How Did the Anasazi Indians Make Clay Pottery?
Hundreds of different Native American tribes existed in North America thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. Many of the tribes did not keep written histories, but they left behind artifacts, architecture and pottery for archaeologists to study. The Anasazi of New Mexico and Arizona settled in the southwest around 1500 B.C. and began producing various types of pottery for trade and food storage.
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Anasazi Tribe
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The Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning stranger, alien or foreigner, lived in parts of Arizona and New Mexico. They farmed the Four Corners around 1300 B.C. The area is part of the Colorado Plateau and includes the parts of four states bordering each other ---Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. A more generic name used to describe the people living in the Four Corners is Pueblo, meaning villagers in Spanish.
Pottery
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Early forms of undecorated pottery began showing up around A.D. 575. People who settle in one area and are not nomadic begin to produce pottery for long term food storage. Nomads do not use pottery since it is too heavy to transport over distances.
The Anasazi women made the pottery. They shaped the clay into coils, spiraling the coils on top of one another, with one tight spiral forming the bottom of the bowl. Using scrapers made from pottery fragments or wood, they shaped the piece into the desired end state, smoothing out the coils until the sides and insides had a smooth finish. To harden the pottery, the Anasazi fired it at low temperatures in wood-fueled fires sunk in trenches. Using smooth stones, they polished the finished product. They made pots for cooking, jars, bowls, pitchers, utensils, storage and miniature figures for decoration.
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Design
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Using brushes made from yucca plants, the Anasazi painted decorations on the pottery. Early designs were simple symbols and lines. Over time, geometric patterns drawn in black and white began to appear. The use of animals, birds, lizards and humans are also found on the pottery. Archaeologists do not know exactly what all the patterns stand for and theorize they may identify clans, villages or simply designs made by the potter.
Importance of Pottery
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Archaeologists look specifically for pottery or shards of pottery vessels because most pottery of distinct styles is made at the same time and from surrounding materials. Carbon dating the pottery gives a good idea of when that village was occupied. A dig may reveal different types and designs of pottery, helping to reconstruct trade routes and social patterns between different tribes. Elements of the clay itself reveal the geographic area it came from and pollen and food becomes embedded in the pots, giving archaeologists insight into what the people ate.
What Happened to the Anasazi?
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The people living in the Four Corners survived by farming the area for a thousand years but disappeared around 1300. Many theories have been proposed explaining the disappearance, but the truth undoubtedly lies in climate change. Geological data show droughts and shortened winter seasons in the few hundred years leading up to 1300. The Anasazi moved south to farm lower regions with climates more suitable for farming.
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