Pueblo offers new insights

Press, 26 April 1988, Page 17

Pueblo offers new insights

Sand Canyon Pueblo is unlike anything else yet found in the land of the Anasazi, the prehistoric Indians who brought high civilisation to the south-western United States before their abrupt disappearance. i Not (counting some outlying buildings, it is comparable in size to a modern American shopping mall, as many as 350 rooms interconnected round a central plaza and covering an area of about three square city blocks. But several things set the occupants of Sand Canyon apart from their far more (famous cliffhanging relatives at Mesa Verde, the imposing green butte 32km to the east. I I

"There is' something quite dif-ferent-looking going on here than we’ve seen -anywhere else,” says Bruce Bradley, associate director of (research at the) Crow Canyon Archaeological Centre near Cortez. He( has( been working on the Sand Canyon project since 1983. "The potential of the site has exceeded my wildest expectations.”! ■ | jI. ' : (“■ After four seasons of excavat-

From

Mercer Cross,

for the National Geographic News Service, in Cortez, Colorado: i i i i ' i. . ■ I

ing buried: ruins on; the juniper and pinon-coveted slopes, Bradley and his: colleagues are hypothesising that; the sprawling, open pueblo at the (head of the canyon might have .been full of commuters, not full-time residents. I ■

"The site may have functioned primarily (as al religious or a ritual centre and not specifically as a domestic ; habitation,” he says. ,| 'i j I For one| thing, the pueblo has an unusually large! number of underground ceremonial chambers compared; with those at; other Anasazi sites. |

Unlike (typical Anasazi communities, Sand Canyon lacks large trash deposits! called middens by archaeologists, that contain the ; potsherds.! bones, and ashes so valuable in telling the stories of ancient people everywhere. ! ! :

One possibility: is that the Anasazi whp used Sand Canyon lived elsewhere and came in to perform their rituals. He doesn’t even discount the chance that different ethnic groups were involved. |

It may take 20 or more years of digging ,to find the answers. Crow Canyon scientists; whose work has been partly supported by the National Geographic Society, have defined their study area as rcjughly within a skm radius of the pueblo. They have Already identified more than 400 sites within a shorter radius. ( Mr Brad ey’s eventual goal is to go beyond the study of pots, arrowheads, and architecture and get closer tb the real culture of the intriguing Anasazi. "Their culture was made up of many intangibles, just as ours is,” he says. "To describe American culture by (measuring and photo-

I : ' i I ' ' graphing and doing ad nauseam analyses of Coke cans and Dixie cups is a very poor service to our culture. And Lthink that is about the stage that we’re at with Anasazi culture.” Despite the Anasazi's (lack of written language, Bradley has found clues ; to the | acient Indian’s’ political and social organisation, their music, aid their religion. “I think we can make some real major contribution: to insights into this prehistoric culture," he says. “They liyjed here — and failed — in this! environment." ( The life span of the Sand Canyon Pueblo was about 60 years, from the early to the late 1200 s. Like other Anasazi in the northern sections of their world, they were inexplicably! ?one bv 1300. | "It looks like the 'Site was

simply (walked away) from, with everything being left in place." Artefacts were not) cleaned out or thrown away. "It is as if I left home this morning and never came back.; You know, the pot’s on the stove, the pins are in the dishwasher." i| - I (

Since! the remarkably preserved Mesa Verde ruins .were found, archaeologists have (been asking the same perplexing questions. ■ ; i(I “Why didn't they ; ever come back?” Mr Bradley asks. I Mr Bradley reasons that the causes were more (complex) than drought. A hundred jyears earlier, the- northern Anasazi stayed (put,(with a small population loss, through a! longer and more severe) drought than the one between'l27s and 1300.

"There has to be a more dramatic underlying motivation for the abandonment of the whole region and then the lack of return to the region as far as living (units,’l he says. "If we could answer that we’d have a better i shot (at answering; why they left."! |