Anasazi America

The Anasazi were the first real agricultural Native Americans to settle in the southwestern United States. As early as 300 AD, they were farming and making baskets, as well as building intricate cities across what is now New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. About 1200 AD, the Anasazi mysteriously disappeared, but evidence suggests that the Anasazi split into three main groups which would later become the Hopi, the Zuni, and the Navajo nations.

The Anasazi lived simply, farming mostly corn and beans, and hunting and gathering for their other needs. Remarkable amongst most groups at the time, the Anasazi did not have each person do a job throughout their lifetime, rather they rotated jobs on a daily basis.

While little is known for certain of their social structure or their religious structure, it can be reasonably safely assumed that their religion was somewhat close to that of the Hopi and the Zuni, there being a Spider grandmother that brought the Anasazi through the underworld to the surface and taught them to farm the land.

The area of the Anasazi that is currently available contains three of the most famous and spectacular cities of the Anasazi, Kayenta, Chaco Canyon, and Mesa Verde, and the expanses of desert and forest between them.