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003 - The Basketmakers · Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico

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  Speaker 1: Section two of Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico by
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  Speaker 1: John M. Corbett The basket Makers. About the time of
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  Speaker 1: Christ in some parts, perhaps even earlier, small bands of
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  Speaker 1: Indians entered the Four Corners Country. It is possible that
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  Speaker 1: a few small groups of wondering hunters and gatherers who
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  Speaker 1: had survived the Alta thermal were already living there, but
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  Speaker 1: the archaeological evident dense for their presence is very scanty.
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  Speaker 1: Under the impetus of new ideas such as agriculture, these
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  Speaker 1: people may have been slowly settling down to become farmers, or,
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  Speaker 1: possibly under the pressure of expanding populations elsewhere, groups seeking
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  Speaker 1: new lands suitable for agriculture moved into the area and
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  Speaker 1: either amalgamated with or drove out any local groups. If so,
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  Speaker 1: we do not know exactly where these people came from.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps they came from the south around the mgion Rim
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  Speaker 1: Country of New Mexico, where there is evidence that even
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  Speaker 1: earlier and agriculturally based sedentary population had developed. Corn had
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  Speaker 1: been known in parts of the Southwest for a considerable time.
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  Speaker 1: At bat Cave in New Mexico, archeologists have uncovered a
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  Speaker 1: primitive type of corn which was grown at least several
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  Speaker 1: thousand years before the birth of Christ. Only with an
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  Speaker 1: assured food supply, part of which can be stored against
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  Speaker 1: bad years, can a group find time to devote its
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  Speaker 1: energies to the arts and to the development of greater
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  Speaker 1: skill in crafts. The idea of agriculture must have spread slowly,
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  Speaker 1: for it forced a radical change in the living habits
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  Speaker 1: of those who practiced it compared to their old subsistence
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  Speaker 1: pattern of hunting and gathering. At first, the hunting group
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  Speaker 1: would regard this new plant as just another seed crop
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  Speaker 1: to be gathered. When it was ripe, they dumped the
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  Speaker 1: seed in the ground and went on about their business.
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  Speaker 1: When it ripened, they returned to harvest the crop, much
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  Speaker 1: as they went each year to harvest the pinion crop
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  Speaker 1: when it was ripe. But as they became more dependent
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  Speaker 1: upon corn and added the cultivation of squash, these people
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  Speaker 1: discovered that two things are necessary for a group dependent
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  Speaker 1: upon agriculture. One that most of the group has to
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  Speaker 1: remain nearby while the crop is planted, matured, and harvested
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  Speaker 1: to protect it from rodents, deer, birds, and probably marauding tribes. Second,
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  Speaker 1: that there must be a secure storage place for the
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  Speaker 1: surplus food and the seeds for next year's crop. This
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  Speaker 1: latter requirement forced them to billed storage pits lined with stone, slabs, bark,
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  Speaker 1: and adobe, which could be securely covered so that rodents
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  Speaker 1: and insects would not eat the surplus harvest. Archaeologists have
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  Speaker 1: long called these early inhabitants of the area basket makers
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  Speaker 1: because of the variety of beautiful baskets and sandals which
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  Speaker 1: they wove from fibrous plant materials. In the earlier part
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  Speaker 1: of this period, they did not know how to make
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  Speaker 1: or use pottery, and baskets were important as storage containers
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  Speaker 1: or as vessels in which to cook by stone boiling.
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  Speaker 1: Although their descendants Selsa made and used baskets, they never
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  Speaker 1: achieved the fine quality and artistry of the early basket makers.
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  Speaker 1: Archaeologists divide this basket maker phase into an early period
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  Speaker 1: of about four hundred years and a later period, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: referred to as modified basket maker, of about three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty years. The modified basket makers had several important
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  Speaker 1: traits which the earlier ones lacked, namely the bow and arrow,
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  Speaker 1: which replaced the auto auto throwing stick, beans which added
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  Speaker 1: important protein to the diet, and a knowledge of how
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  Speaker 1: to make pottery which permitted much easier cooking and better
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  Speaker 1: storage of perishables. The necessity for an assured food supply
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  Speaker 1: was of increasing importance, for there was a slowly but
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  Speaker 1: steadily growing population. Agriculture provided such a supply and freed
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  Speaker 1: a part of the populit elation from subsistence activities, giving
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  Speaker 1: them leisure to devote to pursuits which were not necessary
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  Speaker 1: for mere existence. For example, turquoise worked and polished into
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  Speaker 1: ornamental jewelry seems to have been first used at this time.
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  Speaker 1: Small crude pottery figurines are also found, indicating a growing
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  Speaker 1: interest in religion and an increasing awareness of religious ideas. Kivas,
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  Speaker 1: developed from the idea of the older pit house, first
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  Speaker 1: appear in this period. These provided a place for the
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  Speaker 1: performance of religious ceremonies and other non secular functions. The
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  Speaker 1: men evidently had the time to meet in council and
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  Speaker 1: debate communal problems while the family unit was still important,
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  Speaker 1: the clan and even the entire community took on new
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  Speaker 1: important aspects of togetherness. We do know what these people
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  Speaker 1: looked like, since quite a few well preserved mummies had
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  Speaker 1: been found buried in dry caves. They were short, averaging
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  Speaker 1: five feet three or four inches for the men and
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  Speaker 1: about five feet for the women. Their general build was medium,
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  Speaker 1: slender to stocky, their faces moderately long and narrow. Skin
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  Speaker 1: color was light to dark brown, and their eyes were
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  Speaker 1: brown to black, as was their hair. The basket makers
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  Speaker 1: used clothing of a sort. That is, they may have
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  Speaker 1: worn a lowin cloth or apron, and probably had shoulder
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  Speaker 1: robes of untailored tanned hide for protection against cold. Woven
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  Speaker 1: bands or loincloths have been found in several sights. Most
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  Speaker 1: burials had no type of clothes, but sometimes were wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in mantles or dried skins. Probably clothing was never worn
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  Speaker 1: very much. Certain aprons, attached to waistecourds and made of
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  Speaker 1: strings of cedar or yucca bast were evidently used as
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  Speaker 1: menstrual pads. Finally, woven aprons may have been worn by
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  Speaker 1: the women on special dress up occasions, but the scarcity
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  Speaker 1: of such items would indicate they were not for everyday use.
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  Speaker 1: They wore sandals made of woven yuca strips or cleaned fibers,
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  Speaker 1: or sometimes of very fine crosswoven cord with fringed toes
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  Speaker 1: and colored ornamentation. Human hair was used in making rope
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  Speaker 1: in considerable quantities. Either it was cut off after death
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  Speaker 1: and utilized for this purpose, or was hacked short from
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  Speaker 1: time to time during life. Some burials, especially among the males,
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  Speaker 1: indicate rather fancy hairstyles, and it may therefore have been
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  Speaker 1: the women who had their hair cropped to supply the
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  Speaker 1: material for ropes and belts. Both men and women wore ornaments, bracelets, necklaces,
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  Speaker 1: and pendants fashioned of stone, bone, or even various dried berries.
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  Speaker 1: Beads were also made of olivella conus and abalone shell,
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  Speaker 1: which probably were imported from the Pacific coast by trading
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  Speaker 1: with intervening tribes. Fur blankets were fashioned by wrapping yaka
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  Speaker 1: fiber strings with long, narrow strips of rabbit fur and
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  Speaker 1: tying these fur covered strings together in close parallel rows.
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  Speaker 1: The basket makers were especially known for the fine types
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  Speaker 1: of woven containers. They produced flexible, seamless sacs, beautifully decorated
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  Speaker 1: in black, red, brown, and gray, are sometimes found. Large,
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  Speaker 1: wide mouthed ovoid baskets carried on the back with the
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  Speaker 1: aid of a tumbline across the forehead, were used for
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  Speaker 1: bringing home seeds and other crops. Basket trays and bowls
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  Speaker 1: with both close coiling and spaced coiling were often highly
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  Speaker 1: ornamented oils in a symmetrical pattern. Designs usually consisted of
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  Speaker 1: red figures outlined with black, alternating with black figures outlined
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  Speaker 1: in red. The women ground corn of matates flat slabs
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  Speaker 1: of rock in which eventually a deep groove was worn
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  Speaker 1: with monos or small handstones. Stone of various sorts were
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  Speaker 1: used in making spear and dart points, and in the
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  Speaker 1: later part of the period arrow points, knives, drills, gravers, pipes,
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  Speaker 1: and auto autle weights. Animal bone was carefully fashioned into awls, flushers, scrapers, whistles, jewelry,
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  Speaker 1: and even gaming pieces. Wood was used for the auto
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  Speaker 1: attle and the dart, and later for bows and arrows
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  Speaker 1: for digging, sticks for planting crops, scoops, feather boxes, and
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  Speaker 1: hair ornaments. Basket maker remains are found throughout the Four
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  Speaker 1: Corners Country. The better specimens being recovered from dry caves,
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  Speaker 1: where the more perishable materials are preserved. In open sights,
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  Speaker 1: only the stone and bone objects are left, along with
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  Speaker 1: the remains of house structures and storage pits. In the
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  Speaker 1: animous valley north of Durango, Colorado, there was quite a
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  Speaker 1: concentration of early basket makers. Earl H. Morris, who conducted
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  Speaker 1: the first scientific explorations of Aztec ruins, excavated a number
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  Speaker 1: of these sites in nineteen thirty eight. In nineteen thirty nine, here,
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  Speaker 1: in an open palace sight, he found the first evidence
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  Speaker 1: that the early basket makers had actual house structures. He
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  Speaker 1: gives a graphic description of a typical one. A site
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  Speaker 1: for the dwelling was secured by digging a drift into
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  Speaker 1: the steep hillside and piling the excavated earthed stone out
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  Speaker 1: in front until a terrace large enough to accommodate the
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  Speaker 1: projected house had been provided. The floor area was scooped
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  Speaker 1: out to shallow saucer shape, in this case nine meters
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  Speaker 1: in diameter, and coated with mud At the margins. The
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  Speaker 1: mud curved upward to end against the half buried foot
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  Speaker 1: logs which were the basal course of the wall. The
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  Speaker 1: walls were composed of horizontal wood and mud masonry. They
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  Speaker 1: rose with an an inward slant to a little better
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  Speaker 1: than head height than were cribbed for a distance to
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  Speaker 1: reduce the diameter of the flat portion of the roof,
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  Speaker 1: which was of clay supported by parallel poles. The arc
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  Speaker 1: of stones was a retaining device, placed to hold back
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  Speaker 1: the ever growing accumulation of refuse that was dumped at
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  Speaker 1: the brink of the terrace. Interior furnishings generally consisted of
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  Speaker 1: a heating pit, slab lined storage cysts, some with above
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  Speaker 1: floor mud domes, and usually grinding stones and metats. How
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  Speaker 1: such a structure was entered is not known. Possibly it
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  Speaker 1: was through a smoke hole in the roof, as in
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  Speaker 1: the later and deeper pit houses, or perhaps it was
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  Speaker 1: through a lateral doorway with a high sill, trace of
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  Speaker 1: which no longer remained. By a D seven hundred, the
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  Speaker 1: Four Corners country was evidently well populated in this later
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  Speaker 1: part of the Basketmaker period. The houses in open sites
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  Speaker 1: were usually more subterranean. These later houses, often with slab
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  Speaker 1: lined and adobe plastered walls, had a smaller second room
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  Speaker 1: or anti chamber added on the front through which entrance
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  Speaker 1: was made. A few such ruined dwelling sites are known
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  Speaker 1: along the Animous River south of Durango. Morris felt that
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  Speaker 1: an adequate archeological survey would reveal a great many more,
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  Speaker 1: but extensive plowing of the area in recent historic times
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  Speaker 1: has long since removed the evidence. In the latter part
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  Speaker 1: of this period, the early basket makers evidently moved downstream
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  Speaker 1: where there was better land for cultivation and the growing
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  Speaker 1: season was slightly longer. That they had a firm belief
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  Speaker 1: in a life in the hereafter is shown by the
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  Speaker 1: care with which they buried their dead and by the
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  Speaker 1: offerings placed with them. It is with these burials in
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  Speaker 1: dry caves that most of the perishable material relating to
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  Speaker 1: this period has been found. Frequently the bodies were wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in mantles of fur or feather string, and sometimes wrapped
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  Speaker 1: again in the tanned skins of deer or mountain sheep.
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  Speaker 1: Often the bodies have sandals on the feet and occasionally
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  Speaker 1: an extra pair for replacement if the first wore out,
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  Speaker 1: and are accompanied by hair, ornaments, necklaces, beads, pendants, baskets
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  Speaker 1: of corn and pinion, nuts, pipes and smoking material, gaming sets,
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  Speaker 1: flutes and implements of warfare and the chase. The bodies
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  Speaker 1: are usually buried in the flexed position, that is, with
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  Speaker 1: the knees drawn up tightly and the hands folded across
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  Speaker 1: the chest. In the earlier part of the period, cave
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  Speaker 1: storage pits were used as burial places. Some bodies were
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  Speaker 1: placed in crevices behind fallen rocks within the cave. Other
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  Speaker 1: burials were in the open or in the talus slopes
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  Speaker 1: below the caves. In the latter part of the period,
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  Speaker 1: so much of the cave was used by the living
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  Speaker 1: that the dead were frequently buried in the open in
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  Speaker 1: specially dug pits. In these cases of ada of the
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  Speaker 1: perishable material has usually disappeared. In a few of the
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  Speaker 1: later graves, pottery is found as a grave offering. Morris
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  Speaker 1: reports one burial of this period that contained eleven pottery vessels.
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  Speaker 1: The basket makers must have had warm feelings of affection
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  Speaker 1: for their young. There was a high mortality rate among
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  Speaker 1: the infants and children, but despite this they lavished great
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  Speaker 1: care on each small burial. Children might be buried in
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  Speaker 1: baskets or in large skin bags, but babies were carefully
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  Speaker 1: buried in their cradles. These cradles were made by bending
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  Speaker 1: a long, slender stick into an oval shape, on which
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  Speaker 1: a framework of rods was tied to the outer oval
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  Speaker 1: in a crisscross pattern. The cradle could be carried on
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  Speaker 1: the mother's back, hung from a convenient peg in the home,
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  Speaker 1: or on a tree branch when out of doors, or
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  Speaker 1: laid carefully on the ground in the shade, all without
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  Speaker 1: upsetting the baby. Diapers were made of soft shredded juniper bark,
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  Speaker 1: and juniper bark pads wrapped in soft skins were tied
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  Speaker 1: on the infants to prevent umbellical hernia. Archeologists have dug
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  Speaker 1: up some unusual burials from this period. One was a
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  Speaker 1: male who, presumably after death, had been cut into at
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  Speaker 1: the waist and then sewed together again. Why this was
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  Speaker 1: done nobody knows. He was also wearing a pair of
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  Speaker 1: leather moccasins, an item not often found among the basket makers.
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  Speaker 1: Another burial, from the Canyon del Muerto in northeastern Arizona,
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  Speaker 1: consisted of only a pair of forearms and hands, lying
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  Speaker 1: palms up side by side on a bed of grass.
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  Speaker 1: Wrapped around the wrists were three necklaces with abalone shell pendits,
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  Speaker 1: ironically enough, included in the grave offerings, where two pairs
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  Speaker 1: of the finest sandals ever found. Over the whole lay
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  Speaker 1: a large basket about two feet in diameter. Conjectures as
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  Speaker 1: to the whys and watts of this burial have been numerous,
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  Speaker 1: but probably the true reason will never be known. And
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  Speaker 1: of section two ye