Great-house and cliff-dwelling centres built by the Ancestral Puebloan peoples of the North American Southwest, among them Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. They remain sacred to their descendants, the Pueblo nations of today.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingGreat houses, cliff villages and kivas built on the Colorado Plateau between roughly 850 and 1300 CE. Ceremonial function is inferred from architecture, alignment and deposit, because their builders left no text. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredThe descendants are living nations: the Pueblo nations of the Rio Grande and western New Mexico, the Hopi Tribe and the Pueblo of Zuni. These are ancestral places of people who are still here, not the remains of a culture that vanished. 2 Origins
Whose Classification This IsAncestral Puebloan is an archaeologists' classification. The period scheme beneath it is the Pecos Classification agreed at the Pecos Conference of 1927, a periodisation of material culture rather than a name any of these communities used of itself. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryAncestral Puebloan is the standard term. Anasazi, a Navajo word adopted by archaeologists, is deprecated: it is not a Puebloan word, and Pueblo people object to their own ancestors being named in another nation's language. 3 Learn More
Ancestral Puebloan Sacred Sites
This group gathers sacred sites of the Ancestral Puebloan culture of the American Southwest, the cliff dwellings, great houses and kivas of the peoples ancestral to the modern Pueblos, whose ceremonial architecture reveals a rich ritual life.
The browser will find the ceremonial sites the atlas gathers. The entries describe what is known of their religious function, noting their continuing significance to the Pueblo peoples who descend from their builders.
All Ancestral Puebloan Sites
Filter Results2 entries
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. A History of the Ancient Southwest
Stephen H. Lekson, School for Advanced Research Press, 2009on the Chaco and post-Chaco Southwest
3. The Mesa Verde World: Explorations in Ancestral Puebloan Archaeology
David Grant Noble (editor), School for Advanced Research Press, 2006on the term Ancestral Puebloan
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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