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CORTEZ, COLORADO — In a high-end housing development north of Cortez, Colorado — just 25 kilometers from the monumental cliffhouses of Mesa Verde National Park — archaeologists have uncovered a cluster of 1,500-year-old houses and a large ceremonial structure that together comprise the earliest known site of its kind in the region.
The settlement includes 10 pithouses built in various styles, situated around a great kiva that likely served as a kind of cultural anchor for a diverse community, the archaeologists say.
In the sixth century, she pointed out, the central Mesa Verde region — a broad arc of land that runs from the border of northwestern New Mexico to southeastern Utah — was typified by small groups that divided their time between foraging and farming, lived in semi-subterranean houses, and moved frequently.
But the evidence emerging from the high desert here reveals a different picture, Ryan said — that of a full-time, year-round settlement, where people tended crops of corn, beans, and squash and forged a community around a great kiva that was its ritual and political hub.
“This is the first population to move into the central Mesa Verde region and farm and be sedentary full time,” Ryan said.
“And so what we’re interested in is the origins of that population: Are they from the east or the west of the Mesa Verde region? The south?”
While pottery sherds and other artifacts will prove useful in answering these questions, researchers are already seeing clues in the village’s diversity of building styles, she said.[ex/]
“What’s fascinating about the Dillard site is that not one household there is exactly the same architecturally,” she said.
One newly excavated pithouse, for example, was found to contain two large intact food storage bins made of stone slabs
“We don’t have any other excavated structures at the Dillard site that indicate that there’s more than one of those,” Ryan said.
“We have some structures that are round and have no antechamber on them. We’ve got some that are shallow, some that are deep, some that are roofed uniquely.
“So this is providing clues to … not only the actual use of that structure — to see if the form is reflecting function — but also allowing us to look at the architectural patterns that may indicate who these folks are and where they came from.”
Another indicator of the village’s diversity may be its most noteworthy feature: the great kiva.
While the structure itself, 11.5 meters across, is strewn with pottery fragments and other wares that could yield insights into things like stylistic traditions, the real significance of the structure may simply be that it was built when and where it was — decades before any others like it in the region.
Ryan suggested that the kiva’s purpose was to serve as the ritual, political, and social nexus of a newly integrated community.
“Not only is the architecture [of the village] so diverse,” Ryan said, “but why else would you need an integrative public building unless you did have a lot of people from diverse backgrounds who were interested in integrating at the village formation level?”
The fate of the village, among many other questions, remains unclear. But evidence in the kiva indicates that it was ritually burned and abandoned within a hundred years of its construction, Ryan said.[ex/]
westerndigs.org...
This find represents the very beginnings of peublo culture. It looks like mesa Verde area is the home land of the pueblo peoples.
I highly reccomend going to Mesa Verde NP, it is a fantastic place.
The site at Cortez has some significance , it is just below the snow level in winter.
edit on 23-7-2014 by punkinworks10 because: (no reason given)
originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: punkinworks10
Interesting find, punkinworks10
Makes you wonder how they determined that the "burning & abandonment" were...ritual...?
originally posted by: punkinworks10
originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: punkinworks10
Interesting find, punkinworks10
Makes you wonder how they determined that the "burning & abandonment" were...ritual...?
Yes, how did that come to that conclusion, especially in light of other new evidence show high level if intergroup violence in this area.
originally posted by: Aliensun
originally posted by: punkinworks10
originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: punkinworks10
Interesting find, punkinworks10
Makes you wonder how they determined that the "burning & abandonment" were...ritual...?
Yes, how did that come to that conclusion, especially in light of other new evidence show high level if intergroup violence in this area.
"Ritual" has many meanings is anthropology. In this instance, it is merely a PC word for warfare. The Indians of the American southwest were constantly at war with one another raiding, scalping, and taking of slaves.
originally posted by: tom.farnhill
a reply to: Aliensun
i was always led to believe that scalping was a white man invention .
Many of the bodies are missing limbs; the attackers may have taken them as trophies, scavenger animals or birds may have carried them away, or some limbs may have been left unburied in the Crow Creek village. Authors Willey and Emerson state that "they had been killed, mutilated, and scavenged before being buried". "Tongue removal, decapitation, and dismemberment of the Crow Creek victims may have been based on standard aboriginal butchering practices developed on large game animals". These are among the mutilations discovered at the Crow Creek site. In addition, scalping was performed, bodies were burned, and there is evidence of limbs being removed by various means. As stated in the Willey’s dissertation, many of the mutilations suffered by the victims of the Crow Creek massacre could have been traumatic enough to result in death
originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: punkinworks10
My bad the La Salle mountains.
Mountain biking those areas would be awesome . . . I have an 11 yr old tag-a-long that isn't quite up for those type of trips yet, much easier to backpack or take horses in with him.