kimerajamm
Joined: 28 Nov 2010
Posts: 785
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 Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 10:58 am Post subject: Builders constructed two of these large pueblos |
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More than 600 archeological sites have been found inside the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park. Evidence suggests that the earliest inhabitants of the park arrived at least 8,000 years ago. Two Folsom-type spear points, the earliest artifacts of Paleo-Indians found in the park, are at least that old. Between 6000 BCE and 1 CE, the Archaic Period, nomadic groups established seasonal camps in the Petrified Forest from which they hunted small game such as rabbits, pronghorn antelope, and deer and harvested seeds from Indian ricegrass and other wild plants. Around 150 BCE, they began to grow corn in the area. By 1 CE, as their farming techniques improved, some built houses in the Petrified Forest and began to stay there year-round.[18]
The early farmers, the Basketmakers, lived in the Petrified Forest from about 1 CE to about 800 CE. They occupied pit houses at fewer than 100 sites, at first on mesas or other vantage points and later at the base of bluffs and in lowlands, where the soil was better. As climatic conditions worsened for farming between 750 and 900 CE, many Basketmakers moved away, and a new group, the Pueblo Builders, moved in. Rather than below-ground pits, the Pueblo Builders constructed above-ground houses and storerooms that may have been capable of storing food for more than one year. At the same time, climatic conditions changed again, this time for the better, between 900 and 1275 CE. More than 200 pueblo-builder sites have been identified in the park at a wide variety of locations—at the mouths of washes, near seeps, and on moisture-holding sand dunes.[19]
Images of animals, people, and geometric figures incised on the dark vertical face of a large rock
Petroglyphs pecked into desert varnish in Petrified Forest National Park
During the first part of the Pueblo Period, most sites were single-family homes, but as soils became exhausted many sites were abandoned by 1250 CE in favor of very large multi-room pueblos close to more dependable sources of water.[20] The Pueblo Builders constructed two of these large pueblos, one called Stone Axe, about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) east of the park, and the other at Puerco Pueblo, which overlooks the Puerco River near the middle of the park.[21] There they built about 100 one-story rooms around an open plaza.[21] The rooms had no windows or doors but each could be entered by climbing a ladder and descending through a hole in the roof. At its peak, perhaps 200 people lived in this pueblo.[21] Over time, however, a persistently dry climate led to out-migration, and the last residents abandoned Puerco Pueblo in about 1380 CE.[22]
At Puerco Pueblo and many other sites within the park, petroglyphs—images, symbols, or designs—have been scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on rock surfaces, often on a patina known as desert varnish. Most of the petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old.[23]
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