Geographical range | Colorado |
---|---|
Period | Late Ceramic period (Post-Archaic) |
Dates | AD 1000-1250 |
Major sites | Trinchera Cave Archeological District |
Preceded by | Archaic |
The Sopris phase (AD 1000-1250) is a Late Ceramic period hunter-gatherer culture of the Upper Purgatoire, also known as the Upper Purgatoire complex. It was first discovered in the southern Colorado, near the present town of Trinidad, Colorado. The Sopris phase appeared to be greatly influenced by Puebloan people, such as the Taos Pueblo and Pecos Pueblo, and through trade in the Upper Rio Grande area. [1] [2]
Two Sopris Plains sites found at the Trinidad reservoir, Leone Bluff (site 5LA1211) and site ID 5LA1416, are located in Las Animas County, Colorado, near Segundo. [3] [4] The Trinidad sites were found in 1962 when Herbert Dick of the Trinidad State Junior College led an archaeological investigation of the Trinidad Reservoir. By 1980, more archaeological studies had been completed of a total of 300 sites. Site 5LA1416 contained evidence of occupation through all three Sopris phases. The architecture may have been influenced by the Plains villagers, Panhandle and Rio Grande cultures. The pottery, though, was decidedly like that of the Puebloans of the Rio Grande area. [5]
The Leone Bluff (site 5LA1211) and site ID 5LA1416 sites had evidence of four dwellings identified as Sopris phase occupations from about A.D. 1150 to 1300. The pottery remnants were used to identify the Sopris phase and three subsequent periods of inhabitation: post-Sopris phase (about A.D. 1300–1450), historic Spanish-American (about A.D. 1670–1890) and historic Apache (about A.D. 1750–1900). [6] Skeletons were found of people of Apachean, or Athabaskan, heritage. [3]
Trinchera Cave Archeological District is also a Sopris phase site.
The architecture, pottery and material goods varied greatly during the Sopris phases. [1]
The initial Sopris phase occurred between 1000 and 1100 A.D. People dwelled in pit-houses, jacal structures and campsites. Pottery found at initial Sopris sites included Taos gray and distinctly different Sopris plain pottery. Corner-notched points are the most popular projectile points used. Basin metates were used during this time. [1]
The next period occurred between 1100-1150 A.D. Dwellings were made of adobe or a combination of adobe and jacal construction. Pottery found in early Sopris sites include: Taos gray, Sopris plain pottery, and the appearance of black on white, cordmarked, polished and incised pottery. Material goods included metates, turquoise, beads of stone and shell. Maize was farmed a little during this period. [1]
The last period occurred between 1150-1250 A.D. Houses were made of sandstone slab masonry, with rounded corners and posts for support. There was a predominance of Taos black on white and Taos gray incised pottery during this time. Grooved mauls and slab metates appeared during this period. [1]
The Pecos Classification is a chronological division of all known Ancestral Puebloans into periods based on changes in architecture, art, pottery, and cultural remains. The original classification dates back to consensus reached at a 1927 archæological conference held in Pecos, New Mexico, which was organized by the United States archaeologist Alfred V. Kidder.
Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, between Cortez, Colorado and Blanding, Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. Shallow tributaries run through the wide and deep canyons into the San Juan River.
Glen Canyon is a natural canyon carved by a 169.6-mile (272.9 km) length of the Colorado River, mostly in southeastern and south-central Utah, in the United States. Glen Canyon starts where Narrow Canyon ends, at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Dirty Devil River. A small part of the lower end of Glen Canyon extends into northern Arizona and terminates at Lee's Ferry, near the Vermilion Cliffs. Like the Grand Canyon farther downstream, Glen Canyon is part of the immense system of canyons carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries.
El Cuartelejo, or El Quartelejo, is a region in eastern Colorado and western Kansas where Plains Apache cohabited with Puebloans. Subject to religious persecution, Puebloans fled the Spanish Nuevo México territory and cohabitated with the Cuartelejo villagers in the 1600s.
Hawkins Preserve is a 122-acre (0.49 km2) property within the city limits of Cortez, Colorado. It is protected by a conservation easement held by the Montezuma Land Conservancy.
The Rio Grande white wares comprise multiple pottery traditions of the prehistoric Puebloan peoples of New Mexico. About AD 750, the beginning of the Pueblo I Era, after adhering to a different and widespread regional ceramic tradition for generations, potters of the Rio Grande region of New Mexico began developing distinctly local varieties of black-on-white pottery. This pottery involved the use of black mineral paint or black vegetal paint on a white, off-white, or light gray background. The black-on-white tradition finally died out about AD 1750.
Prehistory of Colorado provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Colorado's recorded history. Colorado experienced cataclysmic geological events over billions of years, which shaped the land and resulted in diverse ecosystems. The ecosystems included several ice ages, tropical oceans, and a massive volcanic eruption. Then, ancient layers of earth rose to become the Rocky Mountains.
Hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings are found across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before 1492 CE, these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest.
The Trinchera Cave Archeological District (5LA9555) is an archaeological site in Las Animas County, Colorado with artifacts primarily dating from 1000 BC to AD 1749, although there were some Archaic period artifacts found. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and is located on State Trust Lands.
The Pueblo I Period was the first period in which Ancestral Puebloans began living in pueblo structures and realized an evolution in architecture, artistic expression, and water conservation.
The Pueblo II Period was the second pueblo period of the Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners region of the American southwest. During this period people lived in dwellings made of stone and mortar, enjoyed communal activities in kivas, built towers and dams for water conservation, and implemented milling bins for processing maize. Communities with low-yield farms traded pottery with other settlements for maize.
The Pueblo IV Period was the fourth period of ancient pueblo life in the American Southwest. At the end of prior Pueblo III Period, Ancestral Puebloans living in the Colorado and Utah regions abandoned their settlements and migrated south to the Pecos River and Rio Grande valleys. As a result, pueblos in those areas saw a significant increase in total population.
The Late Basketmaker II Era was a cultural period of Ancient Pueblo People when people began living in pit-houses, raised maize and squash, and were proficient basket makers and weavers. They also hunted game and gathered wild foods, such as pinyon nuts.
The Pueblo V Period is the final period of ancestral puebloan culture in the American Southwest, or Oasisamerica, and includes the contemporary Pueblo peoples. From the previous Pueblo IV Period, all 19 of the Rio Grande valley pueblos remain in the contemporary period. The only remaining pueblo in Texas is Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and the only remaining pueblos in Arizona are maintained by the Hopi Tribe. The rest of the Pueblo IV pueblos were abandoned by the 19th century.
The Dismal River culture refers to a set of cultural attributes first seen in the Dismal River area of Nebraska in the 1930s by archaeologists William Duncan Strong, Waldo Rudolph Wedel and A. T. Hill. Also known as Dismal River aspect and Dismal River complex, dated between 1650 and 1750 A.D., is different from other prehistoric Central Plains and Woodland traditions of the western Plains. The Dismal River people are believed to have spoken an Athabascan language and to have been part of the people later known to Europeans as the Apache.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.
The Apishapa culture, or Apishapa Phase, a prehistoric culture from 1000 to 1400, was named based upon an archaeological site in the Lower Apishapa canyon in Colorado. The Apishapa River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, formed the Apishapa canyon. In 1976, there were 68 Apishapa sites on the Chaquaqua Plateau in southeastern Colorado.
Pot Creek Cultural Site is an abandoned 13th century pueblo located on private land owned by Southern Methodist University and on public Carson National Forest land in Taos County, New Mexico.
Pueblo pottery are ceramic objects made by the indigenous Pueblo people and their antecedents, the Ancestral Puebloans and Mogollon cultures in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. For centuries, pottery has been central to pueblo life as a feature of ceremonial and utilitarian usage. The clay is locally sourced, most frequently handmade, and fired traditionally in an earthen pit. These items take the form of storage jars, canteens, serving bowls, seed jars, and ladles. Some utility wares were undecorated except from simple corrugations or marks made with a stick or fingernail, however many examples for centuries were painted with abstract or representational motifs. Some pueblos made effigy vessels, fetishes or figurines. During modern times, pueblo pottery was produced specifically as an art form to serve an economic function. This role is not dissimilar to prehistoric times when pottery was traded throughout the Southwest, and in historic times after contact with the Spanish colonialists.