present. It is safe to say, how-
ever, that man was present in the New World at least 25,000
years ago.

A few migrants to the New World may have reached our
shores by boat from the Pacific Islands, but it is usually con-
ceded that such voyages were few in number and probably
came about as a matter of chance rather than by intention.
Furthermore, if such accidental voyagers lived to tell the tale,
they and most of their specialized knowledge, traits, and tech-
niques probably were largely, if not entirely, submerged by the
civilization of their hosts.

There are speculations concerning the origin of the Amer-
ican Indians—such fables as Atlantis; The Lost Continent of
Mu; the “‘lost’’ tribes of Israelites who were merely deported
about 725 B.c. to Assyria and who may be described as dis-
placed, enslaved and shuffled about, but not lost; and the like;
but all of these “‘hypotheses’’ may be labeled as fiction based
on fancies, opinions, and chance analogies.

The consensus of most anthropologists today is that the In-
dian is an Asiatic who wandered into the New World and here
independently developed an impressive series of cultures that
range from a modest set of attainments to higher civilization.

9

EXAMPLES OF EARLIEST AMERICANS

There is little doubt that the Asian emigrants, hereafter
referred to as the American Indians, came unknowingly to the
New World in pursuit of big game—the cold-steppe bison, the
horse, the wooly mammoth, the musk-ox. These early hunters,
armed with elaborate projectile weapons and excellent projec-
tiles of flint, and aided by the cooperation and interest of the
whole tribe, were sensibly following the well-marked trails left
by these large, grazing animals. As would be expected, the
trails led to grassy glades, water, and salt-licks and, as Dr.
Loren Eisely (see Bibliography) points out, ran through moun-
tain passes or across the lowest divides of the mountain ranges.
The first comers were very smart to follow these trails.

This guess as to what kind of folk these earliest Americans
were fits in very well with our bits of knowledge of the first
Indians. It seems fairly certain from several well-explored
sites that man’s tools, garbage, camp sites, and earliest hearths
(all spoken of as cultural remains) were associated with re-
mains of now extinct large game.

I shall mention briefly three of these finds (for more details
see the Bibliography: Luis Aveleyra, M. R. Harrington,
E. W. Haury).

(1) At and near Tule Springs, in southern Nevada, Dr.
M. R. Harrington, Mr. Fenley Hunter, and others discovered
the camp ground of some of the early Indians. There they
found bones of the mammoth, the American camel, the long-
horned bison, deer, and two extinct species of American horses.
Most of these bones had been split and charred, and in one
fire-pit were the remains of a camel that had been cooked.
Only two stone tools have been found associated with these
remains: a crudely chipped tool of obsidian and one roughly
made side-scraper.

The charcoal from the fire-pits was dated by the carbon 14
method as being 23,800 years old or perhaps more (see p. 53).

This is our earliest dated site up to the moment.

(2) Another example of a big animal that was successfully
hunted for food by early American Indians comes from near
Naco, in southern Arizona, southwest of Bisbee. Here Dr.

10

Emil Haury and Mr. E. B. Sayles found the remains of a Co-
lumbian mammoth killed by hunters who hurled eight stone
spear-points into it. One of them, at least, pierced the ani-
mal’s most vulnerable area—the spinal cord near the base of
the skull. The hunters apparently hacked off the much-
sought-after steaks and roasts and left the remainder of the
carcass and the eight projectile points; eventually they were
covered by sand and fill. The spear-points were of the type
called Clovis Fluted.

Geologists think that this kill took place more than 10,000
years ago. The exact date cannot be determined at present,
but one may guess that the ancient hunting party took place
12,000 to 20,000 years ago.

(3) An excellent account of a mammoth “‘find’’ in Mexico
accompanied by three artifacts of stone, two spear-points and
one knife, was described by Dr. Luis Aveleyra (see Bibli-

ography).

AFFILIATIONS BETWEEN THESE EARLY HUNTERS
AND THE EARLIEST MOGOLLON PEOPLE

Our story starts with the Cochise Indians who settled in
southern Arizona about 6000 B.c. Their earliest history has
has been partly reconstructed by archaeologists and geologists
who have studied the ancient camp sites in which hearthstones,
charcoal, tools of stone, and bones of extinct animals were
found. Southern Arizona is now a desert, but it was cool and
moist at that time and there were hickory and other trees that
like relatively moist places. The region abounded in lakes
and streams that were probably dammed up by beavers.
Here the Cochise Indians hunted animals that are now ex-
tinct—the dire wolf, the American camel, the American horse,
and the mammoth. The people camped along streams and
lake shores and subsisted on nuts, seeds, berries, roots, and
edible plants, supplementing this diet by some animal foods.
Such a way of life is called a food-gathering economy because
emphasis was on plant foods rather than on hunting. Agri-
culture, architecture, and pottery-making were unknown to
these people.

11

MONTICELLO © | 1928-29 EXCAVATIONS
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MAP OF PINE LAWN VALLEY AND ADJACENT AREAS

12

For about 3,000 years the Cochise Indians went along in
more or less the same manner. Tools changed and improved,
but food-gathering plus some hunting remained the subsistence
pattern. Dwellings may have been skin tents. The climate
and environment were slowly changing, however. The con-
tinental glaciers were receding, lakes and streams were drying
up, and the area was slowly becoming a desert. The large
food animals were gradually becoming extinct.

It must have been plain to the Indians that their very exist-
ence was endangered, and this realization probably produced
an era of unrest, peril, insecurity, and apprehension. The
mental torture of the Cochise Indians must have been like our
feelings today in the atomic age. At any rate, they had to
move or perish, and some of them migrated northward, about
5,000 years ago (3000 B.c.) to Pine Lawn Valley in western
New Mexico. This move brought the first settlers into the
Valley. From their simple way of life grew a culture that
lasted thousands of years and had important effects on neigh-
boring peoples.

Once arrived, these Indians camped along a pleasant
streamlet that issued from a spring high up in the nearby
mountains. Living near a clear mountain stream must have
been refreshing: water was always at hand for domestic pur-
poses and for sustaining usable rushes and edible plants; water
in quiet pools provided drinking places for deer, wild pig,
bear, and other animals. The Indians resumed their old way
of life—gathering wild seeds, nuts and roots which they ground
up on stone slabs or milling stones; cleaning skins with roughly
formed scrapers of stone; and chopping brush and firewood
with heavy stone hand axes or choppers.

FIRST AGRICULTURE, HOUSES AND POTTERY

In the new homeland they also developed several new,
worth-while ideas and inventions.

The idea of planting seeds was probably not difficult for
the people to accept because for thousands of years they had
watched plants grow, had gathered in their yield of edible bits,
and may even have partly protected a few of their favorite

1

and most succulent shoots and herbs. At any rate, about
3000 to 4000 B.c., when the revolutionary conception of plant-
ing, cultivating, and guarding seeds of a new and mysterious
plant-food that we call maize or corn was presented to the
Cochise, they were ready to accept such an idea. Thus was
agriculture established and a blessing it was, for with a more
assured food supply less time and less effort had to be spent
in searching for wild food plants. With less time expended on
food-gathering, leisure increased and life became less tenuous,
especially for the thrifty who put aside a surplus of the corn to
tide themselves and their families over a season of drought.
With leisure, they had a chance to develop arts and other skills;
and with a stable food supply, the population tended to in-
crease. Soon after the introduction of corn, which probably
came from Mexico and ultimately perhaps from South Amer-
ica, beans and squash also were adopted from more southern
peoples. By 2500 B.c., corn, beans, and squash were a part of
the Cochise food supply.

Also, from some unknown source came the knowledge that
men could live more comfortably in pit-houses. A pit-house
is a neatly excavated hole from 12 to 20 feet in diameter and
from 2 to 4 feet deep, over which a roof of poles, brush, and
sod can be constructed.

Soon thereafter (surely about 300 B.c.), the Cochise bor-
rowed from southerly neighbors the art of molding, polishing,
coloring, and firing selected clays into containers, such as
bowls and jars.

COCHISE CULTURE BECOMES MOGOLLON

Thus, shortly before the beginning of the Christian era—
not later than 300 B.c.—the Cochise culture had been greatly
modified and augmented. In aggregate these changes are so
pronounced and significant that we have decided to mark this
milepost of advance by bestowing another name on the new
total. The term “‘Mogollon’’ has been adopted to signify the
addition of agriculture, house-building, and pottery-making
(and other customs to be discussed later). This term connotes
one of the longest continuous cultural growths in North Amer-
ica, with roots reaching back to about 6000 B.c. and with

14

trunk, limbs, and leaves reaching perhaps up to the present
time—a span of perhaps about 8,000 years.

It should be understood then, that the term ‘“‘Mogollon”’
as used in this book means an extension and a ramification of
the Cochise civilization. Cochise and Mogollon cultures may
be regarded as a more or less single and continuous develop-
ment. There is no break in our story at all, but there is a
transition. To restate briefly: the Mogollon civilization is
Cochise plus farming, pit-houses, pottery, a few new types of
stone tools and other additions to be discussed in later sections.

Now we come back to the question posed at the beginning
of this chapter: Are the early big-game hunters related to the
Cochise Indians? Or to reverse the question: Can we claim
the big-game hunters as ancestors of the Cochise and, in turn,
of the Mogollon Indians? ‘The answer is that at present we
do not know. Ifthe people at Naco, who killed the big mam-
moth, are the ancestors of the Cochise Indians, then we have
to assume that they later radically modified their way of life
to the extent of learning to place more dependence on the
gathering of wild plants for food usage and of relying less on
hunting. This change is theoretically possible; but actually
there is a hiatus in our knowledge of what was happening in
southern Arizona at 10,000 B.c. (the time of the Naco mam-
moth hunters) and 6000 B.c., the time of the earlier Cochise
people.

We think now that the big game hunters were more charac-
teristic of eastern, central, and northern North America. It
may be that the Cochise people represent a different Asiatic
group—one that had already ‘“‘drifted”’ into a food-gathering
economy with but slight dependence on game for food before
coming to the New World.

The Cochise civilization is classified as belonging to a Des-
ert Culture which was well adapted to its distinctive environ-
ment and was better able to cope with changing conditions
than the early Indian big-game hunters. ,The Naco mammoth
find, then, is, at present, regarded as evidence of an example
of infrequent penetration by big-game hunters into the domain
of the Cochise peoples, who, in turn, developed into the pot-
tery-using, crop-growing Indians that we call Mogollon.

15

The gulf between us and the Mogollon people is a large one
and difficult to span. It is not easy to write about people who
lived so many years ago and make them appear as human be-
ings. The characters of the cast are different from us and the
setting is an unusual one. But the story is a human record in
which we note large accomplishments by means of details.
As one man puts it, most people are commonplace, and their
lives, lived out in the prosaic middle register between saint
and sinner, make up the real meat and marrow of the world.

We do not know what these people called themselves but
we call them the Mogollon Indians (pronounced Mog-ee-
yown) and their very existence was not actually known until
about twenty years ago. It is interesting to note, however,
that about fifty years ago an archaeologist from the United
States National Museum suspected, on the basis of evidence
that he found in what we call the Upper Gila Valley, that is,
the area in which we have been digging in west central New
Mexico, that the material remains—the pottery, the houses,
the bone tools, the stone tools, and the like—were not the same
as those found in northern New Mexico and Arizona. He
thought that they were, perhaps, made by a different people
who came from or lived southward. We now know that the
guess was correct.

16

Brief SKETCHES

of SOUT WESTERN COLTURE

This story will be limited to a branch or subdivision of the
Southwestern Indians—the Mogollones. A little background
of the other Southwestern cultures will be given first.

INTRODUCTION

Archaeological interest in the Southwestern part of the
United States—that is, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of
Nevada, Utah and Colorado—began in 1875 or thereabouts.
At that time the country was being settled by cattlemen, sheep-
men, and farmers. The large standing ruins that were fairly
abundant in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado
naturally attracted the interest of lay workers as well as that
of archaeologists. From about 1880 to 1910 many famous
scientists visited the Southwest and described numerous sites
and the Indians they saw there. From about 1875 to 1925,
it was commonly believed by most laymen and most archaeol-
ogists that the entire area had been inhabited and developed
by one group, the so-called Pueblo people. The great cliff-
houses at Mesa Verde, the large, open, D-shaped villages in
Chaco Canyon, the famous villages in southwestern New Mex-

17

ico that produced beautiful pottery, the great adobe houses
of southern Arizona, the canals in that area, and all the vil-
lages and pueblos and ruins of all kinds up and down the
Gila, the Salt, the Little Colorado, and the San Juan Rivers—
all of these were supposed to have been the work of the Pueblo
Indians. We now know that this was a very simplified picture
of what had actually occurred. At the present time archaeol-
ogists recognize four major subdivisions and four major sub-
cultures of the Southwest. Each of these major subdivisions
and sub-cultures had characteristics of its own and for some
time it was believed that each flourished independently. Re-
cent work has shown that each did have its own individual
characteristics, but that all of them are united in various
subtle but tangible ways. All these four sub-cultures seem to
have been motivated by similar impulses to change in more or
less the same directions at about the same time. And all
reached a climax about a.p. 1300. It is as if the area had
been washed over several times by waves of similar cultural
influences.

The names of the four major sub-cultures are: (1) Anasazi;
(2) Hohokam; (3) Mogollon; and (4) Patayan.

THE -ANASAZI CULTURE

The word ‘‘Anasazi’”’—which is an Anglicized version of
the Navaho term meaning “old people”—is the name now
applied to Basketmakers, Cliff Dwellers, and Pueblo Indians.
Anasazi, then, is the inclusive term.

The territory in which the Anasazi Indians lived from
about the beginning of the Christian era is what is known
today as the ‘“‘Four-Corners”’ region. This region may be
roughly described as northeastern Arizona, northwestern New
Mexico, southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Ana-
sazi ruins are found from Flagstaff eastward to the Rio Grande
River, but the concentration is mostly in the ‘‘Four-Corners”’
area. Even today there are remnants of the Anasazi people
living in or about the same area; for example, the Hopi
Indians live in northeastern Arizona, the Zufi Indians live
in towns close to the Arizona~New Mexico border, and the

18

Rio Grande Indians live in and around Albuquerque and
Santa Fe. All of these present-day Indians have retained a
remarkable degree of their ancient culture, and the Zuni and
Hopi Indians are noted for their conservatism because they
have effectively resisted the encroachments of our European
civilization.

The Anasazi civilization which flourished on the Colorado
plateau of the Intermontane division has been more intensively
investigated and written about than any of the others. For
fifty years, reports, monographs, articles, and stories have been
pouring from the pens of various authors, and the literature is
very voluminous. Therefore, I shall condense what I have to
say about this culture. Briefly, it may be summed up as
follows:

Taking Anasazi culture as a whole from beginning to end,
without differentiating the time factors, we may say that its
chief characteristics are (1) masonry; (2) agglomerations of
houses, often several stories high (roughly similar to our clus-
ters of rooms called apartment houses); (3) the kiva, or cere-
monial underground chamber; (4) altars; (5) sand paintings
(ritualistic scenes portrayed free-hand with sands of various
colors); (6) priestly offices; (7) elaborate rituals and symbo-
lisms, some of which were secret and celebrated in the sanc-
tuary (kiva) and many of which were held in the open for the
enjoyment and inspiration of the entire village; (8) special
public dances performed by katchinas or representatives of the
gods to re-enact the Hopi beliefs concerning the origin of the
tribe and to insure peace, prosperity, rainfall, good crops,
tribal fertility, and health, and to express thankfulness for past
favors; (9) probably mother-line descent; (10) textured or cor-
rugated grayish cooking pottery; (11) decorated pottery with
a gray or white background and designs in black paint; (12)
decorated pottery of a polychrome and glazed decorated type.

The Anasazi culture, like the other three sub-cultures, grew
by continuous transitions and additions and accretions from an
ancient and widespread culture called the Desert Culture of the
Great Basin (the Intermontane area). The Desert Culture
came into existence some 11,000 years ago and monopolized
most of the territory in the Great Basin—that is, from Oregon

19

and Idaho southward through Nevada, Utah, and parts of
California and Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico—and
extended into the northern part of Mexico. The Great Basin
area lies mostly within the sagebrush-juniper-pinyon zone, al-
though there are good-sized regions of short desert grass and
of pines, hemlocks, and spruce in the higher mountains. Par-
enthetically, it is interesting to note that today most of the
area is occupied by peoples who speak dialects of the Uto-
Aztecan language, including the modern Hopis, Pimas, Utes,
Paiutes and Shoshones, and some of the Rio Grande Indians.

Most of the later and so-called higher developments of the
Anasazi came to them from the Hohokam and Mogollon
groups (see below), so that the climax that occurred about
A.D. 1100 may be regarded as an accumulation of southern
and possibly Mexican traits that were taken over by the Ana-
sazi bit by bit—by trade, by drift, perhaps by war—and re-
worked to fit their ideas and cultural layout. In fact, much
of the great efflorescence of culture that took place in the Hopi
and Zufi towns may be due to ideas conceived by the Mogol-
lon peoples who were beginning to move up into the Hopi-
Zuhi country around 1200 to 1300.

THE HOHOKAM CULTURE

Now let us look briefly at the Hohokam culture. The
civilization of the Hohokam Indians (Hohokam is an angli-
cized version of the Pima Indian term meaning “‘that which
has perished”’), like that of the Anasazi, was probably derived
from a desert culture that was established some 11,000 years
ago in the Intermontane region. The area of Hohokam spe-
cialization lay mostly along the Gila River and its tributaries
in the southern half of Arizona—that is, in the desert regions
of Phoenix and Tucson. Hohokam features and villages are
found, however, far beyond this limited area. Certainly
Hohokam traits spread as far north as the Flagstaff region
and as far south as the international border—perhaps even
farther.

As I stated above, the Gila—Salt River drainages, now
known to be the homeland of the Hohokam, were formerly

20

considered a part of the Puebloan Southwest. Prior to 1920
every archaeological site in the Southwest was dubbed ‘“‘cliff-
dweller” or ‘‘Pueblo.’’ In short, the Southwest was “‘the
Pueblo area.”’ A few imaginative archaeologists who heeded
the evidence thought otherwise. The great contrast between
the materials found in the Gila River desert ruins and those
from the Plateau sites made them think that perhaps it was a
bit ‘‘fishy”? to lump together two obviously different groups.
The trouble is that they had no concrete evidence on which
to base sound deductions.

But, thanks to Gila Pueblo at Globe, Arizona (a privately
endowed research institution, supported and directed by Mr.
and Mrs. H. S. Gladwin, but now dissolved, alas), work was
carried on in the fall, winter, and spring seasons. Due entirely
to the dogged persistence of the Gladwins and their staff, the
Gila desert area and the territories surrounding it—east, west,
south, and north—were systematically explored. By 1928 or
1929, the staff of Gila Pueblo knew for certain that the Gila—
Salt River drainages and the desert area were not parts of the
Pueblo area and that the archaeological remains represented
a separate entity or sub-culture. Thus they discovered the
Hohokam civilization. The Pueblo ‘‘one world’? was shat-
tered, and about 1930, or thereabouts, Southwestern archaeol-
ogists conceded that the Southwest geographical area em-
braced several prehistoric civilizations. The acceptance of
the Mogollon culture as another entity was delayed for several
years. Scientific explorations and excavations in Hohokam
sites has not yet been extensive, but each year sees more work
done in this interesting civilization. Enough is now known,
however, so that we can describe confidently the high lights
of the Hohokam sub-culture. The largest site, Snaketown,
was investigated for several seasons by the staff of Gila Pueblo.

If we take the Hohokam civilization from early to late
(from about the beginning of the Christian era to about
A.D. 1400) without regard to time periods, we may list its
traits as follows: (1) pit-houses—structures with the floor be-
low the surface of the ground, and the roof made of brush and
mud (note: storied clusters of houses were never built by the
Hohokam); (2) villages composed of scattered houses, but no

21

towns; (3) compound walls around some of the later villages;
(4) irrigation ditches for taking water from the Gila and
its tributaries to the fields (without irrigation of some type
agriculture would have been impossible in this desert); (5) pot-
tery made by the paddle and anvil process instead of the coiling
process used by the Anasazi and Mogollon Indians, and manu-
factured in such a way as to produce a red ware or a buff type
with designs in red paint (red-on-buff ware); (6) etched shell
ornaments; (7) excellent stone carvings; (8) well-made pro-
jectile points; (9) stone axes of fine quality, the handles of
which were fastened to a three-quarter groove (a groove that
runs around three sides of the tool); (10) rituals that were
probably simpler than and different from the complex ones
of the Anasazi; (11) ball courts in which a kind of ceremonial
basketball game was played; (12) small kivas; (13) medicine
men rather than priests and a priesthood; (14) father-line
descent; (15) perhaps some aggressiveness or warlike expan-
sive traits.

What became of the Hohokam peoples after A.p. 1400?
Did they and their civilization perish from the face of the
earth? Several anthropologists have conjectured that the
modern Pima Indians who live in southern Arizona are
the cultural descendants of the Hohokam Indians, and recent
work by the Amerind Foundation of Arizona has strengthened
this hypothesis. If this is so, then we have an unbroken
continuity of the Hohokam culture from a desert base of about
11,000 years ago, through the Hohokam civilization itself,
which surely came into being by the beginning of the Christian
era, right down to the present Pima or related Indians. In
other words, the Hohokam civilization faltered and changed
its course and thereby lost much of its polish about a.p. 1400,
but it did not perish.

There are many differences between the traits of the Ana-
sazi and Hohokam Indians. Chief among these are: For the
Anasazi: masonry; storied houses with clustered rooms;
**towns;”’ the kiva; priests and altars; grayish plain or black-
on-white pottery and, later, black-on-yellow or orange wares
and glazed paint wares. For the Hohokam: lack of masonry;
pit-houses; small groups of houses; the compound; the ball

22

court; shamans rather than a priesthood; and red-on-buff
pottery that cannot compare for general excellence with the
Anasazi ceramics.

The Mogollon culture, as noted above, was also discov-
ered by the staff of Gila Pueblo in 1934 or thereabouts. The
first excavations in a Mogollon site were made by Dr. Emil W.
Haury, whose publication is now a landmark in the archaeo-
logical works of the Southwest. But for a long time conserva-
tive archaeologists refused to accept the Mogollon civilization
as a separate entity. Now, however, this culture stands on its
own feet and has been accepted by archaeologists throughout
the world. No more at this point will be said about it.

THE PATAYAN CULTURE

The fourth sub-culture of the Southwest is called Patayan
(with accent on the second syllable). It is the least studied and
described of the four principal civilizations of the Southwest.
The name, Patayan, is taken from the Yuman language and
the word means “‘ancient people.” The dates for this culture
are at the moment tentatively placed at a.p. 700 to 1100.
A few good excavations have been carried on in Patayan sites,
and from these studies, together with the vast amount of in-
formation gleaned from “‘surveys”’ carried on by the Museum
of Northern Arizona, we can derive some tentative conclu-
sions.

The Patayans are believed to be the cultural, physical and
linguistic ancestors of the present-day Havasupai, Walapai, or
Yuman tribes, who occupy much of the same territory on the
Colorado River plateau and in the canyons of that river as did
the ancient Patayan. In ancient times these Indians lived
not only along the Colorado River but also as far east as the
Verde River at Flagstaff and south approximately as far as
34° N;, Lat.

The ancient economy of the Patayan Indians was probably
based on agriculture plus some hunting and food-gathering.
Thus it resembles the other three sub-cultures. Houses were
of several types and were probably occupied seasonally—pos-
sibly a snug type of earth-covered, dome-shaped house for
winter habitation, and a ‘‘shade”’ structure for summer usage.

23

Villages as such did not exist; houses were scattered singly
over a general area. Stone tools such as the lower and upper
parts of corn-grinding stones (metates and manos), projectile
points, knives and scrapers occur but were not of noteworthy
workmanship. No religious structures or burials have been
found.

In general, one senses that the Patayans farmed sporadi-
cally and where they could; expressed little interest in manu-
facturing tools of bone and stone; made few or no ornaments;
and left behind no ceremonial structures of the type that is
usually regarded as evidence of a visible ritual, such as the
Anasazi possessed. This does not necessarily mean a lack of
religious ideas; perhaps their religion was expressed in other
ways. Allin all, the Patayan culture shows some resemblances
to, or at least an indirect relationship with, the ancient and
widespread cultures of the Great Basin. Here again it resem-
bles the other three sub-cultures. There are also connections
with later Anasazi civilizations, but these are regarded as due
to borrowing.

This concludes the brief discussion of the four different
sub-cultures of the southwestern part of the United States.
I have stressed their differences in order to make clear to the
reader that each has reality and that each can be distinguished
from the other. Now I wish to point out the hypothesis that
these four sub-cultures are intimately related in one way or
another even though each has its own distinct flavor. That is
why I prefer the term “‘sub-culture”’ for each one, so that the
emphasis is placed on the fact that the Southwest is one large
“culture area.”” A culture area may be roughly defined as
a geographical region that embraces similar or related culture
traits or elements, similar patterns and drifts that must be
regarded as having depth in time. The Southwest culture
area appears, then, to comprise four related but consistently
distinctive culture types or sub-cultures.

Thus I believe that the Southwest can be regarded or char-
acterized as a natural culture area that is a distinctive one.
The four sub-cultures, considered collectively, certainly stand
in stark contrast to those of the west, north, and east. This

24

concept emphasizes the similarities that exist among the four
local sub-cultures among which there has been an interchange
of cultural factors and ideas. By this concept we sweep aside
the artificial boundaries that archaeologists have thought up
between the various groups (Anasazi, Hohokam, and the like),
and point out that there probably was a large degree of mo-
bility and interchange of ideas throughout the entire South-
west in all times—that is, from about 11,000 years ago down
to the moment. That is what I mean by time depth.

INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE FOUR
SUB-CULTURES

This concept of interrelationships, sometimes called the
‘“‘area co-tradition,”’ stresses the intimacy that existed between
tribes, groups, and villages. By creating this thing that might
be called a ‘“‘cultural abstraction’”—that is, an entity that is
more inclusive and on a higher plane of thinking than merely
looking at pottery, tools, baskets, and sandals from various
sub-cultures and stating that these are ‘‘different’’ and in-
dependently made—we are able to cut away the underbrush
of details and look at the Southwest as a homogeneous area
made up of traits many of which have a common origin.

On this homogeneous base, the four sub-cultures grew and
developed in various ways; but we can also see that the four
allied and more or less parallel developments were ‘“‘different”’
and yet attained a remarkable and uniform development
throughout the entire region. For example, the Southwest,
in contrast to the Plains area or the regions eastward toward
and beyond the Mississippi River, may be called a ‘“‘painted
pottery” area. We can note a tendency for parallel develop-
ment of the sequences of pottery designs throughout the area
and through time. By this I mean that the designs on the
painted pottery for the four sub-groups gradually shift from
early to late—from large simple bowls with broad-lined de-
signs, to finer-lined, more complex layouts and designs. Thus
we Can see in pottery, as well as in architecture, tools, baskets,
art forms and the like, a greater historical intimacy between
the four sub-cultures than between any or all of them and the
cultures of the Mississippi Valley. We can observe a general

25

cultural drift in Southwestern cultures similar to that which
can be observed and corroborated in linguistics.

In language there is drift; that is, language is constantly,
though slowly, changing and shifting according to certain pat-
terns and in a consistent direction. No language is ever static.
The rules for governing drift in Indo-European languages are
not the same as those for Asiatic or American Indian languages.
Under primitive conditions, we can guess that political groups
are small, and thus dialects arise. In time, these dialects and
people, perhaps, drift apart so much that there is differentia-
tion. Then dialects split up into sub-dialects. To illustrate
from Sapir, the great American linguist, it is fairly certain
that languages so little resembling one another as modern Irish,
English, Italian, Greek, Russian, Armenian, Persian, and Ben-
gali are but end-points of drifts that converge to a meeting
point in the far past. A very simple example of the tendency
for language to change may be seen in the modern phrase,
‘“‘who did you see?’’—instead of “‘whom did you see?”? Ina
few centuries or less ““whom’’ will be as obsolete as “‘thou.”’

This is a very brief and simplified explanation of a com-
plex phenomenon. But the point is that culture and all parts
of culture—that is, architecture, pottery, basketry, art forms,
social organization and language—drift according to certain
patterns and in a consistent direction of which the individual
culture-bearer is unaware.

The four sub-cultures of the Southwest—Anasazi, Hoho-
kam, Mogollon, Patayan—probably sprang from a common
base, as explained earlier, and have drifted somewhat apart
so that each looks different or unique, if you will. But actu-
ally, all of them are interrelated, just as, very roughly, modern
English and Armenian languages are related.

Thus the cultures of the Southwest may be thought of as
one large unit which can best be compared with other sub-
stantial units of culture history elsewhere in the world. Cul-
tural changes can be examined and their causes sought. This
larger concept of interrelationships or the co-tradition may be
useful, although we must not let it deter us from seeking the
particulars of some local culture or from trying to understand

26

the growth of culture in restricted areas; that is, one has to
have the detailed studies that contain many minutiae and
descriptions of bone and stone tools, pottery, basketry, houses,
and the like in order to form this wider concept. The com-
plete understanding of any culture—and here the Mogollon
in particular—requires that we use every available tool for
understanding human development; and we must travel every
pathway of exploration that we can find.

27

PURPOSES of WORK

in NEW MEXICO

WHY AND HOW WE DUG IN NEW MEXICO

We have spoken briefly of the origin of the American In-
dians and of when they came over to this country or to this
New World; now let us pause briefly to tell you a little bit
about the physical aspects of our work.

We chose to work in west central New Mexico, or the
Upper Gila area, located near Reserve, the county seat of
Catron County—a county that is almost as large as the state
of Massachusetts—because the Mogollon Indians who had
lived there presented rather an alluring history. Although
remains of these Indians had been discovered some five years
before we went into western New Mexico, very little work
had been done on the sites they had occupied. We spent
twelve summers there digging in sites of various types and
sizes, and then spent the winters working over the material
that we had dug up—analyzing it, sifting it, washing it and
thinking about it. We have now finished working in the area
and we wish to bring together for you the results of some of
our work and to tell you about some of the guesses we have
made concerning the Mogollon civilization.

28

HOW RUINS ARE FOUND

First let me tell you how our sites or villages are found, and
how we decide which ones should be chosen for digging.

When we move into a new area, the location of ancient
destroyed or collapsed villages is difficult for us to find. We
walk, we ride on horseback, we travel by car, we climb hills
and ridges, and descend into arroyos or gullies, and while we
are thus traversing the country up and down or horizontally
we are constantly examining the ground, looking for the evi-
dences of ancient villages. At first the Mogollon villages were
difficult for us to find, but after we had been there a little time
we learned that the early sites were usually up on almost un-
scalable mesas, or near springs that flowed high up in the
mountains, and that the later villages were usually lower
down, along ancient stream beds or near modern rivers. We
spent several seasons looking for sites, but we located some
185 ancient villages. For each one we made a record telling
of its location, so that we could go back to it again, and not-
ing the kind of pottery that was lying on the ground and the
kind of stone tools that were cast about. The earliest villages
or camp sites were the very hardest to find because they were
inhabited before pottery was made. Therefore, we had to
depend on other kinds of evidence for detecting these ancient
sites—broken stone tools of various kinds, an ancient hearth
or fireplace that had been exposed by recent erosion, or some-
times a shallow saucer-shaped depression from 12 to 18 feet
across. These saucer-shaped depressions were the remains of
pit-houses. The broken stone tools were milling stones (that is,
stones that were used for grinding up nuts, berries and corn);
pieces of spear points made of obsidian and quartz; large,
crudely flaked stones that were the axes or choppers of the
day; pestles; scrapers; and even mortars. But all these tools
were made of stone and all were necessary to a people who
were depending at that time more on wild plants than on ani-
mals for food. The later villages, usually located, as I said
earlier, near or on the floors of river valleys, can immediately
be spotted because they are piles of rocks in disorder. These
rocks represent compact villages of contiguous rooms, that is,
rooms that are wall to wall as they are in our modern apart-

29

Archaeologists washing and classifying small pieces of pottery (potsherds)
found in the dig.

30

ment buildings. There may be as few as three or four rooms in
the village or as many as 75 or 80. Scattered about these later
habitations we find pieces of pottery known to archaeologists
as potsherds, stone chips by the thousands strewn over several
acres, and many pieces of broken tools representing milling or
grinding tools, spear or arrow heads, choppers or axes, mor-
tars, pestles, knives, and drills.

These sites, both early and late, that I have described, lie
in the open, that is, right under the sky; but there is another
kind of site that is of equal interest to us. We devoted several
seasons to finding dry caves in which the Mogollon Indians
had lived at one time or another. I speak of dry caves because,
if a cave had been moist or wet at any time, all of the material
made of cloth, plants, or wood—baskets, sandals, throwing
sticks, bows and arrows, fur garments, or vegetable food re-
mains—would have disintegrated or rotted away. We were
lucky enough to find two dry caves and these we excavated.
A wealth of material came out of these caves! Our major finds
consisted of tools of bone and antler, objects of leather, of
string, pieces of matting, baskets, sandals, cigarettes, bows,
arrows, and other articles of substances usually considered
perishable but which here, because of the extraordinary dry-
ness in the caves, had been well preserved. After several years
of intensive analysis of our materials, and with the help of
other experts, we determined that one of these caves had been
inhabited more or less continuously for 2,000 or more years.

HOW WE CHOOSE A SITE TO DIG

Now that I have told you how sites are found and how they
look before the digging begins, I should explain how we choose
which to dig; for of course we cannot dig all of the habitations
or villages that we find.

Accessibility is one of the main factors in making a decision
about an ancient site. If we are not able to drive reasonably
close to our dig or if we are unable to construct a rough road
that will bring us close to it, we usually do not attempt exten-
sive excavations, for the simple reason that we may have to
carry all of our tools, our water, our lunches, the camera, the

31

Archaeologists mapping a great kiva with surveyors’ instruments.

photographic tower, and the like anywhere from two to four
miles up and down hills. Thus, ease of approach is a factor.

We try to select a site or several sites that look promising
and that will reveal the history of the Mogollon people at vari-
ous periods in their development. I shall have to anticipate
my conclusions and my dating, but I think it is safe to say that
the Pine Lawn area in west central New Mexico, where we

32

have been digging for the past fifteen years, was inhabited
somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 years. It was abandoned
about A.D. 1350 or 1400. Since we knew from our survey and
our card-records of the sites that we had a long span of
human habitation in the area, we knew in advance that we
should have to spend at least eight to twelve years digging in
that area. We started with the earliest sites, and since they
were so strange and since such as these had never before been
excavated, we spent several seasons digging from 26 to 30
pit-houses. These pit-houses had been roofed over by means
of pine logs which in turn had been covered with earth and
sod; thus a fairly comfortable house had been created, a house
that looked something like a gigantic ant hill.

Thus, in the twelve seasons we were there, we dug some
25 sites that represented from 4,000 to 5,000 years of history.
The earliest sites would date at around 3500 B.c. and the latest
at about A.p. 1350 to 1400.

Now, perhaps digging up “lost”? civilizations may sound
romantic, and in some ways it is exciting; but it is also com-
posed mostly of hard work in dust, under a hot sun, amid
swarms of insects, or it is carried on during showers of rain.
Digging in a cave is even worse. Dust and heat are oppressive,
and the wearing of masks and goggles—an uncomfortable and
trying experience—is absolutely necessary to give the work-
men protection from toxic dust.

Added to these discomforts is another—inadequate ventila-
tion. The caves that we excavated in 1950 and in 1951 are
small—about 40 feet deep by 30 feet wide at the mouth and
6 feet or less high. At the end of the day the workers looked
as if they had been digging in a coal mine.

CAMP ROUTINE

Perhaps a word concerning our daily routine would be of
interest. We leave camp about seven o’clock in a truck loaded
with tools and workmen. The site may be as much as fifty miles
away. Digging proceeds through the day unless rains are so
violent that we cannot continue. At the end of the day the
materials found are brought back to camp in sacks, each care-

33

fully marked with the exact location of the material it contains.
In an open site, as noted above, our finds consist mostly of
pottery or potsherds (if this site is late enough to produce

Archaeologists cataloging materials found in the dig.

pottery), tools of stone and bone, sometimes a skeleton or
two, and, rarely, a bit of treasure in the form of painted stones
used in ceremonies.

While work continues the next day at the dig, the specially
trained workers at the camp process the materials brought in
the preceding day. By “‘processing’”’ I mean that all the pot-
tery and potsherds are washed, sorted, classified and counted
according to types. The stone and bone tools are also washed,
classified and catalogued. At the end of a day the previous
day’s finds are completely taken care of. At the end of the
camp season, the sherds and the bone and stone tools are all
shipped back to the museum in Chicago. Then starts the long,
delicate task of studying these remains very carefully so that
we can come forth with conclusions about the life of these an-

34

cient people. Our conclusions are based always on facts, and
from them we can make many guesses. Our historical recon-
structions are founded on thousands of small details and bits
of materials that were excavated and have been recorded with
care; On common sense interpretations (a sharp, pointed,
slender bone tool with an eye was probably used for sewing;
charcoal found in a scooped-out pocket in the floor of an an-
cient house probably means that fire was maintained there by
man for one or more purposes); and on some assumptions.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

Thus we piece together our story—the history that I am
going to relate in this book. It is based on many long hours
of digging in dusty caves or in ruined houses that were built
in the open, and after that comes the patient analysis of the
meaning of all of these data. Since these people did not have
any writing, we must depend on the remains of animals and
plants, the architectural remains, bits of pottery, stone tools
and the like for our reconstructions. From such evidence we
can usually tell whether a given prehistoric people were hunters
and fishermen or whether they were farmers. Sometimes we
find that they hunted and gathered wild foods and farmed also.

The relationship of geography, climate and environment
to culture or to civilization is a very important one and one
that has to be studied with great care. One of the great advan-
tages of the research that we have undertaken—a study that
spans such a long period of time—is the opportunity it offers
us to examine the ways in which people worked out their
social needs and the ways in which they made a living. The
making of a living by the Mogollon Indians was a definite
adjustment to specific physical and biological conditions, based
on certain needs, capacities and values. The character of the
environment more or less influenced what these people could
do. The study of the relationship between man and his en-
vironment and the development of his civilization viewed from
these points gives us some idea of how much control man has
over forces external to himself. The economy of any com-
munity is necessarily the product of an adjustment between

35

man and his environment. You cannot expect the Eskimo,
living in his Arctic environment, to build houses of palm
thatch; nor could you expect the Indians of the Southwest to
build their houses of blocks of snow. These are very simple
illustrations of what I mean. Let us look briefly at the en-
vironment and climate of the territory in which the Mogollon
Indians lived for such a long period of time.

THE MOGOLLON HOMELAND

About 4,500 to 5,000 years ago the climate in the Pine
Lawn area of west central New Mexico began slowly to change.
For some three or four thousand years the region had been
very warm and dry, but about 3000 to 2500 B.c. the climate
became relatively cool and moist. When I say relatively cool
and moist I mean compared to the previous period of some
three thousand years. Even today the region is not blessed
with a superabundance of moisture; for example, the rainfall
in the Pine Lawn valley today is about 14 inches per year,
whereas the average annual precipitation in the Chicago area
is about 33 inches per year. Nevertheless, in spite of this rela-
tively dry country, the Mogollon Indians flourished for a long
time.

About 4,500 years ago a band or two of these Indians left
their homes in the southern part of the area, which was grad-
ually drying up, and moved northward. We do not think the
early Mogollon nomads were given to straying here and there,
or that they were driven out by other stronger Indians, or that
they were filled with a desire to explore and seek new lands and
fortunes. They were probably forced to depart from their
homeland by the shrinking of the lakes and rivers near which
they and their ancestors had lived for thousands of years.
They may have dispersed in several directions, but certainly
a handful—perhaps a hundred or more—discovered Pine
Lawn valley. So far as we know, they were the first settlers
of the valley, and from their simple way of life grew a culture
that lasted many centuries and probably had important effects
on neighboring peoples.

Once arrived at this pleasant valley that hugs the Arizona
border in west central New Mexico, the Mogollon people

36

Interior of Tularosa Cave, looking from the trench
toward the entrance

Excavating a “mummy”’ in Tularosa Cave
(about a.p. 500)

37

camped along the banks of a streamlet that issued from a
spring high up in the nearby mountains. ‘The spring still
flows. Living near a mountain stream must have been pleas-
ant in many ways because the water was always at hand for
domestic purposes, it sustained many usable rushes and edible
plants, and it provided drinking places for deer, wild pig, bear,
rabbits and other animals of the chase.

Geographically, the Mogollon homeland is among the
roughest, most mountainous countries of the Southwest. In
general, one might say that it lies south of the province of Colo-
rado plateaus and is situated in what geographers call the
Mexican Highlands section of the Basin and Range province.
In this area there are several great mountain ranges—the
White Mountains, the San Francisco Mountains, the Blue
Mountains, and the Tularosa Mountains. The Little Colo-
rado Plateau area, which lies north of this region, drains
northwestward toward the Little Colorado River. The
Mogollon area, which lies south of this, drains southwest
entirely, into the Gila—Salt River system of rivers. Briefly,
the terrain of the Mogollon country may be called the most
cut-up area in the Southwest. It is probably also the best
watered. Naturally, climate and vegetation and rainfall all
vary according to the range in elevation. Farther south of

the Mogollon area, in the desert, rainfall of course is very.

scanty. On the higher elevations, anywhere from 6,000 to
8,000 feet, grasslands are abundant and on the mountains are
forests of pinyon, juniper, oak, pine, spruce, and Douglas fir.
In spite of its great natural beauty and rugged character, the
Mogollon area is not suitable for large-scale agriculture be-
cause the valleys are narrow and steep. ‘The villages probably
were concentrated where these valleys open out into broader,
alluvial flats. One other feature should be pointed out, and
that is that the valleys and canyons are somewhat cut off from
one another and therefore make for isolation and correspond-
ing development of sub-cultures within this area. We do not
expect to find uniformity of cultural development in such a
cut-up or dissected region. ‘The people tended to move up
and down the narrow valleys or streams and were probably
shut off from contacts with other tribes by the high mountain

38

a

masses. It might be of general interest to note that this unin-
habited and inhospitable territory was crossed in 1539 by a
Spanish leader, the Mareos de Nisa, and later by Coronado,
who discovered or was told about the village of Zuni, which
still exists.

AY SS
Ng

*
}

Screening dirt from Tularosa Cave to recover household goods, tools,
clothing and food left by Mogollon Indians during 1500 to 2000 years
of occupation.

Geologically, the region is composed of igneous formations
of great variety. Cappings of extrusive basalt or lava that
flowed out of nearby volcanoes cover all the earlier, softer
rocks. On some of the plateaus large areas are covered with
soil that lies fairly deep because of constant additions from
what one might call temporary lakes. In the spring these
areas are marshes. If there were more rainfall, many of these
basins of the plateau country would be lakes.

GULTURAL ECOLOGY

The mineral resources of the area furnished a very abun-
dant supply of rocks which were useful to the Indians in

39

making tools and building fireplaces and houses. Further-
more, iron ores such as hematite and limonite were fairly
abundant and these were used for paint in painting pottery,
perhaps painting the human body in dances, and certainly in
painting some ceremonial objects. Copper may be present,
although I do not know this. In all the years that we have
been digging and in all the thousands of cubic yards of dirt
that we have moved, we have found only two copper speci-
mens—a copper bell probably made in Mexico and imported
to our area, and a copper object that may represent an animal.

Vegetable material was extremely abundant. The ever-
green trees—pinyons and pines—furnished timber for building,
that is, for roof logs and for bows; the oaks furnished firewood,
and wood for clubs, for digging-sticks, and throwing-sticks;
and some of the softer woods, like cottonwood, may have been
used for making prayer-sticks. Shrubs and plants were
plentiful, and were used for making basketry, mats, and
sandals. Reeds were used for arrow-shafts, ceremonial offer-
ings and flutes. Later on, corn, beans, squash, and gourds
were grown, as well as cotton. Tobacco grew wild in the
area and was smoked. The wild plants furnished a large
proportion of the daily diet and in early times perhaps the
greater part—walnuts, pinyon nuts, acorns, seeds of grass,
yucca fruits, cactus fruits, wild gooseberries, wild grapes, and
juniper berries. The fleshy leaves of the agave furnished
a sweet nourishment. Numerous roots were also used for
food. Thus, the natural environment supplied the Mogollon
Indians with fibers for weaving textiles; with food; with
narcotics, perhaps, from the Datura (jimson weed), specimens
of which we have found in our early ruins; medicine; and
probably vegetable dyes.

Thus I hope that it will be clear to the reader that there is
a very direct relationship between geography, geology, cli-
mate and rainfall—environment, that is, mountains, canyons,
river valleys, and deserts—and culture or civilization. With-
out all the plants mentioned in the last paragraph, the early
dwellers in these areas would have had tough going. Nature,
however, kindly provided a fair amount of rainfall, some
permanent streams, narrow stream valleys or sometimes wider

40

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tl \\\ ee Hn 27 Tae a ie
dy", ))) Z an
ROY IN yw 2 ay unre Ann Al yy nau
nts M\ 1 wale Mth “HIN TH is

41

alluvial plains, a moderate climate that was not too cold or
too hot, and an ample supply of wild game and natural
products.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Up to this point we have emphasized tools of stone and
bone, typical remains, equipment of various kinds, houses,
caves, and the like; but we haven’t said much about symbols,
patterns of conduct and organization of knowledge, and we
usually take for granted man’s greatest invention—language.
Without it, no civilization would be possible.

It is now thought that language developed before man
began to make or shape tools. It is conjectured that man
must have developed a complex brain, symbols such as
language and art, and a fair degree of insight at an earlier
period than he developed tools. Unless man can talk he
cannot think; and unless he thought about these things, it is
probable that he could not have created inventions such as
agriculture, or improved his breeds of plants, pottery, house-
building, irrigation, and the like. This, then, is the big dif-
ference between man and the lower animals.

As has been pointed out by different writers, we must
realize that although technical skills and social organization
are important in man’s development, the really “Shuman”
traits are language and thought and man’s capacity for making
use of his inventions—fire, tools, houses and the like—not
only for his daily comfort and existence but for the creation
of much greater things, such as art, religion, and necessary
abstractions, and for the creation of individuals who stand out
from the mass. One of man’s greatest concerns, probably
from time immemorial, has been with life after death, religion,
the control of the supernatural—the control of forces greater
than himself. We cannot understand the great pyramids of
Mexico, the irrigation works of the ancient Hohokam Indians
in southern Arizona, or the long, exhausting rituals of the
Pueblo Indians without realizing that some of the greatest
efforts of man have been used for expressing his feelings
toward life and death. One might think that man would
have spent his greatest efforts in creating better baskets and

42

Miscellaneous fragments of pottery. Left row: Development of design
called “‘lines and solids’ from early red on buff ware (top, A.p. 700) to
late black on white ware (bottom, a.p. 1000). Right row: Development

;

to ‘“‘negative lightning”’ (top,
A.D. 700; bottom, A.p. 1000).

of design called ‘‘opposed saw-tooth lines’

43

pots, but that does not seem to have been the case. Certainly,
his attitude was more spiritual and probably more realistic
than our own present philosophy. I spoke earlier of the fact
that sometimes archaeologists do not concentrate enough on
patterns of conduct, organization of knowledge and social
patterns of ancient peoples; and you may think that it is im-
possible to learn anything about these abstractions because
they seem to have vanished as completely as perishable ma-
terials such as sandals and baskets. But I shall have some
conjectures to make, even about these abstract subjects, later
on in this book.

But let us return for the moment to more concrete matters
and to our own excavations in New Mexico. What did we
know about the Mogollon Indians and what did we think of
them prior to our excavations? We knew practically nothing
about them. Their existence had been pointed out by an
archaeologist some five years before we started our work; but
aside from his two excellent reports we had very little to go on.

CAUSES OF CULTURE CHANGE

We did have some general theories on which we felt we
could depend and one of them is concerned with the ways in
which cultures probably change. A brief statement may be
of use. Cultures change, among other ways, by addition or
loss of traits or—perhaps better stated—by replacement of
traits. For example, the bow and arrow eventually replaced
the spear thrower.

Replacements come about by (1) internal changes in the
culture, that is, by “‘drift’?; and (2) by contact and subsequent
borrowing. Further reference to “drift”? will be found in the
last chapter, but here I may say that the term is taken over
from a concept in linguistics. In language one can find a
changing pattern that is brought about by invisible, imper-
sonal, non-conscious influences. Drift is part of the life of lan-
guage, a force that keeps it vital. In brief, language varies in
time and space.

We have reason to believe that customs, artifacts, and ar-
chitecture also change according to a non-conscious pattern.

44

Even cultures that are locked up in pockets of mountains and
thus are remote and fairly isolated from contact with other
cultures change, albeit more slowly. But change they do and
according to a fairly well-established pattern. Thus without
outside stimuli and contacts with other cultures, drift will occur.

The second mode of acquiring new traits that may replace
well-established ones is by means of stimulations from the out-
side, by borrowing, by trade, and by wars.

In our own area we know that certain elements of culture,
or traits, existed at or about 3500 B.c. and that later other
changes could be recognized. After much digging and think-
ing we found out that a series of minor changes often added
up to something that was major and that would be discernible
in our records. Day-by-day changes, or even year-by-year
alterations in the lives of these ancient people would hardly
be discernible or recognizable in the dirt that we were throw-
ing out of the pit-houses and caves. But when, as we dug from
one level to another in a cave, we found that the people had
had a certain kind of implement called the spear-thrower and
that gradually it had been displaced by a bow and arrow, and
that there had been other changes such as differences in styles
of sandals, we had what might be called stimulations from
outside. We feel thoroughly sure that none of these things
were invented in our Pine Lawn area—that they were brought
in from the outside by trade, by contact, or by some other
means. Simply put, this means that we found definite changes
in the levels of our caves or in early houses when we compared
them with late ones; but we assumed that these were the re-
sults of gradual accumulations or cumulative episodes that
finally mounted up into a major change of some kind or an-
other. Certainly, when the people took up agriculture and
depended less on gathering wild foods, roots and nuts, and
less on hunting, there was a definite “‘culture change.” It
seems fairly obvious that when agriculture was introduced and
accepted, other changes must have taken place in the culture
at about the same time. What would such changes have been?
First, probably, permanent villages would now have been pos-
sible and would have come into being, and, in fact, did so;
second, the peoples living in certain areas and growing crops

45

would have felt vested rights—property rights—in certain fer-
tile, well-watered lands; and, third, some leisure time would
have been available. With the creation of more leisure, life
would have become easier and it would have been possible
now for certain people to spend time on pursuits other than
hunting for food; and thus we have the atmosphere ready for
the advent of inventors, for inventions cannot be created with-
out leisure time.

AGRICULTURE AND THE DIGGING STICK

We can hail the introduction of agriculture into the Mogol-
lon area as a great step forward because the domestication and
use of “‘tamed”’ plants is one of man’s most important contribu-
tions and inventions. A great deal of cunning and devotion
went into domestication of plants, and perhaps the cultivation
of primitive domesticated corn was successful among the
Mogollon Indians because they possessed an understanding
of the biological processes of the wild plants that grew in the
area and had unwittingly made many observations concern-
ing them; and perhaps they even knew a little bit about
hybridization. This, it seems to me, is as important a dis-
covery as the digging stick, but archaeologists tend, in de-
scribing ancient cultures, to stress the digging stick and not
think much of its meaning. What stands back of a digging
stick? Centuries and centuries of observation and patient
nurturing of plants so that finally a plant such as maize or
corn (that comes from South America or Mexico) could be
domesticated.

You may well ask at this point, ‘‘What is the purpose of
archaeological work and of all this sweat and digging?” Far-
ther on in this book I shall devote a chapter to the goals and
aims of archaeology; but here let me briefly say that we hope
by studying the ancient civilizations that now are dead that
we may contribute to studies which will throw light on con-
temporary and future events in our own civilization. It may
well be that if we can learn enough about man’s past and his
development we may make more vital advances and discov-
eries tomorrow than any that have yet been achieved.

46

Divisions of Mogollon

CULTURE and CHRONOLOGY

Now I should like to tell you bit by bit and era by era,
something of the Mogollon civilization as it grew from very
lowly and primitive beginnings and moved on to other areas.

The Mogollon Culture has been arbitrarily divided into a
number of phases or periods.

Each phase or period of time indicates a more or less stable
continuum and an assemblage (collection or group) of traits
that remained comparatively the same from the beginning to
the end of the phase. For example, one might find in the
X Phase the following cluster of characteristics or traits: (1)
projectile points for spears; (2) tools for grinding nuts and
berries into a paste; (3) choppers or axes of stone that were
not hafted (handled) but were held in the hand—thus called
hand-choppers; (4) scrapers of stone for dressing hides; (5)
hearths, square or round; and (6) mortars and pestles. Note
that there is no mention of pottery, houses, or agricul-
ture in this list of traits. One would expect to find most or

47

MOGOLLON COUNTRY NEAR PINE LAWN, NEW MEXICO

all of these traits in the X Phase wherever one encounters a
site of this phase within a limited area.

When one digs a site that contains those six items plus the
presence of pottery and pit-houses, then one arbitrarily creates
another phase—the Y Phase, for example.

This arbitrary device of creating periods certainly corre-
sponds to nothing the Indians would have recognized, but it
does help the archaeologist to mark off changes and advances.
The names that are chosen for the phases are usually taken
from some local feature—the name of a ranch, a nearby moun-
tain peak, a river, or a modern town.

Changes or innovations such as pottery-making or farming
were probably adopted slowly, with no thought of the effects
the changes would have on the future of the individuals in
the group. In our own day, we have seen that automobiles
have replaced the horse and buggy, but I feel certain that our
immediate predecessors had no idea of the profound effects
that autos have produced fifty years later.

Hence we might speak of the horse and buggy, the automobile,
and the atomic energy phases. Such historical divisions as these
are arbitrary, but they are meaningful in that they help us
to differentiate one time in our history from another. They

48

WY 1 in BS
WT VZZAA

Animal pendant of stone
(about A.p. 200).

Storage basket woven of yucca leaves on foundations of bundles of grass;
found in earliest layers of Tularosa Cave (about 300 B.c.).

49

help us classify and interpret great masses of unrelated
facts.

A phase, then, represents a stage in the development of
culture that occurs in a particular area at a specific period
of time.

To put the matter in another way, we might think of the
Cochise-Mogollon development as a long straight line that
represents a continuous history of about 4,000 years in length.
This line (or history) has been chopped up into a number of
segments that are determined by significant changes in the
assemblage of traits. Some are about a thousand years long
and some only one or two hundred years long. Each segment,
for convenience in classification, has been named.

The names of the various Cochise-Mogollon phases or
periods along with their approximate dates are given below.

Sulphur Springs Period (a Cochise manifestation not yet found in
Pine Lawn Valley, New Mexico), about 5000 to 2500 B.c.

Chiricahua Period (a Cochise complex that we did find in Pine Lawn
Valley), about 2500 to 300 B.c.

Pine Lawn Period, 300 B.c. to A.p. 500.

Georgetown Period, A.p. 500 to 700.

San Francisco Period, A.p. 700 to 900.

Three Circle Period, A.p. 900 to 1000.

Reserve Period, A.p. 1000 to 1100.

Tularosa Period, A.p. 1100 to 1200.

Foote Canyon Period, a.p. 1200 to 1350.

I shall not refer to these periods very often, nor shall I
describe the cultural assemblage of traits for each one! In
treating the growth and development of the culture of the
Mogollon Indians, I shall lump together the details of two or
three periods and make note only of major changes in the
culture. a

To convert our archaeological information into culture
history, we must have a time perspective—a viewpoint that
will enable us to state which ruin or site is the oldest and
which the youngest. We may develop a chronology that is
only relative—a time reckoning that tells us the age of a par-
ticular site in relation to others; or we may, if fortunate, be
able to establish an absolute chronology that will give us a date
in terms of our calendar.

50

It might be of interest, however, to state briefly how the
actual dates were assigned to the above periods.

There are several methods that are used for obtaining
these dates in the Southwest; and sometimes, with luck, one or
more methods may be combined.

One method of establishing relative chronology is by
means of stratigraphy, which is the study of the position and

Bracelets made from shell imported by trade from Gulf of California.
Left one, about a.p. 200; right one, about A.p. 1200.

order of the archaeological layers—rubbish, remains of build-
ings, or layers of occupation (p. 41). Generally speaking, we
may say the oldest remains are at the bottom of the debris,
and the youngest, the latest, on the top. If the remains of
cultures of different sorts are found in each of four separate
layers, it is then possible to establish a relative chronology for
the four cultures.

When we can establish a chronological correlation of
several ancient villages or camp sites or of two or more

51

stratigraphic sequences in a restricted area we speak of this
as cross-dating. Cross-dating is accomplished by comparing
types of similar or nearly identical objects. To illustrate
cross-dating I may cite two examples: (1) If we find projectile
points and fragments of pottery of the same type in sites
A and B we assume that the two sites are contemporaneous
because we think that peoples of a restricted area would
probably share a number of distinctive traits. Even in our
own Culture today a small town in Illinois is not very different
from its counterpart in Arizona. (2) We get more satisfactory
cross-dating if we find tools or ornaments from a dated site
in an undated site. Such objects are called trade pieces be-
cause we assume that they reached the undated site as a
result of trade.

Very ancient sites are sometimes dated by means of their
association with old lake beaches or alluvial deposits formed
during or shortly after the last glacial period; but climatic
changes yield only approximate dates and are obtained only
with the aid of competent geologists, paleontologists, and
paleobotanists.

Perhaps one of the most amazing methods of obtaining an
exact date for many of the ruins of the Southwest is by the
use of tree rings. This means of dating is called dendrochro-
nology. For details on this subject the reader is referred to
the Bibliography (Douglass, 1929). Briefly, tree-ring dat-
ing may be defined as a system of establishing an absolute
chronology by counting the rings found in the logs of trees,
especially those of pine, Douglas fir, and pinyon. The system
is based on the fact that trees are responsive to seasonal
changes, to rainfall, and to drought. In years of considerable
rainfall the rings are wide; in dry years they are narrow. In
counting and studying the rings, one finds certain patterns
of wet and dry years (wide and narrow rings) which are not
usually duplicated. One counts the rings and notes the
sequence thereof in an old living pine tree perhaps 500 years
old. Then if we find another log (from the roof of an early
Spanish mission or an early historic pueblo) we can correlate
the outer rings of this roof beam with the inner rings of the
living pine tree. Cross-dating is carried on from log to log

52

until early prehistoric times have been reached. A graph of
the pattern of wet and dry years is then made up. It is based
on many tree records in order to exclude errors. This is used
for rendering the year in which the roof beams of a particular
village were cut. At present the tree-ring calendar extends
back to about 59 B.c.

An absolute chronology can also be established by using
the radiocarbon method of dating, which determines the age of
organic archaeological materials by measuring the amount
of carbon 14 they contain. All living matter contains radio-
active carbon (carbon 14). When a plant or an animal dies,
it ceases to absorb carbon 14, but the radioactive element
gradually decays at a constant and known rate. The number
of years that have elapsed since the death of the organism is
determined by measuring the degree to which the carbon 14
has decayed. At the present time, our limit of determination
of ancient specimens made of wood, bone, fibers, leather, or
other parts of animals or plants is about 40,000 years.

All of these methods have been used to establish Mogollon
chronology. Some of the dates are estimated and some are
fairly exact, but even the latter may be in error by a hundred
years or more. Even so, these dates are exact enough for our
purposes. Certainly, fifty years ago, such computation would
have been impossible because the various scientific tools had
not been created.

SOURCE OF SOME MOGOLLON TRAITS

Recent information concerning agriculture and pottery,
especially, and perhaps concerning other traits too, leads us
to believe that many Mogollon characteristics came from
Mexico. We shall be more certain of the verity of these
assumptions in a few years. At present, we can only state
that the various Southwestern civilizations referred to in an
earlier chapter—the Hohokam, the Anasazi, the Patayan, and
the Mogollon—were all interrelated.

Twenty-five years ago, we were impressed mostly with the
differences between the four cultures. Now, as a result of dig-
ging, comparing, studying, arguing, and dating, we can see

53

the relationship. For example, as the result of a recent re-
search project at this Museum covering over 6,000 pottery
fragments and hundreds of whole pots, we can make fairly
definite statements about the designs on painted pottery in
the Southwest from about a.p. 500 to 1300. Although types
of pottery from various areas—Snaketown in southern Ari-
zona, Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado, Chaco Canyon
in north central New Mexico, Flagstaff in Arizona, and the
Pine Lawn-Reserve area in west central New Mexico—can
easily be differentiated, similar designs occur in these areas at
about the same times and serve to tie the areas together de-
velopmentally. One finds on early painted pottery through-
out the Southwest in the same century, an abundance of sim-
ple geometric designs of lines and solid figures; in later times,
in the same century, the pottery shows a progression to more
complicated designs with hatched and solid figures and com-
binations of many elements.

Pottery designs showing such synchronous or simultaneous
changes throughout the Southwest are sometimes called “‘hori-
zon styles.’ This term implies the frequent use of a distinctive
design element such as simple geometric designs of broad lines
or the use of realistic portrayals of animals or human figures
at a given time period (for example, from a.p. 700 to 900)
throughout the Southwest. ‘‘Horizon’’ in this sense, then, re-
fers to a specific time period and to a wide horizon or area.
Thus, horizon styles help to interrelate regions and to link
together several cultures. The cultures may be and often are
diverse, but the same specific and distinctive designs on the
pots throughout the area may be the result of diffusion and
trade, the spread of a religious cult, or the actual intermixture
of peoples.

Out of the study that produced the knowledge of horizon
styles in the Southwest, and other related researches, we have
evolved another abstract idea that we call the “‘co-tradition”’ of
the Southwest. This unwieldy term simply means that the
various Civilizations and traditions of the Southwest have par-
allel and allied developments and that all of them underwent
rather uniform growth and ultimately reached a similar stage
of development. That is to say that all of the Southwestern

54

cultures at one time built pit-houses, practiced agriculture,
made distinctive pottery, and shared many other religious and
everyday features; but it does not imply that all of them pos-
sessed the total assemblage of Southwestern traits. The Hoho-
kam Indians, for example, lived in pit-houses, but, so far as we
now know, did not ever live in cellular or multi-roomed apart-
ment houses on top of the ground as did the Anasazi and the
Mogollon Indians.

What the co-tradition really means is that the Southwest
should be considered as a whole, a cultural sphere, composed
of many related parts. Each civilization within its borders is
not a unique expression of culture, but each is related to the
others in a greater or less degree.

A LONG UNBROKREN HISTORY

Before closing this chapter, I shall describe briefly the rela-
tionship of the Mogollon and other Southwestern cultures to
the greater Southwest or Desert cultures and touch briefly on
possible linguistic affiliations and time perspectives.

According to the most recent studies, the ancestors of the
founders of the Hohokam, Mogollon, Anasazi, and Patayan
civilizations shared a culture or a way of life with many other
Indians inhabiting the Intermontane area between the
Rockies and the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. This ter-
ritory includes parts or all of the states of Washington, Oregon,
Montana, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyo-
ming, Arizona, and New Mexico, and western Texas and
much of northern Mexico. This great Desert Culture area
was probably one of the first to be inhabited by man, as the
Carbon 14 dates for some sites take us back at least to 10,000
B.c. Many of the Cochise and early Mogollon traits are sim-
ilar to if not identical with corresponding items in the Desert
Culture of Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, and the other desert
states. ‘Thus, the local specializations of Cochise-Mogollon,
Hohokam, and Anasazi arose from this unique and _ basic
Desert Culture.

It is interesting to note that this geographical area was
inhabited not only by a people (perhaps all related) who

aye)

shared a common culture, but in early historic times (Spanish
conquest, about A.D. 1600) was likewise the homeland of a
people who spoke from ten to twenty different dialects, all of
which are related and grouped under the heading of Uto-
Aztekan linguistic stock.

We may say then that most of the Intermontane area lying
between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains was inhab-
ited (at about a.p. 1600) by Uto-Aztekan-speaking peoples.

I shall abridge the ideas set forth in a recent hypothesis
concerning the relationship of archaeology, ethnology, linguis-
tics, and physical anthropology of the Uto-Aztekan peoples
who were spread over the west from Idaho to Mexico City.
A few reasonable assumptions were made in this study. One
was that physical type, language, and general culture patterns
are generally more stable and enduring than are material
objects such as pottery or houses, for example. Another was
that the Intermontane area has been occupied by the Uto-
Aztekan-speaking peoples for at least 3000 years and perhaps
much longer. If the Intermontane area was not completely
peopled by Uto-Aztekan peoples, we can guess with more
certainty that a nucleus of them was concentrated in the up-
per Gila and upper Little Colorado rivers in New Mexico and
Arizona. This last guess is backed up by a preliminary study
of comparative linguistics, and from this a dating has been
arrived at by the study of the changes in basic vocabulary (see
in Bibliography, Dating by Words, by Martin, for explanation
of how this is done). The locale was established by the fact
that certain words, such as “‘pine tree’ and “‘juniper tree,”
indicate an intermediate altitude zone such as might be found
in mountainous areas of the upper Gila River drainage.

Thus, we see how the weight of careful research can bear
on particular problems and how some answers can be tenta-
tively reached or guessed at.

56

Rope Snares. Upper corner: a bundle of six just as found. Remainder:
snares from a second bundle, opened to show size and workmanship.
From earliest level in Tularosa Cave (about 300 B.c. or earlier).

Ds

The TIME of

Limited WANDERING

About 6000 sB.c. To 500 B.c.

This section will describe various aspects of the daily life
of the Mogollon Indians from the earliest times to a.p. 1350,
at which time they abandoned forever a most attractive area.

In presenting my tale, I shall draw on materials from the
excavations that we have made and on modern counterparts
or similarities in the cultures of present-day Southwestern In-
dians. I shall also present some guesses, hypotheses, or inter-
pretations based on these data and I shall label them as con-
jectures or shall qualify their status by the use of such adverbs
as probably, likely, and presumably.

I shall gather together several millennia or centuries in my
descriptions and treat such parcels as units without going into
a mass of detail for every historical period that has been set
up. These parcels or groupings are chosen partly for conven-
ience and partly because each contains significant innovations
or shifts in the cultural pattern.

58

MAKING A LIVING

The problem of obtaining food confronted the early Co-
chise-Mogollon Indians as it always has and always will
confront all peoples.

These Indians solved the problem more or less successfully
in a number of ways, but, so far as we can now tell, with little
or no aid from the practice of agriculture. The idea of plant-
ing and tending certain favorite seed-yielding plants was prob-
ably not novel to them. Corn, the plant that later became so
important in their lives, was probably introduced to the Mog-
ollon Indians between 4000 and 2000 B.c. At first, it may
have been regarded as a mere addition to their diet of seeds.
Apparently, it took some time for them to recognize the great
merit of corn-growing.

In the main, then, we regard this era as one in which col-
lecting wild edible foods was the principal way of making a
living, although the Indians also did some hunting. The foods
most commonly eaten were pinyon nuts, walnuts, acorns, grass
seeds, gourds, yucca fruits, cactus, gooseberries, and agave.

The population was probably not sedentary, but moved
about in a fairly restricted area from one gathering ground to
another, intensively exploiting the environment as thoroughly
as possible. Reliance was not placed on a crop or on any sin-
gle resource but was put rather on adapting their appetites to
all the local plants, insects, small mammals, and birds. The
seeds harvested were ground into flour and were cooked as
mush or were parched. Products of other plants were either
eaten raw or were boiled in baskets (no pottery); game may
have been roasted. There was probably no big-game hunt-
ing.

TOOLS

The tool inventory for this period (6000 to 500 B.c.) is
fairly extensive for a non-sedentary folk and consisted of flat
or basin-type milling-grinding stones; pestles; knives and chop-
pers made by the percussion method that produced large
flakes, cores, and spalls; the tumpline for carrying burdens;

oF

Earliest ceremonial room (Great Kiva) in Reserve—Pine Lawn area; fire
hearth and storage pits in center; purpose of groove in floor not known
(about 300 B.c. to A.D. 200).

Cross section of Mogollon pit-house shown on opposite page.

60

Early Mogollon pit-house in process of excavation. Burial in left floor-
pit; storage floor-pits in foreground; tunnel entrance at top
(about 300 B.c. to a.p. 200).

61

Earliest undecorated Mogollon pottery from pit-houses
(about 300 B.c. to A.D. 200).

Bone awls. Upper two, about a.p. 100; lower one, about a.p. 1200.

64

basket. This manner of cooking food is sometimes known as
‘stone boiling.” If the boiling subsided and the food was not
done, the cool stones would be removed and hot ones sub-
stituted.

UTILIZATION AND PROCESSING OF RAW MATERIALS

Tools were manufactured principally from stone, wood,
and bone. The preferred kinds of stone were basalt, andesite,
and quartzite, all tough materials. From these were made
hand choppers, hammerstones, and rubbing and abrading
stones. There were no hafted axes at this time. Projectile
points, blades, knives, scrapers and other pressure-chipped
implements were produced from flint, chalcedony, and ob-
sidian. Milling stones (metates) and manos and mortars and
pestles were made from igneous rocks such as rhyolite and
trachyte. Various woods, such as oak, pine, willow, and
mountain mahogany, were utilized for making spear-throwers,
darts or spears, bunts, digging sticks, fire drills and hearths,
‘*trowels,” scoops, ladles, awls, and weaving tools. Bows and
arrows were not known to these people at this time.

Awls, flakers, fleshers, wrenches and beads came from the
bones of deer and antelope.

Basketry is the sole container that has been preserved for
us from the period before the advent of pottery. If boxes or
bark buckets were known to these Indians, none have survived.
It seems safe to assume that basketry was an important item
in the household. A basket, if smeared with pitch, would have
served as a water container; if it had been partly filled with
water, red-hot stones and meat or ground-up seeds, it would
have served as a cooking vessel (a fireless cooker). Baskets
could also have been used for storing foods, for gathering
seeds, nuts, and berries, and for transporting loads. The ma-
terials for basket-making consisted of woody shoots, grasses,
yucca leaves, and sotol.

Blankets were made of rabbit fur cut up into strips and
woven together by twining. Wickerwork sandals were woven
from yucca leaves, and string aprons and sashes were made
from vegetable fibers or animal hair. We do not know that

65

Earliest undecorated Mogollon pottery from pit-houses
(about 300 B.c. to A.D. 200).

Bone awls. Upper two, about a.p. 100; lower one, about a.p. 1200.

64

basket. This manner of cooking food is sometimes known as
‘stone boiling.’ If the boiling subsided and the food was not
done, the cool stones would be removed and hot ones sub-
stituted.

UTILIZATION AND PROCESSING OF RAW MATERIALS

Tools were manufactured principally from stone, wood,
and bone. The preferred kinds of stone were basalt, andesite,
and quartzite, all tough materials. From these were made
hand choppers, hammerstones, and rubbing and abrading
stones. There were no hafted axes at this time. Projectile
points, blades, knives, scrapers and other pressure-chipped
implements were produced from flint, chalcedony, and ob-
sidian. Milling stones (metates) and manos and mortars and
pestles were made from igneous rocks such as rhyolite and
trachyte. Various woods, such as oak, pine, willow, and
mountain mahogany, were utilized for making spear-throwers,
darts or spears, bunts, digging sticks, fire drills and hearths,
**trowels,”’ scoops, ladles, awls, and weaving tools. Bows and
arrows were not known to these people at this time.

Awls, flakers, fleshers, wrenches and beads came from the
bones of deer and antelope.

Basketry is the sole container that has been preserved for
us from the period before the advent of pottery. If boxes or
bark buckets were known to these Indians, none have survived.
It seems safe to assume that basketry was an important item
in the household. A basket, if smeared with pitch, would have
served as a water container; if it had been partly filled with
water, red-hot stones and meat or ground-up seeds, it would
have served as a cooking vessel (a fireless cooker). Baskets
could also have been used for storing foods, for gathering
seeds, nuts, and berries, and for transporting loads. The ma-
terials for basket-making consisted of woody shoots, grasses,
yucca leaves, and sotol.

Blankets were made of rabbit fur cut up into strips and
woven together by twining. Wickerwork sandals were woven
from yucca leaves, and string aprons and sashes were made
from vegetable fibers or animal hair. We do not know that

65

Projectile points. ‘Two at /eft date from about a.p. 1000; two at right,
100 n.c. In center is modern hafted projectile point to illustrate method
probably used by Mogollon Indians to haft their points.

Choppers and tobacco pipe of stone. Left, chopper (about A.p. 1000);
right, chopper (about 300 B.c.); pipe, about a.p. 200.

66

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age Sie
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AP eas

TULAROSA CAVE (MIDDLE FOREGROUND), NEW MEXICO
Photograph taken from across canyon

67

cloth was woven at this time. Cradles or “‘nests’? were
made from sotol leaves; matting, from yucca rushes; burden
straps, or tumplines, from bear grass and cords of hard vege-
table fibers. Cordage, carrying nets, and snares for catching
small mammals were spun and woven from vegetable fibers of
yucca or other plants. Shell bracelets were made from shells
obtained from the Gulf of California, probably by trade.

This brief summary will indicate how well adapted the
people were to their environment and how well they used
almost every plant for particular needs, and how well the ani-
mal bones and available rocks were used for making tools of
all sorts.

DIVISION OF LABOR

On the basis of our knowledge of modern Indians, we as-
sume that the women gathered the wild foods and plants,
fetched the water, prepared and cooked the meals, served the
food and did the sewing. The food was served in large wild
gourds split in half, or in baskets. ‘The sewing was done with
sinew thread and bone needles.

The men hunted and set the snares, wove baskets, scraped
and prepared skins for clothing, and manufactured all tools
and ornaments.

HOUSES AND HOME LIFE

Actually very little can be said about this subject. Pres-
ent evidence indicates that houses were unknown during this
period or at least during the earliest part of it.

Caves, rock shelters, and overhangs were probably the
favorite locations for settlements. In these, along with the
tools and household goods, have been found bark or grass beds.

It is barely possible that skin shelters or tents were known
and used. It is also possible that crude windbreaks of twigs
and boughs were utilized for very cool or rainy weather, but
the perishable nature of such constructions precludes our find-
ing them now. Thus, evidence on this point may never be
found.

68

We suspect that the social organization of these people was
similar to that of present day food-gathering tribes, in which
inheritance and descent are through both the father-line and
the mother-line. The mother, father and children of these
ancient people lived together and probably constituted a unit
that we call a nuclear family.

PREPARATIONS FOR RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES

Little can be said with certainty on this subject. We guess
that these Indians held some sort of religious beliefs, but proof
is lacking. Evidence for our guess comes from a few objects
that appear to have had no practical reason for existence and
resemble ceremonial objects of later stages.

These objects are incised sticks; prayer-sticks used perhaps
for wafting prayers heavenward to the gods; pieces of raw
mineral paint such as ochres; stones or palettes on which the
paint was ground to fine powder for possible use as body paint;
crystals possibly used in curing illness; and small toothpick-
like sticks on which were impaled juniper berries (called juni-
per-berry skewers). We have no idea what part in religious
or healing ceremonies these skewers played, but they served
no practical purpose that we can think of. They have been
found in cultural debris that dates as late as a.p. 900.

From an examination of the life and customs of the Ute
and Paiute Indians, who were formerly food-gatherers and
whose culture is assumed to have resembled that of the early
Cochise-Mogollon Indians, we can make one or two supposi-
tions concerning the ancient religion. It is assumed that the
Cochise-Mogollon Indians held certain religious beliefs in
which the relationship between human beings and _ super-
natural powers was largely a matter of individual concern.
Every person may have hoped to acquire a guardian spirit
who would assist him in hunting and in maintaining health.
Shamans or medicine men may have existed and their duties
would have been to heal the sick or wounded. Minor col-
lective or group ceremonies may have existed to help the tribe
in promoting general fertility and in finding foods. We do not
know whether they believed in a life in the hereafter.

69

EMERGENCE of Small, Sedentary

COMMUNITIES Z|

ABOUT 500 B.c. TO a.p. 1000

The periods covered in this chapter (500 B.c. to A.p. 1000)
include part of the Chiricahua period and all of the Pine Lawn,
Georgetown, San Francisco and Three Circle periods (see
p. 50). Information concerning this span of 1500 years is
somewhat fuller than that for the preceding period, because
of increasing population more intensive archaeological investi-
gation, and more abundant artifacts and better preservation
of them. We may, then, describe the life and activities of this
span with considerably more certainty. Furthermore, we shall
witness the beginnings of village life and the development of
certain traditions that lasted many centuries.

MAKING A LIVING

In the last chapter, I suggested that in earliest times the
Mogollon Indians subsisted principally on wild edible plants.

70

Certainly they did some hunting, also. It is likewise probable
that by 2000 B.c. at least, maize was present in the Mogollon
area, but, as stated earlier, the basic Cochise-Mogollon pat-
tern was not much modified by the presence of this plant. It
would seem that the people regarded corn merely as an addi-
tion to the wild plants that were gathered and eaten.

But in this period (500 B.c. to A.p. 1000) we find an in-
creasing appreciation and use of corn as well as squash and
beans, both of which had put in an appearance by 1000 B.c.
The greater dependence on agriculture must have been due
in part to a realization that here was an excellent safeguard
against starvation, provided the group as a whole moved
toward the goal of more farming and less gathering, and pro-
vided the surplus could be safely stored and protected from
weather, rodents, enemies, and shiftless relatives.

Judging from our excavations in Tularosa and Cordova
Caves, some game was also taken and eaten and many wild
plants and seeds were still collected to supplement, enrich, and
vary the diet. But by 500 to 200 B.c. agriculture was really
flourishing and was by then the primary means of subsistence
for the Mogollon Indians.

We do not know exactly where corn originated. Recent
researches suggest, however, that the wild ancestor of corn
grew in favorable spots in the Amazonian jungles of South
America. From there, corn spread northward through Mex-
ico (where new types may have arisen) to North America,
reaching the Mogollon Indians in the form of a tropical flint
corn by 2000 B.c. or earlier.

Rudimentary farming knowledge and primitive farming
tools and techniques were already possessed by the Cochise
people, who shared the Desert Culture traits with all the other
Indians from Oregon to Mexico City and from the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific Coast. Also present by 5000 to
2000 B.c. were digging sticks (almost exactly the same as
Southwestern Indian farmers use today), baskets used for col-
lecting and storing food, milling stones for reducing seeds to
flour, and a long tradition of parching seeds, cooking flour-
and-mush and preparing and cooking seed plants.

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73

Therefore, it is no surprise that corn and, later, beans and
squash were readily adopted by these people, who, in a sense,
were predestined to become farmers and whose lives were
bound to have a memorable effect on 150 later generations
of Southwestern Indians.

HYBRIDIZATION OF CORN

During this era of 1500 years (500 B.c. to A.p. 1000) the
races and strains of maize were improved by hybridization
with corn brought from other areas, and the number of ker-

Early ear of corn (pod corn) of the type grown
about 1000 B.c. Reconstruction based on ear
excavated at Tularosa Cave, New Mexico;
drawing by Gustav Dalstrom, assisted by Dr.
Hugh C. Cutler. Length about 11% inches.

nel-rows dropped from 16 to 14, 12, and 8. This meant more
‘efficient’? corn, as each kernel was bigger and juicier and
contained more nourishment. ‘The introduced varieties were
vigorous types; hence, there was an advantage in growing the
hardier varieties and in cross-fertilizing the older local varie-
ties with new races.

Surplus supplies of corn, beans, and squash may have oc-
curred as time went on, and these may have been distributed
to friends and relatives in order that prestige and dignity might
accrue from such generous acts. Certainly with a more de-
pendable food supply there would have been leisure and with
it more progress in all ways of life.

USE OF GAME FOR FOOD

As I indicated above, hunting was never a very significant
item in Mogollon life, but it must be remembered that smaller

74

game was probably always hunted to a certain extent. Evi-
dence for this statement comes from the bones of deer, turkeys,
dogs, pocket gophers, squirrels, coyotes, mountain sheep, lynx,
sage hens, rabbits, wolves, antelopes, and badgers, found in
the village middens, on house floors, and in cave refuse. The
most frequently hunted animal was apparently the white-
tailed deer.

Animals were bagged in various ways. Early in the period
spears and spear throwers (atlatls), snares, nets, and traps were
used. About or after the beginning of the Christian era, bows
and arrows were introduced and gradually replaced the atlatl
and the snares. By a.p. 900 the atlatl and the snares had
completely disappeared from the Mogollon inventory. Nets,
used especially on rabbit drives, were still employed. Crops
were planted and wild foods dug up by means of a
wooden digging stick (still used); and harvested crops and
wild foods were transported in large baskets by means of
tumplines. Corn was planted in hills, with squash and beans
interspersed.

PREPARATION OF FOODS

Methods of cooking probably did not change much. Meats
were broiled or stewed; corn and possibly other vegetables were
roasted, parched or baked in ashes or pits; seeds were parched
with live coals in shallow baskets; and corn was popped on the
- cob. These were perhaps the chief methods of cooking. Corn,
beans, and squashes were frequently boiled or roasted and
combined in succotash. Hominy may also have been pre-
pared and eaten. Corn was reduced to flour on metates with
manos, the upper grinding stone, and some foods were crushed
up in mortars with pestles. Manos, metates, and perhaps
cooking pots were cleaned and scoured with yucca pods.
Foods to be held over were stored in sealed pits in the house
floors, in sealed caches in caves, in pottery jars, and perhaps
in baskets.

Pottery was introduced into the Pine Lawn area by 300 B.c.
and perhaps earlier. It gradually replaced baskets as cooking

ae)

Bag of bison skin that had contained squash seeds shown in lower half of illustration
(about A.D. 600)

and storage receptacles. Gourd vessels made convenient ladles
and drinking cups.

The most common foods were maize, beans, squash, gourds,
yucca pods, cacti, black walnuts, acorns, grass seeds, desert
primrose leaves, and sunflower seeds.

Cooking was done, in the latter part of the era, more and
more inside the houses.

UTILIZATION AND PROCESSING OF RAW MATERIALS

Visitors to our archaeological excavations frequently ex-
press surprise at the energy, diligence, and enterprise of the
prehistoric Mogollon Indians and ask: ‘“‘How did they make
this?”? ‘“‘What tools did they have?” “Did they have metal
tools?”

Our visitors are filled with wonderment when we tell them
that the Mogollones had a fairly complete stock of tools at
their disposal. But no metal tools were ever made or used by

76

these peoples, although small copper tinklers (probably im-
ported from Mexico) have been found in some sites dated
after A.D. 1100.

It may be safely said that almost every available natural
resource was converted to man’s needs and instrumentality.
The chief raw materials used for tools, weapons, dress, textiles,

Tools of stone. Left, hammerstone (about A.p. 200); right, scraper
(about a.p. 700)

amusement, and ceremonies were stone, plant fibers, wood,
bone, shell, and clay.

Let us examine briefly some of the objects made from these
materials.

STONE ARTIFACTS

Metates, manos and pestles were produced from volcanic
stone; door- and baking-slabs from sandstone; hand choppers,
hammerstones, grooved mauls, rubbing and abrading stones
from tough rocks such as basalt, andesite, and quartzite; pro-
jectile and spear points, blades, knives, scrapers, drills, gravers
and saws from flint; hoes from rhyolite; tobacco pipes from
volcanic rocks; pigments from iron ores, limonite, magnetite
and hematite; and divining stones from crystals.

TT

There are no fewer than nineteen major tool types, all
made of stone, and several sub-types.

USES OF PLANTS

From plants or plant fibers (not counting those of wood)
there are nineteen classes of artifacts, with many subdivisions.
I shall note some of the major and minor items, to exemplify
the astonishing range: Sandals of several types of weaves;
string aprons; sashes of twisted cord; snares; beds and cradles;
netted carrying bags; strap and tumplines used to carry bur-
dens; torches; brushes; needles of yucca spines; basketry of
three different weaves; matting; cloth of bast or cotton fiber;
cordage, bits of which were tied with seven different types of
knots (square, granny, overhand, single half hitch, clove hitch,
lark’s head, and single bow); and netting. The more common
plants for these articles were cotton, bast fibers, yucca, and
rushes. Sometimes human and animal hair was spun, and
tanned animal skins were fashioned into sandals and robes.

WOODEN TOOLS

Twenty-eight different types of artifacts were fashioned
from wood. We have a fair guess as to the techniques used
by the Mogollon Indians in woodworking. The techniques
are recognizable from marks remaining on the specimens and
from unfinished pieces. The woodworking methods seem to
have included peeling the bark, breaking, whittling, splitting,
drilling, sawing, scraping, incising, smoothing, and polishing.
Tools used for fashioning artifacts were of stone, and they com-
prise choppers, scrapers, knives, drills, saws, files, and polish-
ing stones.

The plants from which wooden artifacts were made in-
clude oak, pine, willow, mountain mahogany, juniper, reed,
yucca, bear grass, and cliff rose. The artifacts made from
these materials represent a wide range of interest, skill, and
necessity. A glance at the following abbreviated inventory
will confirm this statement: the atlatl or spear thrower; atlatl
foreshafts and mainshafts; spears; bows and arrows; digging
sticks; trowels; scoops; fire-drills and hearths; spoons and

78

ladles; knife handles; awls; weaving tools; seed-beaters;
torches; reed cigarettes that were filled with tobacco; carved
prayer-sticks; dice; and reed flutes.

BONE TOOLS

Animal bones (mostly deer bones) were skillfully converted
into awls of several types, punches, arrow-head flakers, weaving
tools, beads, pennants and dice. It is probable that the larger
bone tools such as awls and punches were made from animal
longbones that were split by sawing a groove with a stone saw
and then wedging the broken sections apart when the groove
was deep enough. The ends could then be cut, ground, and
polished to shape. Some tools were made from bone splinters
while others were fashioned from a whole bone in such a way
as to include the head of the bone as a handle.

ORNAMENTS

Bracelets, beads, and pendants were cut, sawed, or carved
from a bivalve shell that was imported by trade from the Gulf
of California.

USES OF CLAY

Local clays were extensively used for making pottery, and
some other artifacts were also turned out: figurines, animal
effigies, spindle whorls, clay balls (function unknown), and
tobacco pipes.

ORIGIN OF MOGOLLON POTTERY

The origin of Mogollon pottery is an interesting problem
to which there is no certain answer at present. Most archae-
ologists guess that the source may be Meso-American. Plain
brown and polished red pottery in simple bowls and jars occurs
in early Mexican cultures on the eastern slopes of the Sierra
Madre Occidental Mountains from Chihuahua to Zacatecas.
The earliest Mogollon ceramics are likewise plain brown and
polished red wares in bowl and jar forms. But our assumption
of a Mexican origin for Mogollon pottery is only the best one

79

Red on brown jar, the earliest type
of painted pottery. Reconstructed
from potsherds (about a.p. 700).

Early Mogollon neck corrugated
jar (about a.p. 700).

that can be advanced at the present time. This idea is
strengthened somewhat by the assumption that agriculture was
probably derived from a Mexican source. If this be so, it may
be that pottery itself and the methods for making it were also
introduced and traded from a Meso-American source.

It should be remembered that the earliest Mogollon pot-
tery (dating from 300 B.c.) is not crude or primitive. It is sim-
ple but far advanced beyond the experimental and incipient
stages. It is well shaped and constructed by coiling, thinned
by scraping, smoothed by means of a polishing stone, and

80

Ceremonial objects from Tularosa Cave. About a.p. 200-800.
Upper, juniper-berry skewers; lower, wooden dice.

well fired. No one at present, then, credits the Mogollon
Indians with the invention of pottery. We all agree that it
was a trait introduced from the south, as was agriculture.

The importance of pottery-making as an aid to house-
keeping can hardly be exaggerated. Pottery vessels are useful
for a variety of domestic purposes.

It is possible that creating pottery forms and then decora-
ting some of the vessels served as a vent for the expression of
aesthetic and religious feelings. From another point of view,
the art of pottery-making may serve as a rough gauge of the
progress a people has made on the road to “civilization.”

At any rate, from any point of view, vessels of fired clay are
convenient. Pottery, when present, is one of the most useful
tools of the archaeologist for determining the relative age of
a site. By comparing the form, decoration, or material of the
pottery from many excavated sites, the archaeologist is able

81

to work out the rise and fall in popularity of certain types.
In other words, he studies the ‘“‘fashions”’ of pottery types and
is able to determine their sequence. This kind of comparison
is invaluable in setting up a comparative chronology in a
specific area.

FA

Cigarettes made of reeds filled with tobacco (earliest reported use of tobacco
about a.p. 200-800).

HOW POTTERY WAS MADE

No living person has seen a Mogollon Indian make a pot;
but because contemporary Southwestern Indian pottery super-
ficially resembles Mogollon pottery, we assume that it may
have been made in the same way. Carefully chosen clay that
has been winnowed to remove twigs and gravel is mixed with
a ‘‘temper’ or “grog” (sand or crushed rocks) and is then
wetted and kneaded. When ready for molding, the clay has
the consistency of putty.

The potter’s wheel was unknown to the Mogollones; there-
fore molding and shaping were done by hand by what is

82

known as the coil method. This method makes use of long
coils of clay. The potter forms the base of the future pot by
pressing it out of a lump of properly tempered clay or by
using the end of a roll of clay that has coiled on itself. The
base thus formed is then placed in a shallow basket in which
the growing vessel rests. The potter next builds up the walls
of the pot by the addition of coils of clay which are either long
enough to go around the walls more than once, producing a
spiral effect, or are just long enough to go around once. This
operation is repeated until the vessel has been completed.

If the coils are to be obliterated this task is done with a
piece of gourd or a polishing stone. If the vessel is to be
painted, this is done after the vessel has been dried in the air.
Pigments were made from hematite (red) and magnetite
(black). Designs, layouts, and color schemes require con-
siderable sophistication, artistic ability, and skill. The Mo-
gollon design and layouts are distinctive. They evolved over
the centuries from simple broad-line patterns to involved
arrangements of geometric forms such as squares, hatched
diagonal lines, interlocking scrolls, and triangles.

Lebo “OF POTPERY

The ‘“‘cooking”’ pottery was usually a plain brown ware or
unpainted type that is known as neck-banded, scored, or plain
corrugated. ‘These types are classed as textured wares. Banding
and corrugations are merely the original coils that were not ob-
literated because it was the style to let them remain visible.
Scoring was done with a blunt tool by which the surface was
scratched.

EARLIEST POTTERY

The earliest Mogollon pottery was plain brown and plain
red ware and lacked any painted designs or surface treatment.
Cooking, storage, and serving of foods were all done in these
types, which may be dated at about 300 B.c. or possibly
earlier. ‘These two types displayed a remarkable longevity,
since they continued to be utilized right up to the time the

83

Mogollones moved out of the Pine Lawn Reserve area. In
other words, these two major wares were made for more than
1,500 years.

NEW UTILITY AND PAINTED WARES

At approximately A.p. 400 to 600 several new types
evolved: one that displayed neck-banding; another, scoring;
another, “‘punched”’ surfaces; and, most important of all, a
painted type with designs in red painted on a pink or brown
background. With these new types the old favorites (plain
brown and plain red wares) continued to be made and loved.
In fact, as one can observe, after pottery appeared at about
300 B.c. no new types were formulated for almost 800 or 900
years! (The same conservatism may also be observed in
architecture, in tools of stone, bone, and wood and in other
traits in varying degrees.)

SMUDGED AND NEW PAINTED TYPES

Several centuries later, these types still persisted; and one
finds, in addition, several variants of the textured wares and a
‘“‘smudged” type. This type, later to become fairly popular,
was usually confined to bowls, the insides of which are a pol-
ished black. The black was produced by permitting smoke or
carbon to be deposited on the interiors, thus producing a
smudged effect. ‘The painted decorated pottery bore designs
similar to those on the earlier pottery, but they now were done
in red on a white background. A small bit of black on white
painted pottery appeared toward the end of this period.

It should be noted that the earliest Mogollon wares and all
the cooking types (whether banded, incised, punched, scored,
or indented) are brown or red or brown-reds. Formerly, this
predilection for browns and reds was assumed to be the result
of a special firing technique supposedly used by the Mogollon
Indians. This technique of firing is called the oxzdizing atmos-
phere. We now feel that the brown and red colors of the
pottery-paste and of the surface of unpainted wares were more
likely produced by the clays that were available to the Mogol-

84

Red on white pottery bowl
(about A.p. 800).

Black on white pottery
bowl from an early town
(about a.p. 1000).

lon Indians. These clays were mostly volcanic or igneous in
origin and the iron content tended to cause the pottery to
become brown or red after it had been fired.

Briefly, Mogollon pottery in the incipient (300 B.c.) stages
was uniformly unpainted brown or slipped (coated) red. The
vessels were hand- or pebble-smoothed and manifest faintly
irregular surfaces. They are simple in form. Later ceramics
(A.D. 600-900) are marked by a continuation of earlier types,
with the addition of smudged types, textured types (surface
treatments such as scoring, incising, and corrugations or un-
obliterated coils), and types bearing painted designs in red
on backgrounds varying from brown through pink to white

85

and with designs that increasingly reflect refinements, inno-
vations, and complexities. Continuity and change are observ-
able in this period of pottery-making (300 B.c. to a.p. 1000),
and it is probable that Mogollon potters directly or indirectly
influenced the potters of other, nearby areas.

The earliest shapes were bowls or jars. Later, other shapes,
such as ladles and pitchers, were developed.

HOUSES

In the preceding chapter I described a way of life that in-
volved a certain amount of wandering about in search of food.
This type of existence effectively prevented the establishment
of villages and a sedentary life.

However, some time before 1000 B.c. several important in-
novations were introduced into the area and these radically
changed the existence of the Cochise-Mogollon Indians. The
most important new element was agriculture. As was sug-
gested in the preceding chapter, corn was probably present
as early as 2000 to 4000 B.c., but until adequate storage facil-
ities could be provided so that some corn could be saved for
winter consumption and some for planting in the following
spring, one could not expect this people to depend completely
on an agricultural economy. On the other hand, storage facil-
ities to protect the corn from weather and rodents could not be
adequately provided without a sedentary type of life and fixed
villages. ‘Therefore, these essentials had to come into being
more or less simultaneously. At least that is what we suppose,
and present evidence supports our view.

We know next to nothing about the houses or villages (if
they existed) in very early times. The earliest type of habita-
tion dates from about 500 8B.c. This was a pit-house—a neatly
excavated hole, roundish, from ten to sixteen feet in diameter
and from two to five feet deep, over which a roof of poles,
brush and sod could be constructed. Wind, rain, and snow
were excluded by attaching to the main covering of the house
a long passage-entrance similar to those of Eskimo igloos.
Pit-houses have a long history, with possible connections be-
tween the Mogollon area, portions of Siberia, and parts of
Europe, where they may have been built 25,000 years ago.

86

Skeleton found under floor of pit-house. Near the skull lies a small cooking
pot; near the ribs are portions of a painted bowl. About a.p. 900.

87

ment.’ And there were other house furnishings: beds of grass,
blankets made of rabbit fur or bird feathers, scouring pads
made of plant fibers for cleaning pots and metates, torches of
fibers, tongs, fire drills for making fire, and flexible cradles.
Food-storage pits became less common in the later pit-houses,
perhaps because pottery jars were more abundant and may
have been used for food containers.

VILLAGE PATTERNS

In the earliest villages these houses were grouped in a hap-
hazard way, without any particular plan. Usually, such vil-
lages were placed in isolated spots and often high up on a ridge
or mesa that could be defended. Forested, mountainous areas
well removed from streams were preferred spots. Some of the
early communities were sizable. One such excavated by us,
the SU site, contained at least 26 pit-houses. Nearness to
land suitable for farming may have been one factor in select-
ing a site for the village. In almost every village containing
more than 3 or 4 pit-houses there is a larger pit-house that
was probably used for ceremonies and religious rituals.

It is barely possible that the earliest towns were abandoned
seasonally, perhaps in the winter, although we do not know
where the inhabitants went. Certainly many of the early
houses lack hearths or evidence of any fire-area within the
house, although many houses have been found with hearths
outside. One would think that a pit-house without some fire
for warmth would be gloomy and cold in the winter, especially
in the mountains at an altitude of 6,500 feet.

If the Mogollon Indians were wont to disperse seasonally—
and this is only a guess—is it not possible that this habit may
have been conserved for a long time and may account for the
ease with which towns dated after A.D. 1000 were changed,
modified, broken up into new and separate units and moved
a short distance away?

Villages assigned to the later part of this emergent period
were built without any observable plan. Houses were placed
near one another wherever it was convenient to dig them.

90

FLEXIBLE CRADLE WITH GRASS BEDDING

About 300 B.c.

91

The preferred location for the village was on a ridge or mesa,
although some communities have been found on lower ter-
races or near small streams.

No village or community as large as the SU site of 26 pit-
houses was observed for the later part of this epoch. Usually,
one finds that a village contained from 5 to 15 houses.

Pit structures (kivas) set aside for ritualistic purposes and
ceremonies are ordinarily found associated with each of the
larger villages. These special houses are larger and more care-
fully finished on the interior, and they usually have some other
features, such as foot drums, floor grooves, or large fire-pits,
that distinguish them from the secular houses.

Although each village was independent, the one possessing a
kiva was probably a “‘ceremonial center.’ It seems probable
that several villages united for special rituals and important
feast days. If their social and religious organization resembled
that of contemporary pueblos, it is likely that a small village
was not necessarily blessed with a full consistory of priests;
therefore, for special religious events, the services of priests of
several villages would have been required to perform a com-
plete service.

FAMILY LIFE

In the previous chapter, I explained briefly that the Mog-
ollon habit of food-collecting in a limited area probably made
permanent habitations and food-storage reservoirs more or less
impossible. Furthermore, the practice of food-collecting would
have effectively prevented the establishment of large family
groups and the formation of villages and of large communal
gatherings other than occasional ones.

Hence, it seemed to follow that the earlier Mogollones
(pre-500 B.c.) would have fallen into small simple bands, the
mother, father and children constituting a nuclear family.
I guess, on the basis of contemporary peoples in a similar
situation, that descent was reckoned through both sides of the
family, but that the women collected all the food and owned
the food patches and the houses. It is also probable that the

94

Early type of footgear: a four warp
wickerwork sandal (about 300 B.c.
or earlier). The toe goes through
the loop, and the string ties around
the ankle.

Spear thrower (atlatl) and spear, showing method of casting. This type

of weapon was used in hunting small and large game and was the prin-

cipal weapon known to the Mogollon Indians from early times to about

A.D. 500. The bow and arrow were introduced at this time and the spear
thrower went completely out of style (about a.p. 900).

95

OOOL ‘a'v ynoqy
IVd ALISOddO NO
NMOHS NMOL JO NOILLONULSNOOAA

AN EARLY TOWN OR PUEBLO

Showing remains of lowest courses of masonry and cellular arrangement
of rooms that were probably one story in height (about a.p. 1000).

93

The preferred location for the village was on a ridge or mesa,
although some communities have been found on lower ter-
races or near small streams.

No village or community as large as the SU site of 26 pit-
houses was observed for the later part of this epoch. Usually,
one finds that a village contained from 5 to 15 houses.

Pit structures (kivas) set aside for ritualistic purposes and
ceremonies are ordinarily found associated with each of the
larger villages. These special houses are larger and more care-
fully finished on the interior, and they usually have some other
features, such as foot drums, floor grooves, or large fire-pits,
that distinguish them from the secular houses.

Although each village was independent, the one possessing a
kiva was probably a “‘ceremonial center.’’ It seems probable
that several villages united for special rituals and important
feast days. If their social and religious organization resembled
that of contemporary pueblos, it is likely that a small village
was not necessarily blessed with a full consistory of priests;
therefore, for special religious events, the services of priests of
several villages would have been required to perform a com-

plete service.

FAMILY LIFE

In the previous chapter, I explained briefly that the Mog-
ollon habit of food-collecting in a limited area probably made
permanent habitations and food-storage reservoirs more or less
impossible. Furthermore, the practice of food-collecting would
have effectively prevented the establishment of large family
groups and the formation of villages and of large communal
gatherings other than occasional ones.

Hence, it seemed to follow that the earlier Mogollones
(pre-500 B.c.) would have fallen into small simple bands, the
mother, father and children constituting a nuclear family.
I guess, on the basis of contemporary peoples in a similar
situation, that descent was reckoned through both sides of the
family, but that the women collected all the food and owned
the food patches and the houses. It is also probable that the

94

Early type of footgear: a four warp
wickerwork sandal (about 300 B.c.
or earlier). The toe goes through
the loop, and the string ties around
the ankle.

Spear thrower (atlatl) and spear, showing method of casting. This type

of weapon was used in hunting small and large game and was the prin-

cipal weapon known to the Mogollon Indians from early times to about

A.D. 500. The bow and arrow were introduced at this time and the spear
thrower went completely out of style (about A.p. 900).

95

daughters of the household brought their husbands to live in
the mother’s house. ‘This is called ‘‘matrilocal residence.”’

But in this emergent period, during which houses had been
introduced and small towns or communities had sprung into
being, the composition of the family and of society would have
been somewhat more involved and complex. In this situation,
where person-to-person relations are prevalent, family rela-
tionships and kinship are a dominant factor. The people of
the community would have desired close and constant asso-
ciation with their kin, and a person who left his home folk
and drifted away would have been virtually unknown. There-
fore, we would expect a strengthening and intensifying of the
social factors that existed in the previous era and we assume
that the patterns of family organization would have tended
to follow the same general path of development with some
elaboration.

With the increase in importance of agriculture in this
period, matrilocal residence would have been intensified, giv-
ing rise to what is called matrilocal extended families: the
mother, the father, the unmarried daughters, the married
daughters and their husbands and children, and the brothers
of the mother. This group, the household, normally occupied
a large pit-house or a set of adjacent pit-houses or adjoining
rooms which it used in common. The father of the family
and the husbands of the married daughters would probably
have spent some time in their natal households. In matters
regarding rituals, they would have had little to say.

Further, reasoning partly by analogy and partly by knowl-
edge of contemporary families, we would expect that as a result
of a matrilocal household, definite descent and inheritance
through the mother-line only, would probably have developed
by this time. Inheritance of corn plots and of areas yielding
wild edible plants (both of these a major form of wealth)
would have strengthened the economic position of women and
would have favored matrilineal descent. The clans, a group
of people united through the female line, probably owned the
ceremonies or rituals, and the objects and apparatus used in
rituals. These were stored (when not used) in the home of
the head woman of the clan.

96

After a.p. 500, we find villages built in any choice spot and
usually not on high, isolated, defendable ridges or mesas. We
assume that an era of good will, security, and peace had set in,
for the villages were situated in the open, near streams but
without an eye to defense. Presumably, lack of enemies per-
mitted the population to spread and perhaps a more stable
food supply allowed it to multiply. At any rate, we find an
increase in the number of villages in the period from a.p. 600
to 1000.

The change in milling stones (from a basin type to a
troughed type) implies that agriculture had largely supplanted
the gathering of wild food plants. Hunting may have become
more important—a conjecture based on an increase in the
ratio of projectile points to milling stones.

I guess that the continuity of the family organization would
have flowed on and in more or less the same channels as before;
that is, extended families, perhaps several to a village; a re-
quirement that married daughters bring their husbands to
live in the mother’s house (matrilocal residence); descent reck-
oned through the mother-line as well as mother-line inherit-
ance; one or more clans (people united through the female
line) to a village; each village politically independent; no
slavery; no social classes, with the possible exception of an
elected head man; and monogamy. A weak inter-village con-
federation may have existed, on a consulting level only.

CEREMONIALISM; GODS AND SPIRITS

Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned that at the time when
houses and villages developed there were also special houses
(kivas) that may have been set aside for religious functions.
(“Kiva” is a Hopi Indian word that means “‘old house.” The
term, in modern usage, means a separate and distinct chamber
set aside primarily for ceremonial purposes and secondarily as
a clubhouse and lounging place for males.)

The earliest kivas are merely large pit-houses. The fea-
tures which distinguish what we call kivas from the secular
houses are: greater size (they are several times larger than a
dwelling); greater depth; floor grooves shaped like half logs,

|

the purpose of which is unknown; and a lack of domestic tools.
The floor grooves may have held hollow logs that served as
foot drums.

I must admit that these features may not convince one that
these large pit-houses were used for ceremonial purposes. I
can only say that it is my impression that they were kivas.
Most archaeologists agree on this tenuous point. I might add
that one can see an architectural connection between these
early kivas and later buildings that are certainly kivas.

MATERIALS USED IN CEREMONIES

From the early levels of Tularosa Cave we excavated
flutes, dice, body paint, paint-grinding stones, crystals, odd-
shaped stones, animal claws, juniper-berry skewers, animal
and human effigies, reed cigarettes, prayer-sticks, toy bows
and arrows, and stone tobacco pipes, all of which were prob-
ably used in ceremonies of various kinds. And if ceremonies
were in existence—even simple ones—they must have been
performed somewhere and probably in a special chamber set
aside for communal activities, family prayers, and varied re-
ligious services. Hence, we can imagine large pit-houses serv-
ing as kivas, especially when we find them lacking in everyday
household utensils, and in the burials which are often found
under the floors of ordinary houses.

CEREMONIES

If it be granted that the assumptions set forth in the previ-
ous paragraphs are reasonable and are based on some tangible
evidence, then we may properly make a few guesses concern-
ing the nature of these ceremonies. ‘The guesses will be sup-
ported by the nature of the excavated ceremonial parapher-
nalia and their similarity to contemporary ritualistic objects,
and by comparison with contemporary ceremonial systems in
the Southwest. I might add here also a parenthetical word
about the materials that we label ‘‘ceremonial.’’ Most of the
things that I listed in the preceding paragraph have no prac-
tical value or use, as far as we determine; for example, crystals,
odd-shaped stones, animal claws, phallic representations,

98

skewers of wood on which juniper berries had been impaled,
zoomorphic effigies—none of these appears to be important
or necessary for actual existence and none would have been
useful in creating a house, planting a field, harvesting a crop,
or hunting. All activities of life could have been successfully
pursued without any of these articles.

Corrugated pottery jar used for storage of food or for cooking
(about A.p. 1000).

It is possible that a few objects that I call ‘“‘ceremonial’’
might have been used purely for amusement or in games:
flutes, dice, and toy bows and arrows. The chances are, how-
ever, that these, too, had religious uses.

Smoking tobacco, whether in a pipe or a cigarette, was a
sacred and solemn rite well-nigh throughout North America.
To have used tobacco, then, in any other context appears
most unlikely and unacceptable to me. ‘Tobacco pipes were
more popular early, but after a.p. 700, reed cigarettes became
more fashionable.

ht

To paint parts of the human body, masks, tablitas (head
ornaments of wood) and other paraphernalia is routine prac-
tice today among many Southwestern Pueblo Indians (the
Hopi, especially). It does not seem amiss to me, therefore, to
conjecture that these practices have a long history and were
part of the cultural heritage handed down to modern Indians
by their ancestors, both near and remote. Therefore actual
raw pigments and small slabs on which the pigments were
reduced to powder would also be classed as ceremonial.

After this digression, I should now like to hazard a few
hints as to the ceremonialism of this period. I assume that
the religious and sacred rites would be reflected in a general
manner in the objects discussed above.

In the earlier part of this period, one would expect the
emphasis to be on ceremonies for curing the sick. As agricul-
ture grew in importance, rituals for bringing rain may have
been developed. The presence of miniature bows and arrows
suggests puberty rites to emphasize a boy’s transition from
childhood to the adult group and perhaps to initiate the boy
into one or more religious societies. Group ceremonies and
dances may have been held in kivas featuring masked dancers
wearing tablitas and body paint. Such ritualistic dances may
have been a re-enactment of the myths of the Mogollones.

Such dramatic performances eventually may have involved
the marking of the summer and winter solstices (about June 21
and December 21); and they may have developed into cere-
monials for the promotion of precipitation, tribal fecundity,
planting and harvesting, and good crops. Emphasis was prob-
ably placed on curing and rain-making. Music produced by
means of flutes, singing, and drumming was perhaps important.

Psychosomatic medicine is suggested by the finding of a
*“‘doctor’s” bag containing obsidian flakes, crystals, curiously
shaped concretions, toes of a great horned owl, a horn of a
rhinoceros beetle, and herbs, including one known today as
“cough root.” All of these objects—some fifty in all—were
tied up in a muskrat skin. This may have been the property
of a priest of the curing society.

100

MEDICINE MAN’S POUCH

Pouch made of skin of muskrat (right); contents (left) includes flakes of
obsidian and quartz, concretions, toes of an owl, and vegetable matter.

About a.p. 1100.

101

METHODS OF BURIAL

The dead were ordinarily buried in pits under the house
floors. After interment, the pits were floored over and the
family continued to occupy its home. The dead were prob-
ably wrapped in skins and mats, and with them were placed
mortuary offerings: pottery bowls and jars, jewelry, tools of
stone and bone, and perhaps food. From this evidence I sur-
mise that these people believed in the hereafter and in life
after death.

Thus, although we have no direct records of ceremonialism,
we have abundant, though indirect testimony that a rich and
devout religious life had been developed. These people were
close to nature—closer than we ever are or can be—and it is
probable that they were well versed in the movements of many
of the heavenly bodies; that from them they had worked out a
crude, seasonal calendar; and that they were well acquainted
with terrifying storms, floods, droughts, and other awesome
natural manifestations. The very lives they led and their
manner of living must have generated fear of nature as well
as respect for it, and a certain, indefinable purity and prag-
matic, contemplative philosophy.

ee _Uin

IT

The BEGINNINGS

of TOWN: LIFE

ABOUT a.p. 1000 TO a.p. 1350

The archaeological periods covered in this chapter are
known as the Reserve and Tularosa periods. As the reader
will have noted, the span of time is astonishingly brief—a
mere 300 to 400 years—as compared with a span of 1500 years
for the previous stage. One may wonder why there is such a
contrast in time; why one period is long and the next, short.

This arrangement is partly an arbitrary and partly a nat-
ural one. This grouping seemed to ‘“‘fit” the facts, because
the Reserve and Tularosa periods are essentially similar in
many characteristics. Furthermore, as a civilization becomes
more mature its ‘‘metabolic processes’? appear to speed up.
All developments are faster; the old conservative ways are
swept away by the onrushing stream of events. Culture
changes are swifter, because there are more frequent and sig-
nificant alterations in life conditions.

103

CEREMONIAL ROOM (GREAT KIVA)

In Reserve—Pine Lawn area (about A.D. 775). Fire hearth and storage
pits in center. Purpose of grooves in floor is not known.

In the previous chapter, I noted certain changes such as
the introduction of architecture and pottery-making and the
greater dependence on planted crops; but I am sure the reader
will sense that alterations and innovations were few and that
the way of life jogged along at a comfortable but slow pace.

METHODS OF CULTURAL CHANGE

It might be well to digress briefly to discuss some of the
methods by which cultures or civilizations change.

Innovations are frequently brought about when habitual
ways of doing things are discouraged and when a significant
event occurs that changes the situation to which a people have
become accustomed. Some such significant alterations of life
conditions may be: (1) an increase in population; (2) a change
in climate; (3) a migration into a new environment; (4) con-
tacts (by trade or war) with other people; (5) catastrophes,

104

GREAT KIVA IN PROCESS OF EXCAVATION

Area about 1,300 square feet, not including 30-foot ramp. Holes in floor formerly held
gigantic upright posts (as suggested in drawing) that supported the massive timber-
and-sod roof.

pet
wn,
i Spout (

as Nana ig

ny ‘
TF Wy dit ri qu " pil
Wy Al \

ea
Pray ieee

L BPTI mets
PIR RO

yy"

RESTORATION OF GREAT KIVA SHOWN ABOVE

The feature that particularly distinguishes this type of Great Kiva is the roofed, wide

ramp entrance at right, through which six ceremonially dressed dancers could have

marched abreast in processions. About a.p. 1175. Drawing based on photographs and
data obtained by Museum Expeditions.

105

such as floods or droughts. crop failure, epidemics, or wars;
(6) discoveries of new techmiques: and (7) the rise of a power-
ful leader.

But no matter how much or how little previous habitual
not be socially acceptable and will not be taken over by an
impressive percentage of the population. Conditions must be
just right or an innovation will not “take.” In our own society.
for example, we find resistance in this country and m Engfand
to the adoption of the metric system of linear measurement to
replace inches. feet, yards. and the like. Most of the worid
Angio-Saxon one. If we took over metrics. we would then be
in step with the international system of measurement and this
would make for greater convenience im the future, although
there might be confusion for perhaps a generation. I could
also cite the attempts to reform our spelling and our calendar,
but these. too, have no appeal to our culture.

But cultural change is imevitable. If a culture becomes
stagnant and fossilized. it will probably die. Im the case of
the Mosoilon culture. we are aware that innovations were
constantly seeping into the framework and that a goodly num-
ber appeared between 4-D. 300 and 1000; but some were not
totally accepted or integrated until about 4-p. 1000, when
new habits and ways of life were formed and became habitual
patterns of behavior. Naturally, this did not happen over-
might or precisely at the year 1000, but at about this time we
can detect significant differences and changes in the archaeo-
logical picture and thus the eleventh century appears to be an
important milepost.

The previous span of 1500 years. treated in the preceding
chapter, seemed a reasonable one. for the innovations men-
tioned therein appeared to have been more slowly accepted
and the integrated society less disturbed. In other words the
situation was relatively more static and the elements that made
up that span of 1500 years. durmg which smail sedentary
communities evolved, seemed to have disturbed less the pre-
existing patterns of behavior. I can think of the span 300 B.c-
to 4.D. 1000 as a unit and one that is more or less justifiable

106

107

be
v
ns
ws
A)
&
2
o
=)
o.
we
o
é
rt
>

several rooms had

been excavated.

About a.p. 1175.

for classification purposes of this sort, wherein one has to sort
the small grains from the larger masses lest the reader become
bogged down in a morass of details.

In general, then, this span of three or four centuries
(A.D. 1000 to 1350) is to be regarded as a climax in the his-

eZ ,

Kee =
— - 7 \ Méiz ids ay y USC.
LZ hk

wae

a

——

Mealing bins or built-in corn mills consisting of milling stones (coarse,

medium and fine), handstones, and pottery bowls placed so as to catch

the flour (about a.p. 1200). To obtain powdered flour, the corn was

ground successively on the three milling stones. Such mealing bins are
found in some Pueblo Indian rooms today.

tory of the Mogollon Indians in the Reserve—Pine Lawn area.
Several permanent towns were founded, each as an independ-
ent and self-sufficient community, and the population became
somewhat greater. If circumstances had not eventually forced
the inhabitants to abandon the area and to migrate north and
westward, we might have witnessed the growth of large towns
and the development of a more advanced civilization.

MAKING A LIVING

In this period, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century,
the means for making a living did not differ greatly from those
of the preceding centuries, but one would guess that agricul-
tural techniques had been well adapted to the environment so
as to make the most of the land. Favorable farm sites that
were well watered or adaptable to flood irrigation were prob-
ably selected. We also assume that cultivated plants became

108

the primary food source, thus reducing the area needed per
person for subsistence and mere maintenance. Cultivated
plants also would have provided a dependable surplus, suffi-
cient to release time and energy that could have been expended
on leisure, meditation, ceremonies, and specialization in arts
and crafts and technological developments. As a result, an
incipient guild of artisans may have been evolving.

From an examination of the plant remains, we have dis-
covered that the last inhabitants of the Reserve—Pine Lawn
area were skillful farmers and must have depended primarily
on agriculture for subsistence. The corn they grew was good,
and the individual grains were plump and large. Several
different kinds of corn were cultivated and they resemble the
corn grown until recently by the Pima and Mohave Indians.
These types were probably introduced into the Mogollon area
some time during the preceding centuries and gradually re-
placed the earlier, more primitive, and therefore less desirable
types. The ears of this late Reserve—Tularosa corn displayed
relatively fewer numbers of rows of grain (a sign of more “‘effi-
cient’’ types)—perhaps 8 to 10 rows as compared with 12, 14,
and 16 rows in earlier times (about the time of Christ). In
addition to corn that produced a rich harvest, these people
grew kidney and tepary beans, two kinds of squashes, and the
bottle gourd.

This evidence warrants the guess that the Mogollon In-
dians of the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries were success-
ful farmers. There is no indication that the people were
undergoing a difficult, food-scarce time. The economy seems
healthy as we appraise it with the meager evidence at our
command.

Just as we supplement our diet with herbs and special
foods, so did the Mogollon Indians add to theirs by gather-
ing and eating wild seeds and greens: walnuts, pigweed, salt
brush seeds, wild gourds, pinyon nuts, mutton grass, grapes,
tansy mustard, prickly pear, and sunflower seeds.

Corn was undoubtedly planted by means of a digging stick,
baskets were utilized for gathering and storing foods, and
tumplines were used for transporting burdens of cornstalks

109

and other loads. Deer, wild pigs, antelopes, rabbits, turkeys,
and mountain sheep were the more common game foods and
were hunted entirely with bows and arrows (the atlatl had
gone out of fashion by this time), snares, rabbit nets, and per-
haps spears.

PREPARATION OF FOODS

The preparation of foods probably differed little from that
of the previous stage. We conjecture that much, if not all, of
the cooking was done indoors, as we find hearths and firepits
in almost every room. Methods of cooking foods, wild or
domesticated, were probably similar to those of earlier periods
and to those used today by contemporary Hopi and Zuni In-
dians: broiling, boiling, roasting, baking in ashes, and parch-
ing corn and other seeds.

Boiled foods were prepared in pottery jars manufactured
especially for this purpose. These cooking pots are called
‘“‘corrugated”’ pots because the original coils of manufacture
were not obliterated. Food was also stored in corrugated pot-
tery and perhaps in painted bowls and pitchers. Food may
have been served in painted or “‘smudged”’ bowls, one bowl
to a family. Each person probably dipped a finger or a piece
of corn bread into the pot and abstracted a mouthful. Knives,
forks and spoons and other such refinements were unknown to
these people as they were to our ancestors of only a few cen-
turies back. Salt may have been extracted from salty soil
deposits or secured by means of trade from the salt lakes in the
vicinity of Zuni.

UTILIZATION AND PROCESSING OF RAW MATERIALS

The remarks in the previous chapter concerning the utili-
zation and processing of raw materials would certainly hold
for this period. Many of the natural available resources were
seized upon for man’s use.

a YPES “OF. TOOLS

All tools were better made and were sometimes reduced in
size. The workmanship was, on the whole, improved. Pro-

110

Pottery bowl with
smudged interior and
fillet rim exterior and
white-line decoration
(about a.p. 1250).

Red, black and white

(polychrome) glaze

bowl from late ‘‘town”’
(about A.p. 1300).

Polychrome pottery
bowl (about A.D.
1200); colors, black
and white on red
background. Bear
paws on outside.

111

jectile points were smaller and there were two principal types:
one had notches on the sides, ear-like barbs, and a concave
base; the other was a small triangular point with side notches
and saw-tooth edge. Large spear points were also made.
Metates were more precisely made and were open at both

HANDYMAN’S KIT

Top, a flaker of antler for chipping stone tools (about a.p. 1300). Middle,
a combination awl and wrench for straightening shafts of spindle whorls
(about A.p. 1200). Bottom, a bone chisel (about A.p. 1200).

ends. Scrapers, choppers and flake knives that occurred in
this era are practically indistinguishable from those found at
much earlier sites. A few new tool-types were made: beveled
manos, small triangular, side-notched arrow points, rectangu-
lar arrow-shaft tools and rectangular stone bowls.

Full-grooved and three-quarters grooved axes both occurred
in this period for the first time. It is believed at present that
the full-grooved type came from the north (the Anasazi coun-
try) and that the three-quarters grooved type came from the
south, possibly from Hohokam territory.

Drills, saws, abrading stones, paint palettes, worked slabs,
hammerstones, and grooved mauls—all of stone—comprised a

112

partial inventory of the tool cabinet of the town dweller of
the day.

About twenty different types of stone tools have been tabu-
lated, including, of course, milling stones of several types, pes-
tles, mortars, polishing stones and stone hoes. Some of the

Milling stone used for grinding corn to flour.
About a.p. 1200.

most extraordinary items made of stone include a circular slab
bearing a “sun symbol” design in black, red, green, and yel-
low; a tubular pipe painted in stripes of the same colors; and
two animal effigies (possibly a bear and a mountain lion)
painted in rainbow arcs of the same colors. These important
and perhaps indescribably sacred objects were without any
doubt paraphernalia used in rituals.

Tough, resistant volcanic rock, such as basalt or rhyolite,
was used for making manos, pestles, metates, slabs, hammer-
stones and mauls. Chalcedony, flint, jasper and obsidian were
the rocks most commonly used in manufacturing projectile

1

and spear points, saws, gravers, knives and other tools that
were produced and edged by means of chipping. The circu-
lar slab painted to represent the sun was made from sandstone;
the pipe and the two stone bowls, from tuff.

CARPENTER’S TOOLS OF STONE

Upper, smooth saw (about a.p. 1100); lower left, knife (about a.p. 1000);
center, toothed saw (about a.p. 1000); lower right, drill (about 300 B.c.).

CORDAGE, TEXTILES, BASKETS

While little in the way of cordage, textiles, knots, or cloth-
ing has been recovered from late sites (unless charred, these
objects decay without trace), we assume that the same classes
or kinds of materials were being made and used. Actually, a
few charred remains have been recovered and these yield a
few clues.

Four charred pieces of fiber cordage were found on the
floors of burned rooms. ‘Two of these were made of hair fiber
and two of material too fragile to identify. “These may have
been skeins of string, or they may have been parts of netting,
string aprons, or sashes. There were also fragments of cloth

114

of plain weave, probably of cotton; of blankets of fur or feather
cloth; of several kinds of basketry; and of matting.

These fragile remains, together with the fragments that we
discovered in dry caves, lead me to believe that the inventory
of items manufactured from plants was as large as in the pre-
ceding period, if not larger. And I also assume that the same
materials were used, namely, cotton, bast fibers, hair fibers,
yucca, and rushes.

WOODEN TOOLS

We have no wooden artifacts from open sites, because such
tools would perish from dampness, but from caves we have
recovered enough to warrant the guess that wooden tools did
exist in towns out in the open and that they were well made
and abundant.

Probably most of the native woods were used—oak, pine,
willow, mountain mahogany, and juniper.

A glance around the rooms of a Mogollon village of about
A.D. 1300 would have revealed such tools as bows and arrows,
digging sticks, trowels, scoops, spoons, stone knives hafted with
wooden handles, wooden awls, lapboards, weaving tools and
perhaps wooden dice.

BONE TOOLS

Time is kinder to bone tools than to wooden or woven
things and thus we have a fair assemblage of bone tools to
study. Punches, arrowhead flakes, fleshers, weaving tools,
beads, pendants, gaming pieces and bone tubes were the
commonest items. Deer bones were mostly used, although
occasionally one notes bird, mountain sheep, antelope, and
bison bones.

JEWELRY

Bracelets were the favorite jewelry. ‘These were cut and
carved from bivalve shells collected in the Gulf of California.
Some beads and pendants were also carved from these shells.

16 be)

Turquoise and lignite were brought into the area by trade
for use in ceremonies and in ornaments.

POTTERY TYPES AND MATERIALS

From the native clays a great variety of pottery was made.
Some new types came into existence and a few of the older
ones began to decline in fashionable usage. The plain brown
and plain red wares (Alma Plain and San Francisco Red)
occurred, but they were fading in popularity as were the neck
corrugated and the incised corrugated types. The indented
corrugated pottery was fast replacing some of the earlier tex-
tured wares. Another type that was becoming fashionable
was a pottery type consisting entirely of bowl forms with a
shiny black interior and a brown-black exterior, and embel-
lished with a few coils or fillets on the exterior of the rim
(Tularosa fillet rim).

The greatest change took place in the painted decorated
types. The red on white ware completely disappeared and in
its place we find a black on white pottery that was probably
locally made but inspired by Anasazi (or Pueblo Indian) art
styles. The paste or clay of the pots was white or gray instead
of brown or pink; the pots were covered by a wash of white
or gray clay; and the paint used for composing the designs
was made from iron-oxide mineral.

There was also a greater variety in shapes in the painted
ware. In addition to bowls, one finds pitchers, jars, and ladles,
and, in the latter part of this period, canteen-shaped jars,
effigy-vessels made to represent ducks and mountain sheep,
and a few so-called eccentric forms. The painted types are
called Reserve black on white and Tularosa black on white.

Traces of an extraordinarily beautiful pottery type known
as Mimbres black on white turned up in many of the sites of
this period. The great bulk of Mimbres black on white pot-
tery occurs in the Mimbres Valley in southern New Mexico.
The designs on this ware were derived from earlier Mogollon
pottery designs, but at and after a.p. 1000 the designs on the
Mimbres pottery became increasingly complex, better and
more delicately executed, and astonishingly handsome. Many

116

of the designs depict animals, people, and realistic scenes. It
may safely be said that Mimbres pottery is among the finest
ever created by American Indians.

On the basis of present evidence we guess that the few
Mimbres pots that we found in the Pine Lawn—Reserve area

Stone saw being used to produce bone rings (about a.p. 1300).

were brought in by trade, although they may have been
locally made.

When the Anasazi-inspired black on white pottery seized
the fancy of the Mogollon Indians they almost ceased im-
porting the fine Mimbres pots and went all out for the new
craze—Reserve black on white and Tularosa black on white.
We are not surprised then to find little if any Mimbres in-
fluence on the later, Anasazi-style pots.

In villages that spanned the later part of the period un-
der discussion, we found a red ware decorated with black
paint (black on red ware). This is a pleasing type. After a
time, another color, white, was added to the designs on this
black on red ware. This type has been dubbed St. Johns
polychrome. This type became very popular and spread over

Lt We

many parts of the southwest during its life span of some 200 to
300 years. Whether this black on red ware was made locally
is not known, but certainly many of the designs are the same
as those on the contemporary, sister ware, Tularosa black on
white.

Just before the area was abandoned, glaze-paint poly-
chrome ware, derived directly from St. Johns polychrome,
was imported.

Instead of trying to describe the details of any of these pots
I shall rely on illustrations to make clear what I am talking
about. I think it is evident that the Mogollon peoples of the
thirteenth century possessed great dexterity in the manipula-
tion of clays and in the texturing, painting and firing of pot-
tery. These skills are partially reflected in the fact that
approximately twelve pottery types were made in the thir-
teenth century, about seven of which were utility or cooking-

pot types.

Judging by the soot on the pottery found, we think that
the favorite types used in cooking were the corrugated or tex-
tured jars and the smudged bowls. The favorite types used
mostly for storage and serving of food were the fillet-rim and
the textured or corrugated bowls. The eccentric and effigy
vessels may have been used primarily for ritualistic purposes
and they appear to have been the property of the female line,
as they are associated with female skeletons.

It should be noted that ladles were rare; mugs were wholly
absent; and jars were the commonest type.

HOUSES AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

The title of this chapter is The Beginnings of Town Life.
This seemed to be a likely name for this stage of Mogollon
development, because fairly large towns or centers of popu-
lation came into existence. These were self-supporting units
and may have encouraged the growth of smaller, satellite
hamlets. The larger towns usually included a Great Kiva or
ceremonial center that may have served nearby smaller towns
which could not or did not support such a center.

118

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119

A Mogollon ‘‘town’”’? was almost always erected near a
stream or a good spring; usually it was built on a flat plain
near a stream or on a terrace just above the flood plain or on
a knoll near the river or spring. Defense of these towns was
probably not necessary, as most of them lack walls, moats, or
steep approaches. There they were, out on a plain or a gentle
rise—and a sitting duck for an enemy host had there been one.

The town itself was a kind of cellular structure, composed
of a number of contiguous rooms, built on the surface of the
ground (as opposed to pit-houses); each apartment or set of
family rooms was furnished with a private entrance, as they
are in our apartment buildings. The whole mass of rooms,
varying in number from 30 to 50, was fairly well planned be-
fore construction, although additions and alterations were
frequently made. We guess that parts of the town were two
stories high, perhaps even three, and that the population was
perhaps from 100 to 500 people. The rooms ranged in size
from 6 by 6 feet to 15 by 16 feet. Some were nearly square,
while others were rectangular. Many of the larger towns
were built around a court or plaza that was roofed; some-
times a low retaining wall on one side enclosed a good-sized
area that formed a patio or plaza.

Situated close to the town was the Great Kiva, the center
of community worship and the scene of important festivals and
ceremonies. Entrance to the Kiva chamber was by means of
a ramp, 10 feet wide and 33 feet long.

CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES

Earlier, I stated that rooms were built on top of the ground.
Surface construction implies the use of walls built up to the
desired height and composed of adobe, stone, brick, or logs.
The towns of this stage of Mogollon development were dif-
ferent from the clusters of pit-houses mentioned in an earlier
chapter. At first the walls of the buildings consisted of ma-
sonry made up of unshaped river cobbles; later they were
improved by including laminated slabs or rough, shaped
blocks of stone. Mud served as mortar. Such walls were
erected on the surface of the ground, sometimes on a special

120

BLACK-ON-WHITE POTTERY JAR AND STONE BOWLS
FROM A PUEBLO, AND SACRED, PAINTED STONES FROM A
GREAT KIVA. ABOUT a.p. 1175-1200

footing or foundation, and were built or abutted one against
another or bonded one to another in such a way as to form
a series of outer walls and partition walls, thus creating a
‘“‘town”’ (a series of contiguous surface rooms).

MASONRY

It is probable that the Mogollon Indians did not devise
stone masonry. It seems likely that the notion of building
stone walls was borrowed from the Anasazi Indians to the
north. Hence, it is assumed that the idea of a cellular struc-
ture—a pueblo or town of contiguous rooms—was also bor-
rowed from Pueblo Indians. I should add that at the time
that these ideas concerning architecture were gaining vogue
the ideas of making black on white painted pottery and other
traits to be mentioned later were also adopted from the Anasazi.

GREAT KIVA AND THE PLAZA

Although we have noted the influx of new traits from the
north, it should be added that building around a court or a
plaza may have been a Mogollon contribution; certainly the
Great Kiva with ramp entrance was the result of Mogollon
inspiration.

PIT STRUCTURES

Curiously enough, in these large towns with contiguous
surface rooms of masonry, we find that pit structures were also
being contemporaneously built and used. These pits were
rectangular (about 10 by 12 feet, with the floor about 5 feet
below the surface), were roofed over, and were lined with
masonry walls. Floors were of adobe plaster and let into them
were stone-lined firepits. Ventilation was provided by fresh-
air ducts, the shafts of which ran up to the surface. When a
fire was lighted the smoke and warm air drifted up and out
through the hatchway in the roof. This upward motion drew
cool fresh air down the ventilator shaft and into the pit room.
Such ventilating devices were common in all Anasazi kivas
and earlier Anasazi pit-houses. Similar but less well-devel-

122

Effigy of mountain sheep (?) made *
of black-on-white pottery.
About a.p. 1200.

Black-on-white pottery pitcher.
About A.p. 1200.

Black-on-white pottery ladle.
About a.p. 1200.

123

oped devices probably obtained in Mogollon pit-houses, in
which the lateral entryway served as a ventilator shaft. The
Anasazi probably deserve credit for perfecting this device and
making it neat and shipshape and finished in appearance.

On the floors of many of these pit structures one finds
corn-grinding mills or metate bins permanently affixed to the
floor, usually three in a set, separated from one another by
means of a thin stone partition. A very rough metate was
placed at one end to produce a coarse grind; a less rough one
in the middle for a medium-coarse grind; and a smoothly tex-
tured one at the opposite end for a very fine grind or a pow-
dered flour. Each metate was tilted the long way, and at the
lower end of each one and depressed slightly into the floor
was a pottery bowl, usually smudged ware, to catch the flour
as it was ground up by the mano or handstone that was vigor-
ously rubbed up and down on the metate (see figure, p. 108).

These built-in corn mills and flour-catching receptacles are
referred to in the archaeological ‘“‘trade jargon” as mealing bins.

Thus, most of these late pit structures were provided with
firepits, ventilators, mealing bins, manos, and flour recepta-
cles. The function of these subterranean structures is not cer-
tainly known. In form, they resemble the pit-houses of the
previous centuries (rectangular shape). The ventilator appa-
ratus and the mealing bins may have been features introduced
from the Anasazi tribes to the north, although these points are
moot. At the present time it is assumed that the pit structures
were domiciles that served also as places for family worship or
lesser ceremonies.

It is not surprising to find that pit structures survived up
to the fourteenth century, for they have been found in the later
Anasazi villages also. Just what kind of social organization
the presence of surface as well as subterranean structures im-
plies I don’t know. We have no contemporary examples to
draw on for explanation. Perhaps the conservatives lived in
the pit dwellings and the progressives in the surface pueblos;
perhaps the pit-houses served as winter dwellings; perhaps the
presence of pit-houses was an expression of a guild or priestly
division, with the general population living in the surface

124

rooms and members of a guild or the priesthood living in the
pit-houses; perhaps the families that guarded the sacred cere-
monial objects felt obliged to live in an ‘“‘old-time”’ type of
house and thus inhabited the pit structures; perhaps the dif-
ference in house types was due merely to individual preference
—with some people feeling warmer and snugger and less sub-
ject to attacks of rheumatism(!) in pit-houses. We really do
not know the answers at present.

HOUSE INTERIORS

Although the houses of this phase are “‘better’’ if judged
by our standards, it must be remembered that the interiors
probably represented the utmost in Spartan simplicity. The
interior and exterior walls were plastered with adobe. The
walls of some rooms may have been embellished with simple
painted decorations, similar to those found on pottery. The
household furnishings were of the simplest order: beds of grass
covered with skins or blankets of rabbit fur or feathers, pots,
scouring pads made of plant fibers, metates and manos or
mealing bins, torches of cedar bark, fire drills for making fire,
fire tongs, flexible cradles, baskets, perhaps a loom and per-
haps some ears of corn. Netted carrying bags, burden straps,
and flexible carrying baskets may have hung on wall pegs.
There was no furniture in our sense of the word. Certainly
there were no chairs of any kind. One squatted on one’s heels
or sat cross-legged on a mat or skin on the floor. Even today,
the houses of Hopi and Zuni Indians are sparsely furnished,
although the more acculturated Indians own chairs, beds,
tables, and sewing machines.

PLAZAS OR COURTS

The larger and later towns, as mentioned above, looked
inward. The rooms faced a plaza or plazas. There were no
rows of houses, no streets. Each pueblo was a large block of
rooms. The Anasazi towns of this period tended to look out-
ward or have an outward-facing appearance. Their blocks of
rooms were often built in a semi-circle or in straight rows of
rooms with “‘streets’’ between the rows.

125

The Mogollon type of village plan undoubtedly reflects
the mental attitudes of the people. Perhaps their mode of
existence and their ancient isolation in mountain valleys
tended to make them introspective and to shape their world
outlook.

THE FAMILY

The organization of the family and society was probably
the same as that described in some detail in the preceding
chapter. Indeed, we can see no cause for major shifts. I
should merely expect intensification of various features of kin-
ship, rules of residence, and clan organization. The emphasis
was matrilineal, and matrilocal residence was probably the
rule. The matrilineal household consisted of a woman and
her husband, her married daughters and their husbands, her
unmarried children, and the children of her married daugh-
ters. The women comprised the important part of the unit
because they owned the house, prepared and disbursed the
food, and cared for the religious paraphernalia. This extended
household probably occupied a series of adjacent rooms.

The clan—a group of people united or related through the
female line—probably grew in importance and may have as-
sumed more important functions. Each clan probably owned
certain lands for the use of its members. Control of particular
ceremonies was probably in the keeping of a particular clan.

PATTERNS OF COMMUNITY LIFE

I shall summarize here my conjectures concerning the pat-
terning of community life in the Reserve area between A.D. 1000
and 1350.

Each town was economically and politically independent,
but in times of danger several villages probably banded to-
gether for joint action. Discussion, visits, counseling and inter-
marriage between villages was probably common.

Each town was probably divided into a series of matrilineal
clans united and sharing a totemic animal. Each clan was
composed of one or more mother-lines. Matrilocal residence

126

and extended families living in adjacent rooms were the rule.
There was probably some emphasis on village organization
along clan lines. In addition, there may have been kiva groups
and men’s societies concerned with tribal initiation rights, win-
ter and summer solstice ceremonies, rain-making, and cere-
monies for war and for curing the sick. All rituals were prob-
ably organized in terms of a ceremonial calendar. Political
authority was probably in the hands of a council of priests with
one man acting as the head of the hierarchy.

The principal matters that came before the council prob-
ably related to appointments for secular offices; the choice of
impersonators of various deities or gods; the choice of a time
for tribal initiations; any proposed changes in the ceremonial
calendar; and general questions of tribal policy.

The whole welfare of the town was in the hands of this
council, which may or may not have concerned itself with
secular quarrels and problems, or with crimes. These latter
were probably dealt with directly by the family or families or
by a small unit of the clan.

Thus the pattern of family and social organization may
have given rise to that which obtains today among the western
Pueblo Indians.

CEREMONIALISM; GODS AND SPIRITS

Ceremonialism of a complex sort may be safely inferred for
this period because ceremonial objects and ceremonial rooms
or kivas have been discovered. Since these objects and build-
ings bear specific resemblances to those used in the sixteenth
century and in contemporary Hopi and Zuhi Indian societies,
we are probably not far off in our surmises. In fact, we can
speak with a fair amount of accuracy, because the contem-
porary ceremonies, religious beliefs and practices of the Hopi
and Zuni Indians were not created today or yesterday; they
yield certain internal evidences of some antiquity. This being
so, it does not require too much imagination to conceptualize
these earlier rituals and beliefs. The ceremonialism and the
ritualistic organizations of the Mogollon Indians of a.p. 1200,
for example, are not far removed in time or space from those

127.

witnessed by the Spaniards in 1540 and afterward, and by
recent observers. It is probable that the rituals and beliefs
of the Roman Catholic religion have undergone few changes
in the last 500 years. And so, probably, have the principal
religious concepts of the Hopis and Zunis also remained largely
unchanged.

I assume, then, that the ceremonialism of the Mogollones
was highly developed and that religion or many aspects of it
pervaded all activities. It is also probable that ceremonialism
had rich and harmonious forms that were externalized in ritu-
als, prayers, and offerings. Ritual was mainly a device for
controlling the supernatural; and there was a strong feeling
against despoiling or taking advantage of the forests, streams,
fields, and animals—all considered manifestations of the super-
natural.

Many of the rituals were supposed to remind the super-
natural forces—the Sun, the Moon, the Katchinas (ancestral
spirits), the Rain Maker, the Beast Spirits and the War
**Gods’’—that man is dependent upon their generosity. Offer-
ings such as food, tobacco, prayer meal (a coarsely ground
corn meal containing bits of shell and turquoise), prayer-
sticks, and sacrifices (animal and possibly human) were all
used to help influence the supernatural forces. Other acces-
sories such as fetishes, masks, altars, stone images of the Beast
Spirits, amulets, paint, sand paintings, embroidered white
cotton kilts, embroidered sashes (depicted on Mimbres and
Hopi pottery), fox tails, gourd rattles, copper bells worn as
anklets or wristlets, shell and turquoise necklaces, ceremonial
bows and arrows, feathered wands and staves, polished stone
implements, feather boxes, drums, and flutes, were venerated
in ceremonies and were also employed in controlling the super-
natural forces.

DEVELOPMENT OF CALENDAR

A ceremonial calendar probably determined the dates for
the ceremonies. This calendar was one that had slowly evolved
during the previous centuries and had been handed down by
oral tradition from generation to generation. Being farmers,

128

the Mogollon Indians must have observed the passing of the
seasons, the times of rain and snows, and the apparent move-
ment of the sun from north to south and then back again.
Apparently the winter and summer solstices were fairly impor-
tant to them and from these two fixed dates all other ceremonies
were dated. Just how the date of the solstice was calculated by
observation is not known. By noting the rising or setting posi-

S77

PLLIDD.

A plaited sandal (about a.p. 1200).

tions of the sun with reference to certain landmarks, they may
have been able to determine, for example, whether the sun
was still moving southward or whether that journey had been
halted and the sun was starting to move northward again.
Thus the solstices could have been fixed with relative accuracy.

It is barely possible that the idea of reckoning time and
the methods for fixing certain important dates were diffused
to the Mogollon Indians from Meso-America, where, as we
well know, accurate calendars had been devised, eclipses fore-
told, and systems of counting the days evolved. And most of
these data had been written down!

We do not know, then, whether the Mogollones devised
their own calendar independently of their cousins in Meso-
America or whether they were helped by their cousins. But
an “‘oral’’ calendar probably existed. (Today, the position of
the sun at sunset time with reference to the San Francisco
Peaks, Flagstaff, Arizona, is carefully observed daily by a Hopi

AZo

priest.) At any rate, the dates for planting, for rain-making
ceremonies, for giving thanks to the proper supernatural forces
for good crops, and for holding most ritualistic observances
were set by the tribal calendar. There could be no deviation.

ooraseuitthiniVanl

oT
Late ear of corn of the type grown about a.p. 1300-1400.
Length about 5 inches.

PURPOSES OF CEREMONIES

In many of the ceremonies, part of the community may
have served as audience. The elaborate public ceremonies,
which usually followed the esoteric rituals, were colorful, ex-
citing, dramatic events and were probably looked forward to
with boundless enthusiasm, just as today some of us enjoy
watching great spectacles: parades, Rose-Bowl games, base-
ball games, county and state fairs, and super-gigantic movies.

The ceremonies, both the secret and private portions and
the public displays and dances, were usually directed toward
community goals of recognized and accepted value such as
bringing rain or snow, producing abundant harvests, making
game and plant life more plentiful, increasing the fertility of
the tribe, curing sicknesses, assuring victory over enemies, com-
pelling the sun by magical methods to turn its course north-
ward or southward (the solstice ceremonies), and managing
the tribal initiation rites. The life crises ceremonies, such as
rituals concerned with birth, puberty, marriage and death,
tended to become less important.

Predominant in the ceremonial orthodoxy was the belief
that all natural objects possessed a soul (animistic doctrine)
and the worship of ancestors and individuals or classes of beings

130

who influenced human affairs. These beings probably in-
cluded Katchinas (the spirits of the ancestors), the Sun, the
Earth, Corn, Preying Animals (the Mountain Lion, the Bear,
the Badger, the Gopher), and Spirits having to do with war.
At the root of the religion was a fervent worship of the spirits
of all the ancestors who were believed to visit the towns from
time to time and to take an interest in the welfare of their
descendants, and, if properly venerated, to help the earth
peoples in time of distress.

The religion, then, was not personal, as is ours, but con-
sisted of a series of participations in group rituals. It was a
matter for the whole town to be interested in.

Masks were undoubtedly worn (representations of masked
dances appear on pottery after a.p. 1100) and are worn today
in many Hopi and Zufi ceremonies. It may have been thought
that wearing a mask permitted an ordinary mortal to repre-
sent the corporeal substance of an ancestral spirit, and in
wearing it, the wearer, through a miracle akin to that of tran-
substantiation in many religions, became temporarily the an-
cestral spirit or Katchina.

The elaborate public ceremonies were probably held in the
roofed plaza, which was centrally located, or in a suitable place
nearby. The secret parts of the rituals, from which most of
the public were excluded, were probably held in the kivas.

The term “‘kiva”’ is reserved for a place that was set aside
for ceremonial use. The kiva was usually semi-subterranean
and was equipped with special features. Some of these, in
small house-kivas, were described in the last chapter.

STRUCTURE AND USES OF GREAT KIVAS

In this period of a.p. 1000 to 1350 we find not only the
smaller, subterranean house-kivas but also the Great Kiva.
Great Kivas possessed something rather magnificent in their
conception. We know they were large, but we can only guess
at the richness of their furnishings and embellishments. Not
every village was endowed with such extraordinary structures,
but apparently the large and wealthy(?) ones were. Such large
buildings indicate a pool of labor that could be drawn on for

131

communal projects and a political organization and central
authority that could command these resources. Certainly,
planning and bossing a large crew would have been necessary.

Great Kivas of the Mogollon were rectangular and meas-
ured approximately 33 by 37 feet or roughly 1,300 square feet.
This size creates a room of noble proportions, especially when
one remembers that the ceiling, for Indian architecture, was
lofty, being from six to eight feet high, and massive.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the building was
the ramp-entryway. As the term implies, this was a sloping
floor that led gently downward from the outside ground level
to the floor of the ritual chamber. The ramps varied in width
and length from village to village, but they averaged about
8 feet wide and from 25 to 30 feet long. They faced eastward.
As far as I know, ramp-entryways are confined to Mogollon
Great Kivas. The Great Kivas of the Anasazi, borrowed from
the Mogollon culture, were circular and were entered by a
narrow set of steps.

Now, a ramp entrance of this kind is an interesting archi-
tectural feature, but from our point of view it has some disad-
vantages. One of these is that a considerable volume of water
could enter the kiva by this route during a heavy rain storm;
and the second is that it would be harder to shut out the
drafts of cold air that would blow down such an opening.
In other words, putting a door on such an opening would be
difficult. Therefore, either the Mogollon Indians used this
sacred structure only in warm, dry weather, or they did not
give a hoot about cold drafts, or they had devised some suit-
able means of effectively closing the entrance.

But why construct such a nuisance? The answer, I think,
lies in the fact that these long, wide entryways were especially
built to accommodate religious processions of priests that
marched into or out of these kivas. What a colorful and im-
pressive sight these must have been with priests and partici-
pants masked and brightly robed accompanied by musicians
playing on flutes, drums, and rattles!

Inside, in the floor, and adjacent to the four gigantic up-
right posts (from 3 to 4 feet in diameter) that supported the
flat timber, brush, and adobe roof, were two grooves or de-

132

pressions. These, if covered with planks, may have served as
foot-drums. In the center, between the grooves, was a large
hearth.

The walls may have been plastered and lavishly decorated
with paintings of geometrical designs or possibly of mythical
beasts in imaginary scenes.

We assume that the nearby satellite villages were served by
the Great Kivas and in them were held rituals and possibly
sacrifices and feasts of extraordinary sanctity. Such rituals
would have required a full consistory of priests, some of whom
may have come from adjacent towns. It is barely possible that
toward the end of this era, a full consistory of priests might
have been lacking, as some of the towns might have been
abandoned, thereby creating a situation in which some major
ceremonies could not have been performed. This, in turn,
may have been another cause that hastened the evacuation
of the area, because without the proper ceremonies the people
would have felt that life could not be successful.

RITUALS OF BURIAL AND MOURNING

We are uncertain as to the relationship between death,
burial, and belief in the supernatural. Among present-day
Hopi Indians, the ritual of burial and the mourning for the
deceased are restrained and simple in character. Burial takes
place as soon as possible. Interred with the body are foods
and water for use in the spirit world. It is barely possible that
the rituals concerning death and burial were somewhat more
involved for the Mogollon Indians of the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries. Among contemporary Hopi, the cemetery
is at the foot of the hill on which they live. Among the Mog-
ollones, burial took place under the floor of the house (an old
Mogollon custom) or in the nearby trash midden. The de-
ceased was wrapped in a deerskin robe, and mortuary offer-
ings such as pottery, jewelry, tools of stone or bone, and food
were placed in the grave. Sometimes as many as 22 pots were
buried with one individual.

From the fact that the burials were close to or inside of the
pueblo, I think that the ritual of burial must have been charged

133

with some emotional elements and that the deceased was
longed for rather than put out of mind. Perhaps it was be-
lieved that the individual did not really die—that he returned
to the underworld whence he came and where he would carry
on specialized activities. It is possible that the quantity of
mortuary offerings depended on the status of the deceased.
In general, the pottery interred with children tended to be of
poor quality and was often miniature in size.

We can picture the towns of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries as forming a peaceful farming society that was some-
what isolated from other Southwestern tribes by geographic
features. Perhaps rainfall was never too abundant and agri-
culture could be successful only by means of great persever-
ance, collaboration, and teamwork. Abundant rains and a
good crop were of inordinate value and were the prime factors
in keeping this civilization alive. These two factors—rain and
crops—made the people realize how dependent they were on
nature and this dependence was probably the cause of the
people’s religious attitude toward the forces of nature; hence,
prayers and ceremonies that concerned themselves primarily
with these essentials, and a religion that was directed towards
appeasing nature so that the rains would fall!

134

SUMMARY and
CONCLUSIONS

In this book I have presented a brief history of a group of
Indians whom we call the Mogollon. I have tried to set forth
the major stages of their development as revealed by the exca-
vation and study of material objects and their associations. It
is prehistory, because I have given the details of the different
cultural traits as they occurred and the approximate dates at
which they appeared. In so doing, I was interested in seek-
ing explanations of why and how this particular culture or
civilization developed. In this latter aim, I can only suggest
a few explanations, as the significant causes still elude me.
But before dealing with this subject I should like briefly to
review the various levels of development—the evolutionary
stages, if you will.

135

THE EARLIEST STAGE

The earliest level or era, some 10,000 years ago, was one in
which the ancestors of the Mogollon Indians along with others
of the Desert Area were eking out an existence by collecting
wild food plants and hunting small game. In a sense these
Mogollon ancestors moving about in the valleys and moun-
tains of the Southwest were destined to become farmers
because they were experienced in gathering wild foods and in
observing the ways of plant life, and because they depended
on a crop of wild foods—seeds, nuts, berries, and bulbs—for
subsistence. When they obtained, probably by contact, the
knowledge of planting maize, beans, and squash, they were
psychologically geared to accept this new but similar way of
obtaining their subsistence. They planted seeds now instead
of gathering them.

I called this earliest stage, before agriculture had become
established, The Time of Limited Wandering. In so far as I can
grasp the situation I should be inclined to call it a stable era,
one of essentially unchanging continuity. Before agriculture
was introduced, the minor changes that took place in the tra-
ditional cultural forms did not radically shift the general
“slant” of the culture. The old ways of doing things, the
traditional forms, persisted over a long period of time (several
thousand years perhaps) without great changes.

There were probably contacts with other peoples and cul-
tures, but it is somewhat difficult to document this statement.
Perhaps I can point to the beads made from shells which came
from the Pacific Ocean; to the distribution by trade of spe-
cial rocks such as jasper, chalcedony, and obsidian, to be used
for blades or projectile points; and to the wide distribution
of tubular pipes, to be used for smoking or for curing the
sick. I might also add to this list special weaving and wood-
working techniques that were widespread in the Desert Cul-
ture area and that probably indicate contacts with other
people and places.

A TIME OF COMING TOGETHER

The next era, which endured for about 1,500 years and
which commenced about 500 B.c., was called The Emergence

136

of Small Sedentary Communities. During this time farming was
practiced. Maize, beans, and squash were planted regularly.
In addition, some wild foods such as yucca pods, cacti, black
walnuts, acorns, grass seeds, primrose leaves and sunflower
seeds were gathered and were used to supplement the farm
products. Architecture and pottery made their appearance
during this epoch and many changes resulted from these inno-
vations. These were introduced from without, by contacts.

In spite of the fact that many of the traditional forms, arti-
facts, and ways of life persisted, one can note tendencies toward
elaboration and divergence: alteration of the subsistence pat-
tern through agriculture; introduction of houses and changes
in their forms; production of some new artifact types (pottery
and metates, bows and arrows, axes); and elaboration of pot-
tery styles and designs, and of ceremonial life.

Contacts with outside groups are marked by the introduc-
tion by trade or other forms of social intercourse of many new
traits, some of which have been named: agriculture from
Mexico; shell bracelets and shell pendants from the Pacific
coast; new projectile point forms; reed cigarettes, probably
from Mexico; the bow and arrow, probably from Canada;
pottery and pottery designs from Mexico; different weaving
techniques from the Anasazi; and possibly the ventilator appa-
ratus for small kivas from the Anasazi. In general, during the
early part of this stage, contacts and culture change resulted
chiefly from trade or other relationships with people to the
south; but after about A.p. 500 more and more contacts were
made with the Anasazi, to the north. All of these additional
traits were fused with those already possessed by the Mogollon
Indians. Thus, a different-appearing Mogollon culture was
forged, with perhaps Cochise-Mogollon traits and peculiarities
dominating.

I should note here that the items I call “trade” are really
the results of contacts. From such objects and situations I
have made inferences (in the preceding chapters) concerning
the behavior of the people by trying to observe the results of
innovations on the culture as reflected in material objects and
their associations. I have been greatly aided, of course, by

137

the study of similar situations recorded for contemporary
Southwestern Indian cultures, notably the Hopi, Zuni, Pima
and Papago.

With all of this fermentation taking place, was this era,
from 500 B.c. to A.D. 1000, one of upheaval? In general,
yes; I should think that it was unstable from time to time; but
I also think that after farming, architecture, and pottery-mak-
ing had been assimilated there would have been fairly stable
periods of several generations or so in length. Of course, the
terms ‘‘stable’’ and “‘unstable”’ are relative as I use them; they
express only difference in degree. In a stable period of a
healthy society I should expect some changes.

DAE GEEMAX cA RENE AcWw.N

The last stage, which was very short (A.D. 1000 to 1300 or
1350), I called The Beginnings of Town Life. In this brief time,
and one that can be looked upon with some sadness, many inno-
vations were noted. Drastic changes in architecture and per-
haps in other non-material traditions took place. Many of
the contacts that can be observed by means of the material
objects and village remains were with the Anasazi Indians to
the north and the Hohokam Indians to the west and south.

Anasazi traditions that were taken over include surface
rooms arranged in cellular fashion and with masonry walls;
black on white pottery bearing Puerco-River-drainage designs;
cooking pottery with indented-corrugated necks; full-grooved
axes; flint saws; turquoise pendants; and the mealing-bin com-
plex. The traits that came as the result of contacts with peo-
ples to the south and west (Hohokam, probably) are tepary
beans, cotton, various ‘‘characteristics’ of the corn, paint
palettes, carved and cut shell, the three quarters-grooved axe,
copper bells, and the style of stone carving. Thus there was
convergence of Hohokam and Anasazi traditions with those
of the Mogollon.

The balance achieved between man and nature permitted
a mildly dense population. People tended to cluster in towns
of modest size because town life appealed to them for cere-
monial and socializing reasons and because their farms could

138

be managed easily enough from this vantage point. Some
form of chieftainship or town organization probably existed
because the towns were becoming sizable and therefore some
mild but central authority would have been needed. At least
it seems plausible to assume that common interests and the
common weal would have caused submission to a central au-
thority, especially in regard to community building-projects,
planting, harvesting, the calendar, and group rituals.

I believe that ideas or people or both peacefully penetrated
the Pine Lawn-Reserve and adjacent areas from the north
and perhaps from the south. We have no evidence that force
was employed to bring about the changes noted. There was
no sharp cleavage with the past except for the change in some
traditions and the addition of new ones. It should be remem-
bered that traits had been flowing out of and into the Mogollon
area for some time and hence there would have been no sharp
conflicts.

In spite of the new ways of life and the subsequent con-
vergence or hybridization, most of the older Mogollon tradi-
tions such as types of tools, culinary pottery, smudged pottery,
and pit-houses continued to thrive lustily. Even the ‘“‘public”
buildings such as the kivas were essentially Mogollon. Hence
we have fusion but with a dominance of the older, local Mog-
ollon culture. The villages consisted of enclosed plazas with
rooms facing inward, in lieu of the earlier unorganized clus-
ters of rooms.

FATE OF MOGOLLON INDIANS

Here, then, is a long segment of culture history, the begin-
nings of which were, in pre-agricultural times, flowing through
various stages to a final flowering represented by the com-
mencement of town life, well-established agricultural practices,
many additions and comforts, and the beginnings of what we
can call “civilization.”” It would be difficult at present to find
anywhere in the world such a long-documented developmental
and continuous sequence; one that can be traced from a food-
gathering—wandering stage to one of established farming com-
munities, covering perhaps some ten to twelve thousand years

139

of unbroken existence. We are fortunate in having this his-
tory for study.

The material results of all of this have been published, but
it will take a long time for the significance of these researches
to be thoroughly exploited and tied up to the story of the his-
tory of civilization. I have merely skimmed the surface; the
bulk is yet there to be digested and formulated in general laws
and in a philosophy concerning man and his will to progress,
no matter what obstacles are put in his path, and perhaps the
‘‘spontaneous”’ development of civilization.

We can demonstrate by means of our data that we have
unearthed and pieced together a cultural continuum in which
man’s development was slow, but steady and _ progressive.
Progress—an ill-used word—but progress, no matter what
definition is used, was attained. Man progressed by exerting
a small bit of control over natural forces. He controlled his
environment to a limited extent by selective breeding of races
of corn and by planting it and beans and squash and thus
assuring himself of a stable food supply.

If he had progressed, why did he not continue to do so?
What halted the Mogollon Indians and what became of them?
There are several answers to these questions. ‘The matter is
not a simple one.

First of all, as far as we can make out, the Mogollon cul-
ture at about a.p. 1300 or 1400 had retained its Mogollon
‘‘slant”’ and vigor and was still going strong when it ran head-
long into insurmountable obstacles.

The Mogollon Indians, even if they had remained in the
area I have been discussing, could probably not have attained
the degree of urbanization and civilization that the Mayas,
Toltecs, and Aztecs had reached, because the country and
the climate were marginal and were not suitable or favorable
for great concentrations of population. To have developed
much farther on the long road to civilization, a far denser
population would have been necessary. The Pine Lawn-
Reserve area could not have supported a dense population
because: (1) the rainfall was insufficient for big farming proj-
ects; (2) there were no water resources that could have been

140

used for irrigation purposes; and (3) the topography was too
hilly and rocky to be economically exploited for agriculture
unless terracing had been employed. Even then, terraces
would have been ineffective without rain or irrigation. Hence,
I conclude that the Mogollon Indians had progressed about
as far as they ever could have gone. I grant, that if they had
not been forced to abandon the area, and if they had remained
there many more centuries, and if they had maintained con-
tacts and trade relations with the higher culture centers in
Mexico, they might have reached higher cultural plateaus.
But they would have had to develop more social co-ordina-
tion, more managerial authority, and more craft specialization.
Unfortunately, after aA.p. 1350 or 1400, many of the Mexican
cultures had collapsed, and thus stimuli from this area would
not have been forthcoming.

But the Mogollon Indians did not remain in their home-
land. Drought, the beginnings of enemy (Apache?) raids, ex-
tinction of certain clans, making impossible the celebration of
certain ceremonies, or other as yet undiscovered reasons forced
ahegira. They gradually abandoned their homeland of many
centuries and moved out. By a.p. 1400 at the latest, they had
disappeared. Apache or other Indians may have camped in
the area from time to time, but not until the coming of the
white settlers in the mid-nineteenth century were there any
permanent settlers and farmers. At present, we are exploring
the trail of the Mogollones as they dispersed south, west, and
north. Itis hoped that eventually we may discover where they
went. On the basis of present evidence, I guess that some of
them moved west and north. It is possible that descendants of
these Mogollones are living today at Zufii.

DEVELOPMENT OF MOGOLLON CULTURE

Now I return to the statement, made at the outset of this
chapter, that I was interested in seeking explanations and
causes of how and why the Mogollon culture developed. I
stated then that the significant causes elude me. I have only
a few superficial explanations to set forth, some of which have
already been alluded to in this chapter.

141

In their earliest stage we saw the Mogollon Indians or
their ancestors living a simple life that was devoted principally
to satisfying the basic biological needs for food, shelter, and
clothing. These needs were obtained by fundamental tech-
nologies such as tool-making, manufacture of weapons and
traps, weaving, and a knowledge of what plants were edible,
where they grew, and when their fruits were ripe. This stage
was reached by many peoples in various parts of the world at
a very early time. Some peoples never passed beyond this
stage, partly because they did not have the opportunity, partly
because they lacked the stimulation from others, and partly
because they were indifferent to other traditions and ways of
life. Sometimes a new idea will be rejected by people and the
exact reason for this is unknown.

In the next stage we noted great advances among the Mog-
ollones. The idea of planting and cultivating corn, squash,
and beans was borrowed from people to the south; or pos-
sibly they were stimulated by the visits of traders from Mex-
ico to adopt this brilliant idea of obtaining security in food
supplies by planting and cultivating crops. If the Mogol-
lon Indians had lived in a barren desert, agriculture would
not have been possible. Hence, they were fortunate in inhab-
iting a well-watered area that facilitated the adoption of the
idea; and they were fortunate in having developed food-gath-
ering habits that required them to pay great attention to plant
life and nurture. In gathering plants and preparing them for
flour-cookery the Mogollones had at hand digging sticks (for-
merly used for digging up plants, but now to be used in tilling
the ground for planting seeds), collecting baskets, and various
kinds of milling stones and mortars and pestles. Thus, at
hand were the necessary implements and techniques for prac-
ticing agriculture.

Then, by means of communications and contacts, other
traits were borrowed by the Mogollones, notably pit-houses and
pottery-making. The pattern of Mogollon culture took form
at this time and remained largely unchanged for many cen-
turies. We can probably visualize this stage as one in which
population increased; in which the culture of the peoples ex-
panded; in which there was little danger of wars; and in which

142

many stimulations were received from other peoples, especially
those inhabiting Mexico.

The final stages of this culture were marked by efflorescence
of the traits at hand, and the appearance of several new ones.
There were no additions to the basic technologies and no in-
ventions. Population increased as agriculture became better
understood and was more efficiently practiced. An increase
in food supply permitted some people to have more leisure
for developing the arts and crafts and for enriching the intel-
lectual and ceremonial life.

WHAT BLOCKED FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Thus Mogollon folk had reached an apogee for them, a
stage midway between a primitive pre-agricultural era and
civilization. It was fated that they could go no farther. The
reasons for this were suggested earlier in this section. To pro-
vide a deeper explanation of even their limited development
can not be done at the moment. Certainly some of the factors
were a semi-arid environment that facilitated the growth of
culture, and access to many stimuli from a region of several
diversified higher cultures (Mexico). If the Mogollon folk
had been cut off from contacts with various peoples possessing
higher cultures, it is doubtful if they would have progressed
as far as they did.

Various obstacles—terrain, rainfall, some isolation—pre-
vented the formation of large communities integrated through
control by a theocracy with centralized authority, the accu-
mulation of surpluses, and the development of intense special-
ization, metallurgy, large-scale trade, writing, mathematics,
irrigation, and a subsequent upsurge in population. All of
these factors appear to be necessary attributes and ingredients
of higher civilizations, and all were lacking in the Mogollon
culture. Since the creation and development of these condi-
tions were impossibilities, we have here one explanation for
the limited growth of this culture.

But the basic explanation of why peoples rise above “‘sav-
agery,” and why they spontaneously develop even limited
civilization like the Mogollon, is yet to be discovered.

143

We hope that the detailed knowledge of the Mogollon
culture and its rise and migration will contribute to a method-
ology that will suggest “‘laws’ as to why particular cultures
develop, and that this in turn will throw light on contem-
porary as well as future events.

144

VALUE of
ARCHAEOLOGY

MEANING AND USES OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Some newspaper articles have led the public to think that
archaeological excavations are conducted solely for the pur-
pose of removing valuable objects or treasures from the earth
by haphazard digging. Actually, archaeological work is an
effort to reconstruct the history and characteristics of a by-
gone period; to make reasonable conjectures that are inferred
from a small body of materials gathered by excavations; and
to guess about what is missing from what has survived.

Archaeology, then, gathers the material remnants of a past
civilization—tools, pottery, and cast-off objects—and makes
these things live again. Archaeologists collect and classify,
and then make speculations concerning the things classified so

145

that this knowledge may be of help to us in understanding our
own times and our own problems. We learn from the past col-
lective experience of societies long dead; we build on the past.

The archaeologist digs carefully and observingly layer on
layer and brings everything except the dirt home to the lab-
oratory for analysis because he is unable in the field to judge
what is important and what is not.

The excavating is done carefully, because most of the his-
tory of the site is contained in the earth that lies over and on it.
The “‘history” is gleaned not from surviving written records—
for there are none in most instances—but from the painstaking
archaeological work.

To tear an object from its resting place without first gather-
ing all necessary data and without taking photographs is like
ripping a page from a valuable book. If the object is cleaned
and placed on a shelf without its genealogy it is useless and
mute. It can tell us little or nothing. The object is not im-
portant for itself but it becomes invaluable if we know its
‘fassociates,”’ that is, the conditions under which it was found
and the other things that were found with it.

We are forced to use only material objects because in most
instances nothing else remains for us to study. We try to in-
terpret the uses of these objects in the life of the people who
made them. How widely were they distributed and over how
long a period of time were they used? Can we trace the devel-
opment of different kinds of housing and tools? Can we dis-
cover the laws that govern the development of peoples in
similar climates of the world? We try to analyze and compare
the similarities and parallels in these developments because we
are seeking explanations for similarities and are trying to find
out if there are laws that govern the rise and fall of civilizations.

In striving to reach an explanation of the causes of these
similar developments and of their effects, we attempt to estab-
lish some general principles. For example, an increased popu-
lation must have an increased food supply, and in an arid
region this can be secured only by irrigation, which therefore
must be developed if the group is to grow or if it does not wish
to split and emigrate.

146

Writing is an example of a similar and a parallel develop-
ment found in both the Old and the New World. Writing
appeared independently and spontaneously in the eastern and
western hemispheres after the people who had devised it had
developed similar basic technologies and irrigation.

But, as mentioned above, interpretation of our material is
often difficult, for we have only cast-off, broken objects to
work with, often few in number and strange in appearance.
Sometimes, if we are fortunate, we find a cave that has been
occupied for several thousand years and that has been bone
dry during all of that time. The dryness preserves all those
perishable objects—cloth, sandals, wooden objects, skins, agri-
cultural products—that would rot if left in an open site. Thus
we acquire important material that is valuable in attempting
to reconstruct the way of life of the inhabitants of the region.

As I have indicated, digging is usually done under adverse
conditions—dust, mud, rain, heat, insects. There is little
glamour involved. Nevertheless, there is a zest about dig-
ging, arduous though it is, or we would not do it. We may
dig for weeks without finding more than bits of charcoal or a
few broken pieces of pottery.

IMPORTANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
NEW WORLD

At this point, my reader may say: “‘Very well. The Greeks
and Romans contributed to our civilization; but what is the
good of investigating Indian cultures?”

My answer is twofold: The American Indians have con-
tributed to our way of life by giving us ideas in architecture
(Pueblo and Maya) and by giving us many valuable food
plants such as potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, corn, beans, squash
(to name only a few).

The second part of my answer is slightly more involved.
We should be glad to investigate Indian civilizations, even if
we assumed that they had contributed nothing to ours, because
America and the Indians were pretty much cut off from the
Old World and the differing cultures were developed here
more or less independently, after the Indians (Mongoloid peo-

147

ples) had emigrated here via Siberia. In short, the New
World constitutes a kind of gigantic test tube, a great labora-
tory where all sorts of events were taking place, with few or
only occasional influences seeping into the New from the Old
World. ‘This is one of the few such ‘“‘laboratories” that we
know of, since it is impossible to place societies in a test tube
and watch what happens. Most anthropologists believe that
the achievements of the Indians were independently developed
in the New World. These achievements rested on a few basic
traits that the Indians brought with them: pressure flaking;
grinding bone, horn and stone; hafting tools; weaving baskets,
mats, and fish weirs; making cordage; making fire; propelling
projectiles from a spear thrower; and using a domesticated
animal—the dog. In looking over this short list of the traits
brought with them and by comparing it with what the Indian
had accomplished up to 1492, we can see that remarkable
progress had been made.

If the major achievements were independently evolved—
and the weight of evidence appears on this side—and if we
can find parallels in achievements, similarities in develop-
ments, or any regularities of occurrences in both hemispheres
then we may be able to organize our information so that we
can begin to look for relationships between causes and effects.
In short, we may be able to discover why civilizations wax
and wane.

Many well-known achievements apparently developed in-
dependently in the Old and New Worlds: domestication of
plants and animals; irrigation; increase of population and
growth of towns and cities; elaborate social groupings into
priesthoods, states, and empires; development of pottery; pro-
duction of weaving and metal-working; invention of writing,
mathematics, and calendars; production of painting, sculp-
ture, temple palaces, pyramids, and tombs. ‘These are a few
examples of similar and parallel developments, of ‘“‘cultural
regularities.”

In all the semi-arid early centers of civilization, man started
as a user of crude tools of stone and a hunter or a food-gatherer,
and from 4,000 to 9,000 years later he had become a “‘civi-

148

lized”? creature who had devised, discovered, invented, and
evolved all the basic traits and institutions that I have just
listed.

I am not saying that all men have passed through parallel,
unrelated stages; nor am I saying that there are necessarily
universal stages in development that apply to all cultures; nor
again, that the sequences of development are universal. But
I do say that undoubtedly there are a number of important
basic independent parallels that may be explained by the in-
dependent operation of identical causes, provided the com-
parisons are restricted to comparable groups. It would make
no sense to compare the Hottentots, the Eskimos, and the
Egyptians.

If a civilization is balanced and if all the elements of the
culture are in harmony—that is, the ratio, for example, of
agriculture to hunting and gathering, to artistic and religious
expressions—then the chances are that the civilization will be
a sound and happy one. If any one element or if any one
philosophy of the culture becomes more important or if em-
phases of the culture are shifted to a false evaluation (such as
dictators, racism, conquests), then that civilization may be
doomed. This may be one answer as to why several great
civilizations have perished in the past. I would hazard a guess
that our primitive Mogollon Indians, living in their caves, or
later in their pit-houses, or still later in their apartment dwell-
ings, probably lived a happier life and perhaps a somewhat
better one than did the Maya Indians with all their arts and
crafts, and all their skill in building and in mathematics, for
eventually something in the Maya civilization became un-
balanced. Of course you can come right back at me and say,
‘Well what happened to the Mogollon Indians? Why didn’t
their civilization continue if it was so well balanced and such
a happy one?” That is a fair question but I cannot answer it
specifically at this moment. In the preceding chapter of this
book I have tried to explain our theories or conjectures con-
cerning the apparent “‘disappearance”’ of the Mogollon civili-
zation and what probably happened to these people.

And so the value of archaeology lies in developing a new
way of looking at life, in searching for truth and beauty where

149

it leads us, and in helping us understand our times and our
problems. We need to broaden our understanding of man’s
hopes and desires and our knowledge of man’s nature. Per-
haps if all of us put our heads together we can discover the
causes for the rise and decline of civilizations and perhaps save
our own from disappearing.

Ww

C

ZN

©

150

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154

Index

Agave, 59

Agriculture and the digging stick, 46

Agriculture, first, 13

Amerind Foundation, 22

Anasazi, climax, 20; culture, 18; defini-
tion of, 19

Archaeology, aims of, 46; importance of
in the New World, 147; meaning and
uses of, 145

Area co-tradition, 25

Artifacts, stone, 77

Asia, 8; migrants from, 7

Assemblage, 47

Atlantis, 9

Atomic energy phases, 48

Automobile, 48

Aveleyra, Dr. Luis, 11

Baskets, 114

Basketry, 65

Bering Strait, 8

Bison, 10

Blankets, 65

Bracelets, shell, 68
Burial, 102; rituals, 133

Calendar, development of, 128

Camel, American, 11

Camp routine, 33

Carbon 14, 53

Catron County, 28

Caves, dry, 31; preservation of material
objects in, 31

Ceremonialism, 97, 100, 126

Ceremonies, 94; objects used in, 69; pur-
pose of, 130; religious, 69

Cigarettes, reed, 99

Chaco Canyon, 17

Chronology, absolute, 50; relative, 50, 51

Civilizations, lost, 33; development blocked,
143

Climate, relationship to civilization, 35,
36; changing, 13

Clovis fluted, 11

Cochise Indians, 11

Community, emergence of small, 70, 136,
137; patterns of, 126

Cooking, 76

Cooking, in basket, 63; flour cooking, 62;
stone boiling, 65

Copper tinklers, 77

Cordage, 114

Corn, 71, 74, 109; introduction of, 14

Co-tradition, 54

Crises, life, 130

Cross-dating, 52

Culture, change, cause of, 44; change,
methods, 104; remains, 10

Dendrochronology, 52
Desert culture, 15, 19, 55
Digging sticks, 71

Dire wolf, 11

Dog, 62

Drift, 44; cultural, 26

Ecology, cultural, 39
Eisely, Loren, 10

Family, 94, 126

Farm sites, 108

Flour-cookery, 62

‘**Four-Corners”’ region, 18

Food, 11, 59, 74; acorns, 59; beans, kid-
ney, 109, tepary, 109; cactus, 59; corn,
14, 71, 74, 109; gooseberries, 59; gourds,
59, 109; grass, 59; pinyon nuts, 59;
squash, 109; walnuts, 59; yucca fruit, 59

Food, common, 76

Food gathering, economy of, 11, 15

Food, preparation of, 62, 75

Garbage in ancient sites, 10
Geology of Mogollon area, 39
Gila Pueblo, 21

155

Gladwin, Mr. and Mrs. H. S., 21
Great Basin, 19

Harrington, M. R., 10

Haury, Emil, 11

Havasupai, 23

Hohokam civilization, 21; culture, 20

Horizon styles, 54

Horse, American, 10, 11

House, 68, 86, 118; construction of, 120;
interiors, 125; kivas, 94, 97; pit-houses,
14, 86, 124, structure of, 122

Hunters, early, 10, 11, 15

Hunting, 71

Indians, Anasazi, 18; Cochise, 11; Mogol-
lon, 14; Pima, 22; Yuman, 23; Zuii, 18

Inheritance, 96

Interrelationships, 25

Irrigation, 141, 146; by flood, 108

Israelites, 9

Jewelry, 115

Kivas, 94, 97
Kivas, Great, 118, 122, 131, 132

Labor, division of, among early Mogollon,
68

Land bridge from Asia, 8
Language and culture, 42

Mammoth, 11

Masks, 131

Masonry, 122

Matrilocal, extended families, 96; resi-
dence, 96, 126

Mealing bins, 124

Medicine, psychosomatic, 100; medicine
man’s pouch, 101

Mesa Verde, 17

Mexico, 11; agriculture received from, 80;
corn received from, 71; culture traits
received from, 20; mammoth in, 11

Migrations, date of, 8

Mogollon Indians, 14, 28; civilization,
definition of, 15; culture development
of, 141; culture division of, 47; daily
life, 58; earliest people, 11; fate of, 139;
homeland, 36, 38; method of making a
living, 70, 108; pottery, 79; traits, source
of, 53; town, 120

Mongoloids, 7

Mu, Lost Continent of, 9

Musk-ox, 10

Naco, Arizona, 10; remains of mammoth
found in, 11, 15
Nevada, camp ground found in, 10

Objects, sacred, 113
Ornaments, 79

Pacific Islands, 9

Patayan sub-culture, 23

Peanuts, 147

Phases, 47, 48; Cochise-Mogollon, 50

Pima Indians, 22

Pine Lawn, climax, 138

Pine Lawn Valley, 13, 136

Pit-houses, 14, 86, 122, 124

Plants, use of, in artifacts, 78

Plazas, 125

Potatoes, 147

Pottery, 75; cooking, 83; making of, 82;
oxidizing atmosphere used, 84

Pottery types, 116; Alma Plain, 116; black
on white, 84; Mimbres black on white,
116; Mogollon, 85; new, painted, 84;
origin, Mogollon, 79; Reserve black on
white, 116; San Francisco Red, 116;
St. Johns Polychrome, 117; smudged,
84; textured wares, 83; Tularosa black,
116; Tularosa fillet rim, 116

Precipitation, in Pine Lawn Valley, 36

Processing of artifacts, 34

Projectile point, Clovis Fluted, 11

Radiocarbon-dating, 53

Ramp entrance, to kiva, 132

Raw materials used by Mogollon Indians,
65

Religion, 131

Rituals, 128

Reserve, New Mexico, 28

Salt, sources of, 110

Sandals, wickerwork, 65

Sapir, Edward, 26

Sayles, E. B., 11

Settlement patterns, 118

Sites, earliest, 10; digging of, 31; finding
of, 29; selection of, 31

Solstices, 100, 129

Stratigraphy, used to establish chronology,
51

Sub-cultures, Southwestern, 26

Textiles, 114

Throwing stick, 62

Tobacco, 99

‘Tomatoes, 147

Tools, axes, grooved, 112; bone, 79, 115;
drills, 112; saws, 112; wooden, 78, 79, 115

Town life, beginning of, 103, 138

Trade pieces, 52

Trails of wild animals, 10

Tree-ring calendar, 53

156

Tree-ring dating, 52; see also Dendro- Walapai Indians, 23

chronology Wolf, dire, 11
Tularosa Cave, 37 Wooly mammoth, 10
Tule Springs, Nevada, 10 Work, purposes of, 28

Writing, development of, 147

Upper Gila area, 28
Yuman tribes, 23

Vegetable material, 40
Village, location of, 94; patterns, 90 Zuni Indians, 18

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