The Ancient Americas

Featured Culture

The Ancestral Puebloans
Around A.D. 1250, the U.S. Southwest was dotted with farming villages. Ancestors of today's Hopi, Zuni, and other Puebloan societies, these people established hundreds of settlements in an area covering Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The lifestyle of Ancestral Pueblo societies mirrored that of many other farming villages across the Americas. Like most agricultural groups, these people shared the workload and the fruits of their labor. They developed social and religious organizations that helped maintain order and created a sense of community.

But like other farming villages, Puebloan communities also struggled with family roles, social relationships, dwindling resources, poor sanitation, public health issues, and warfare—many of the same problems that we still face today.

To learn more about life was like for Ancestral Puebloans, check out the Community Life in the Southwest Video.

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Why don’t we call them Anasazi anymore?

For years, archaeologists identified ancient farmers from the Four Corners region of the American Southwest as Anasazi—a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies," which some people find derogatory.

Archaeologists replaced it with Ancestral Puebloans, which encompasses the ancestors of today's Hope, Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples.

Continue to Corn-fed Communities. >>