Wilderness in Your Pocket: Southwest Indian Country

May 10, 2017
Wilderness in Your Pocket_ Southwest Indian Country

The Southwest area generally extends over Arizona, New Mexico, as well as parts of Colorado and Utah. The first humans to inhabit the Americas are presumed to have moved from N.E. Asia across a land bridge, known as Beringia, exposed in the Bering Sea region several times during the Ice Age. The number of migrations and the size of migrating populations is unknown. Although the evidence currently available suggests at least three separate waves, probably by relatively small groups.

Early Tribes of US Southwest

Archaeological appear to date to about 30,000 BCE, although many experts regard these dates as unproven. The best known early cultures in the Americas, dating from 10,000-4000 BCE, are known as Paleo-Indians. These peoples were widely distributed on both continents. All known groups during this period were big-game hunters dependent on large mammals.

By about 5000 BCE, human groups were forced to diversify economic strategies. Therefore, they increased their reliance on smaller fauna and plant foods. The adaptations, known as Archaic adaptations, were highly specialized in response to local environmental conditions.  In some areas, these adaptations survived essentially unchanged until the European conquest.

The tribes acquired the art of cultivating beans and squash, probably from their southern neighbors and also learned to make unfired pottery. They wove baskets, sandals, and bags. By about 700 BCE, they had initiated intensive agriculture, made true pottery and hunted with bow and arrows. Ancestors of the Pueblo Indians lived in large, terraced community houses set on ledges of cliffs or canyons for protection. This period of development ended approximately 1300. Due to a severe drought and the beginnings of invasions from the north by the Athabascan-speaking Navaho and Apache. Pueblo cultures of sedentary farming peoples such as the Hopi and the Zuni then came into being. The men wove cotton textiles and cultivated the fields, while women made fine polychrome pottery. The mythology and religious ceremonies were complex.

Take your own adventure through the Southwest Native American area. Here’s our Southwest Indian Country Map.