10 Facts About Ancestral Puebloans

Ancestral Puebloans, known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado.

Ancestral Puebloans lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense.

Ancestral Puebloans were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest, known as Oasisamerica.

The Ancestral Puebloans favored building under such overhangs for shelters and defensive building sites.

Ancestral Puebloans excelled at rock art, which included carved petroglyphs and painted pictographs.

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Ancestral Puebloans left their established homes in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Current scholarly consensus is that Ancestral Puebloans responded to pressure from Numic-speaking peoples moving onto the Colorado Plateau, as well as climate change that resulted in agricultural failures.

The archaeological record indicates that for Ancestral Puebloans to adapt to climatic change by changing residences and locations was not unusual.

Ancestral Puebloans attained a cultural "Golden Age" between about 900 and 1150.

Ancestral Puebloans asserts that isolated communities relied on raiding for food and supplies, and that internal conflict and warfare became common in the 13th century.