Moderator:
Question #1. Why would anyone have built an advanced city in that wasteland (Chaco) , and why, having gone to all that work of building it, did they then abandon it? This question is important because it explores the circumstances that build a society and large population of inhabitants. It then explores what this society does to grow and develop large scale architectural structures and interdependent inhabitants. This question further explores what happens or might have happened to create an unsustainable environment, or environmental damage, for those inhabitants and forced them to leave their interdependent society to find more favorable environment and even leave to create independent communities to establish some survival of these people. The descendants of the Anasazi are thought to be the Taos, Hopi & Rio Grande Pueblo & Zuni. It was also during 1300 that most of the traditional Anasazi villages in the Four Corners area were abandoned, but eastern sites still thrived for some unknown reason.
Question #2. How did violence and cannibalism contribute to the collapse of the Anasazi. This question is important because it explores a point of no return for this society in their current environment. It includes discovering how critical the errors were that created this situation. It, also, explores the hostile neighbors and lack/loss of friendly neighbors (tribes include Anasazi, Kayenta, Mimbres, Hohokum, Mogollon {includes Mimbres – means’little willow’ a river in the area}). Note: Why does Anasazi mean ancient enemy? The term is Navajo (written language by Franciscan missionaries- Navajo code talkers WWII heroes) in origin, and means “ancient enemy.” The Pueblo peoples of New Mexico understandably do not wish to refer to their ancestors in such a disrespectful manner, so the appropriate term to use is “Ancestral Pueblo” or “Ancestral Puebloan (Hisatsinom is Hopi for ancestors),” though scholars use Anasazi for continuity. Indigenous nations hostile to Pueblo people, their enemies before Europeans began to inhabit the area, were the Navajo, Comanche, and Apache tribes. The Zuni were the first to become known to the Europeans in 1539. The first confirmed evidence of indigenous cannibalism was researched in remains of a small Anasazi settlement, Southwestern Colorado mysteriously abandoned about 1150 A.D. The Mohawk, and the Attacapa, Tonkawa, and other Texas tribes were known by neighbours as ‘man-eaters.’both during famines & ritual cannibalism or cultural practice (eating a small portion of enemy warriors).
Question #3. Did climate change occur during the civilization of the Anasazi people and how did it affect or contribute to the collapse of the civilization? This question is important because it explores large scale forces that began a decline in the environment of the Anasazi civilization. It will help explore how the leaders responded to the changes or failed to respond to the changes which then potentially became a critical factor in the decline of the civilization.
Question #4. What resources were depleted by the Anasazi people that were critical to their survival? This question is important because it explores how the people themselves would have had some warning that their civilization was not sustainable by the depletion of the resources required for their very survival. This question would explore the cultural response.
Question #5. What can the Collapse of the Anasazi teach society today so that they can use this information to prevent their own demise? This question is important because if we do not learn from the past we are doomed to repeat the errors of the past and possibly experience a collapse of our own society.
Character 1: As a farmer living in the Chaco Canyon, I play an important role in helping feed my people. I am involved in choosing the land and techniques used for farming and must make those decisions based on the number of people I must feed as well as where I am able to most efficiently grow crops. Without me, my people will starve and will either die or will be forced to move to a new location without knowing whether that new location can sustain us or not.
In my old age I worry for my people and fear that we will no longer be able to sustain ourselves in the near future. I have been a farmer almost all of my life and had learned everything there is to know about farming from my parents. However, I no longer know if this land is sustainable enough to continue farming operations for us all. When I was a young boy, the population of this canyon was smaller and less crops were needed to feed my people. Back then, we were able to rely on certain springs to help nurture our crops. As time went on though, our numbers grew and my father said that we needed to expand our farming operations in order to feed more people. At first I was excited to learn that we were going to expand our farming territory and for the first years it was successful, but when that first dry year came, we did not have enough food to feed our people and many starved. There was more water the following year, but overtime, there were too many mouths to feed and we could no longer rely on the old springs due to the dryer years we started to face.
After I had children the population and been larger than ever before. We decided that in order to grow enough crops for our people, we had to be willing to plant our crops wherever possible so that we could attempt to have enough food. Like the last farming process, we started to struggle again and were not meeting the quotas that we needed to feed our people. While some areas were able to have good seasons, others did not. With this, the areas with poorer yields asked their neighbors for help and supplies but typically struggled to receive any as their neighbors needed that food for themselves. Our landscape had been ravaged and there was little land left that we would be able to efficiently use to farm. Along with that and the lack of promise of water, neighbors started to cut each other off from supplies so that they could sustain themselves. From what I have heard, some tribes have started conflicting with one another for supplies. I worry that if this gets too far out of hand, our people will eventually get caught in the crossfire and will have to give up what food we already desperately need.
I believe that the people of this canyon did not consider the issues that would be caused if we increased our population. We went from a small prosperous population that could easily be fed and now we fight one another for what little land and crops that are left. We have exhausted ourselves constantly throughout our time here and I have reason to believe that things will only get worse from here. I hope that the future generations of our people will be much wiser and won’t take chances with nature in hopes that it will always provide.
Character 2: Chaco Anasazi member
Role was to help build dams inside of the canyons to store the rainwater necessary for the tribe. I would describe this character as handy and helpful, seeing as they had to build and help come up with the plan as to how to save rain water.
I dealt with deforestation and water management. It was very hard seeing as the weather would be unpredictable and there was no telling how many times our work would be disrupted. I would describe this period as stressful and time consuming. The packrat midden was a devestating period and took out half of my people. Of course they need a safe place to live and survive, but my people were eating rat feces- which is fatal. There were four middens within months time and it was a great tragedy.
Character 3 : The character’s role in this chapter was a observer and researcher. Also, it seemed as if the character was either a native/resident of the area or possibly had family members that were apart of the Anasazi people that lived near the Chaco Canyon. The character’s role to society would be to educate the public and public officials such as the mayor or governor to bring awareness.
From Diamond’s five explanatory factors, my character observed environmental damage happening to the Anasazi people. From my knowledge, the New Mexico and Arizona area suffers from high aridity which makes it impossible for vegetation to grow or crops to be harvested. The Anasazi people found a home in the Chaco canyon where they used the groundwater table and water channel runoff to yield crops such as corn, squash, and beans. In addition, the population grew larger and demand for food became higher. Eventually, these land practices to grow crops developed a negative response in the environment by causing arroyos. Arroyos are deep cut water stream channels that are mostly found in arid areas. These arroyos left the area’s water level below field level making their irrigation agriculture based on groundwater difficult to produce any vegetation or food. After reading this chapter, the character’s perspective describes somewhat of difficult time for the Anasazi people. It seems as if they settled in area that was not sufficient to sustain a growing population due to the arid climate and lack of source of water. The Anasazi people was not aware that their land-use practices would have such an effect on their environment. Even though they reap the benefits of land, their need for food and shelter lead to depletion of their resources to survive which made the environment inhabitable.
Character 4: I am a Chacoan citizen living in the capital. We oversaw the structure of the country, and in return the people gave us a portion of the harvest.
Collapse: Our nation has been in a drought now for longer than we could’ve ever imagined now. Crops have failed before, but we have been able to make do with the bounties of our neighbors. It seems now no one has food to give. I fear now what used to be a bounty for us has become a wasteland. Maybe it was our doing or maybe this land just wasn’t meant for people. For now, all we can do is flee in hopes that we will find suitable land before we starve
The Chacoan citizens faced all 5 environmental factors during their collapse. The first environmental damage happened when building their homes. Carbon dating shows that pine trees used to be in the valley as well as surrounding mountains. Even today the pines in the valley have never grown back. This is due to harvesting for creating massive communal living structures. Climate change happened when the droughts started occurring. The Chacoans had enjoyed many years of rain and their population boomed. When natural droughts came back the population was too large to import enough food from surrounding areas and their fields were dry. Once food became sparse districts that were once loyal became hostile, defending the food they had. Before times became extremely dire the surrounding communities helped each other. This helped the Anasazi survive a few droughts before the last. The cultural response to change for the Chacoans was to first rely on the surrounding tribes who still had fertile farms, and then eventually flee for more suitable land.
Character 5: The character I have choesen is Mimbres, Their role is how they developed a more conservative way to plant crops in an area that has more relaible springs and groundwater tables. The Mimbres method became dangerous trying to expand agriculture into goof growing conditions to areas that are less reliable. They were able to gamble with gettig their food but when dorught came they collapse under stress.
One of the five factor that I observed in my character is human environnmental impact. We the Mimbres have tried to grow crops and spread among the land. We have thought of a way to first plant on land that has good springs to water the crops. We didn’t think of how the weather would be, as we try to expand it became a lot harder on the areas that don’t have a lot springs. As that happen, my people in that area started dying of starvation due to not being able to grow crops. There were times that we got lucky to get some crops growing but others we grew to struggle. Trying to figure out a way to make growing crops smoothly and being able to have something to eat has been a stressful situation for me and my people since there was a lot more of us then land to grow crops well on.
Character 6: My character is a Hunter-Gatherer and my place in society is very important as I provide the food for the population. My efforts consist of agricultural work, collecting natural foods and hunting animals.
As a hunter-gatherer I also worked on agriculture, and by growing and harvesting crops I used the environment around me. There was low rainfall, so we had to use three ways to solve that problem; there was dryland agriculture, using the water table underground, and collecting water to irrigate the fields. It was difficult to live with the agricultural issues, as if we moved to higher elevations for rainwater, it tended to become cold and then it would be too cold to grow the plants. If we went to the lower elevations, then there would not be enough water. There were many strategies that we tried to create, however there was always one disadvantage with an advantage. What we then did was to move to different areas time after time so we would exhaust all the resources and land, and then move to another area to occupy. We were not able to create established alliances with neighbors due to constantly moving. Once we had a high population it was tough to entirely move our village. There were always risks with every strategy, but our last resort was to live close to a source of water so that we did not have to constantly move around.
By cutting down trees and hunting animals, I did affect the environment. There was damage to the environment because we constantly moved from one location to another and at some point, we even exhausted all the resources. We were close to a water source which affected the animals and the water cycle itself. We must grow crops to feed our people, and we do also have to build our living quarters. There is deforestation and lots of loss of natural landscape due to that.