Anasazi: Ancient Pueblo Peoples and Markowski 6 B Anasazi Essay

Submitted By LexiVilkoski
Words: 437
Pages: 2

The blue means their culture. The purple means their agriculture. The green is their geography.
Cora Markowski 6B Anasazi After analyzing the religious symbols found on rocks or pottery and the distribution of ceremonial structures, some archeologists now think that the Anasazi may have been influenced into leaving their homeland by the pull of a new religion. One possibility is the Kachina religion with its masks and dolls that still survive today. Unlike many of the secret organizations in the modern pueblos, the Kachina societies, in which spirits of dead ancestors acted as intermediaries to the gods, were open to everyone, so some archeologists think that this spirit of equality would have had an appeal to a civilization like the Anasazi's that was entering a dark age. Anthropologists studying 20th-century pueblos have found a mix of secret societies co-existing with the more recent Kachina religion. There are hunt societies, medicine societies and societies of sacred clowns. In addition, pueblos are often divided into two factions, called the summer and winter or the squash and turquoise people. Anthropologists are fairly sure that these new organizations were not imported by the Anasazi, but sprang up sometime after their arrival.

Another recent discovery in Chaco Canyon shows evidence that the Anasazi made elaborate astrological calendars based on the seasons and various times of day. The evidence of this is a series of spiral stone carvings in certain walls that are pierced by the rays of the sun at noon and during the solstices. It is thought by some archaeologists that they may have incorporated a form of sun worship into their culture.
That passage was from Wiki.Answers.com
These are