The Anasazi's

Anasazi, which means 'ancient stranger' or 'ancient enemy' in the Navajo language, is the name most commonly applied to the early pueblo dwellers who once lived in the Colorado Plateau or Four Corners Area. The Hopi who are the likely descendents of the Anasazi called these predecessors the "Hisatsinom" for "The Ones Who Came Before."

Anasazi Chronology

Pre-Anasazi Period
Archaic	6500 - 1200 B.C.	The pre-Anasazi culture that moved into the Southwest after the big game hunters departed are called Archaic. There is little evidence of warfare. The people subsisted on wild foods. Hunters used stone-tipped spears and knives, atlatl and dart or spear, and hunted deer, bighorn sheep and antelope. They moved regularly and gathered wild plants in season.
The Anasazi Period
Basketmaker II (early)	1200 B.C. - A.D. 50	These early Anasazi camped in the open or lived in caves seasonally. During this period they increasingly relied on cultivated gardens of corn and squash, but no beans. They made baskets, but had no pottery.
Basketmaker II (late)	A.D. 50 - 500	Construction during this period was shallow pithouses, storage bins or cists. Still no beans or pottery.
Basketmaker III	A.D. 500 - 750	Deep pithouses were developed, along with some above- ground rooms, surface storage pits and cists. The bow and arrow replaces the atlatl and spear. Plain gray and some black-on-white pottery is made. Cultivation of beans begins.
Pueblo I	750 - 900	Large villages and great kivas appear. Deep pithouses still in use. Above-ground construction is generally of jacal or crude masonry. Plain pottery and gray with neck bands predominate; there is some black-on-white and decorated redware.
Pueblo II	900 - 1150	There are Great Houses, great kivas and roads in some areas. Small blocks of above-ground masonry rooms and a kiva make up a typical pueblo. Pottery consists of corrugated gray and decorated black-on-white in addition to some decorated red and orange vessels.
Pueblo III	1150 - 1350	Large pueblos, cliff dwellings and towers are the rule. Pottery includes corrugated gray, elaborate black-on-white, red and orange. Most of the traditional Anasazi villages in the Four Corners Area are abandoned by 1300.
Pueblo IV	1350 - 1600	Typically, large pueblos are oriented on a central plaza. The Kachina phenomenon continues. Plain pottery supplants corrugated. Red, orange and yellow pottery on the rise as black-on-white declines.
Pueblo V	1600 - present	During the first part of this era the Spanish military, church and civil domination and rule of the pueblos drives the Pueblo religion underground. The number of Pueblos shrinks from the more than 100 observed in 1539 to 20. However, the resilient and resourceful Pueblo still live and maintain their thousands-of-years-old culture.

By 1300, it was stated that the Anasazi had abandoned their homeland because of a severe drought and enemies. During that time also, geographically; the land was changing. A possibilty may have been the volcanoes located in and around Flagstaff and the Four Corner region.

San Francisco Peaks

The San Francisco Peaks, is an eroded stratovolcano.which includes Arizona's highest point, Humphreys Peak at 12,633 feet, These peaks, sacred to the Hopi and Navajo, are ancient volcanoes which tower over the ruins of an ancient Native American pueblo in Wupatki National Monument. The ancient inhabitants of this area must have witnessed the eruption of nearby Sunset Crater, the State.s youngest volcano, which erupted in about A.D. 1064. San Francisco Mountain and Sunset Crater are only two of the hundreds of volcanoes in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, which covers about 1,800 square miles of northern Arizona.

Sunset Crater

This volcanic cinder cone with summit crater was formed just before 1100 AD. Its upper portion is colored as if by a sunset.

Sunset Crater appeared when molten rock was ejected into the air from a small crack in the Earth's crust. When this material fell to the ground, it was already solid and came down as large bombs and smaller cinders. This volcanic activity continued over 200 years building and re-shaping the cone and eventually creating a 1,000-foot cinder cone volcano around the vent. An 800 square mile radius was dusted with ash from this volcano. Lava flowed from the fissure both in 1064 and again in 1180. Over time new gas vents opened up forming spatter cones around the main cinder cone.

In a final burst of activity, around 1250, lava containing iron and sulfur shot out of the vent. This lava then oxidized red and yellow, these colors painting the crater with a permanent "sunset" so bright that it appears still to glow from intense inner heat.