The Anasazi period
Scientifically, the world of the Anasazi is still very dynamic and changing today - seven centuries after the Ancient Ones began assimilating into the modern-day Puebloan peoples. For instance, there are differences among experts as to when the Anasazi emerged as a distinct culture. Many refer to the Anasazi period as beginning "around the time of Jesus," which suggests the year of Jesus' birth, the almost-mythical Year Zero (which is actually 4 or 5 B.C., now that the earlier calendars have been reevaluated in light of recent knowledge).

The Pecos Classification
Archaeologists have been meeting every year or so since 1927 at Pecos National Historical Park, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, to talk about old stuff. This gathering established the Pecos Classification, a chronology of the Anasazi period. According to that standard, a distinct Anasazi culture began around 1500 B.C., with the early cultivation of maize, as determined by radiocarbon dating of plant remains. Other modern scientists place the beginnings at somewhere between 500 B.C. and A.D. 50. They say that, in this time period, there's much more evidence of a major shift from hunting and gathering to the active development of agriculture.

Our choice
It's not easy, but for the record we choose to go with those contemporary archaeologists that place the beginning of the Anasazi period at approximately 1200 B.C. The chronology below is attributed to William D. Lipe and was published in one of the primary references for this website, In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest, by David Roberts.

The Anasazi chronology

Pre-Anasazi Period

Era

Years

Significa

Archaic
(See Note 1) 		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)
(See Notes 1 & 2) 		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 Chaco flowers. 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
(See Note 3) 		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.

 

Notes:
1- There is no Basketmaker I era. In the early days, many archaeologists doubted the existence of a Basketmaker Anasazi culture, as had been suggested by amateur archaeologist, Richard Wetherill. Then, in 1914, remains unearthed in the Kayenta Region supported Wetherill's assertions. Because those remains suggested a very sophisticated culture, the professional archaeologists dubbed it Basketmaker II and theorized a less advanced Basketmaker I cultural era between the Archaic and Basketmaker II. In time, they learned that there was no such transition culture, and Basketmaker I disappeared into Archaic.
2- Others like to start the Basketmaker II era as early as 1500 B.C. or as late as 100 B.C. Most identify the transition from Basketmaker III as being somewhere between A.D. 400 and 500.
3- We added the Pueblo V era to conform to the practice of others. Some make the Pueblo IV-V transition 100 years later, in 1700. We feel that the brutal takeover of Acoma Pueblo in 1599 by Spaniard Don Juan de Oņate was the watershed, so we stick with 1600.


What else was going on in the world?
Did you ever wonder what Europeans or Asians were building at the time the Anasazi were crafting the magnificent cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde? Or what kind of weapons were in use elsewhere when the Anasazi were propelling sharpened sticks through the air with the help of an atlatl? Well, check this out! On a separate page we've laid out key Anasazi and world dates in a common timeline. See Timeline Of Anasazi & World Events.

 

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