Mogollon culture Totally Explained

Everything about Mogollon Culture totally explained

The Mogollon is the name applied to one of the four major prehistoric archaeological culture areas of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. The American Indian culture known as the Mogollon lived in the southwest from approximately AD 150 until sometime between AD 1300 and AD 1400. The name Mogollon comes from the Mogollon Mountains, which were named after Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón, Spanish Governor of New Mexico from 1712-1715.

Cultural history

The Mogollon archaeological area was first recognized by Emil Haury, following work at two archaeological sites (the Harris Village in the town of Mimbres, New Mexico, and the Mogollon Village, on the upper San Francisco river) in southwestern New Mexico in 1933 and 1934. Haury recognized that superficial similarities with the Hohokam archaeological culture and the Ancient Pueblo ("Anasazi") archaeological culture, including (initially unpainted) brown-paste pottery and the use of surface "pueblo" dwellings were insufficient to firmly characterize the inhabitants of the Mogollon region as subdivisions of these other archaeologically known cultures. Five decades of subsequent research conducted by teams based out of the Field Museum of Natural History, the University of Arizona, the Amerind Foundation, and the Mimbres Foundation, confirmed Haury's initial findings. Today, the distinctiveness of the Mogollon culture area in pottery manufacture, architectural construction, ground-stone tool design, and habits and customs of residence location and mortuary treatment are generally recognized.
Mogollon origins remain a matter of speculation. One model holds that the Mogollon emerged from a preceding "Desert Archaic" tradition that links Mogollon ancestry with the first (late Pleistocene) prehistoric human occupations of area (around 9000 BC). In this model, cultural distinctions emerged in the larger region when populations grew great enough to establish villages and even larger communities. An alternative possibility holds that the Mogollon were descendants of early farmers who migrated from farming regions in central Mexico around 3500 BC, and who displaced descendants of the antecedent Desert Archaic peoples.
Research on Mogollon culture has led to the recognition of regional variants, of which the most widely recognized in popular media is the "Mimbres culture" (Mimbres Mogollon branch). Others include the Jornada, Forestdale, Reserve, Point of Pines (or "Black River"), San Simon, and Upper Gila branches. Although the Mimbres culture is the most well known subset of the Mogollon archaeological culture-area, the entire Mogollon occupation spans a greater interval of time (roughly one millennium) and a vastly larger area than is encompassed by the Mimbres culture.

Mimbres culture

"Mimbres" may, depending on its context, refer to a subregion of the Mogollon culture area (the Mimbres branch or the Mimbres Mogollon) or to an interval of time, the "Classic Mimbres phase" (also known as the "Mimbres culture"; A.D. 1000-1150, roughly) within the Mimbres branch.
   The Mimbres branch is a subset of the larger Mogollon culture area, centered in the Mimbres Valley and encompassing the upper Gila river and parts of the upper San Francisco river in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Differentiation between the Mimbres branch and other areas of the Mogollon culture area is most apparent during the Three Circle (A.D. 825-1000 roughly) and Classic Mimbres (A.D. 1000-1150) phases, when architectural construction and black and white painted pottery assume locally distinctive forms and styles. Classic Mimbres phase pottery is particularly famous pottery, and Classic Mimbres pottery designs were duplicated on Santa Fe Railroad dinnerware during the early 20th century.
   Three Circle phase (C.E. 825/850-1000) pithouse villages within the Mimbres branch are distinctive. Houses are consistently quadrilateral, usually with sharply angled corners, with well-plastered floors and walls, and average approximately 17 square meters in floor surface area. Local pottery styles include early forms of Mimbres black and white ("boldface"), red-on-cream, and textured plainwares. Large ceremonial structures (often called "kivas") are deeply excavated into the ground, and often include distinctive ceremonial features such as foot drums or log grooves.
   Classic Mimbres phase (C.E. 1000-1150) pueblos can be quite large, with some composed of clusters of compounds or roomblocks, each containing up to 150 rooms, and grouped around an open plaza. Ceremonial structures were more similar to those of the larger Mogollon culture, with semi-subterranean kivas with entry ramps and ceremonial offerings buried under the floor. Smaller square or rectangular kivas with roof openings are also found. The largest Classic Mimbres sites are located near wide areas of well-watered floodplain suitable for maize agriculture, although smaller villages exist in upland areas.

Mimbres pottery

The pottery produced by the Mimbres subculture, often finely painted bowls, is distinct in style and is decorated by geometric and figurative drawings of animals, people and cultural icons in black paint on a white background. Many of these images suggest familiarity and relationships with cultures in northern and central Mexico. The elaborate decoration indicates that these people enjoyed an elaborate ceremonial life. An early style of Mimbres pottery, called Boldface Black-on-white, is characterized by a figure of a single animal surrounded by more complex symmetrical designs. Classic Mimbres Black-on-white pottery includes more expansive geometric decoration and may include figures of one or more animals, humans, or other images surrounded by geometric decoration. Birds figure prominently on Mimbres pots, with images such as turkeys feeding on insects or a man trapping birds in a garden.
Mimbres bowls are often found associated with burials, typically with a hole punched out of the center. Some Mimbres bowls have been found covering the face of the interred person. Wear marks on the insides of bowls show they were actually used, not just produced as burial items. However, archaeologists usually recover the missing center piece inside or near the burial, indicating that the destruction of the bowl was part of a burial ritual Mimbres pottery is so distinctive that until fairly recently, the end of its production around A.D. 1130 was equated with the "disappearance" of the people who made it. More recent research indicates that substantial depopulation did occur in the Mimbres Valley, but some remnant populations persisted there. Both there and in surrounding areas, people changed their pottery styles to more closely resemble those of neighboring culture areas, and dispersed into other residential sites with different types of architecture.

Geographic location

The Mogollon settled high-altitude desert areas in what is today New Mexico, Sonora, Chihuahua and western Texas. The Mogollon were, initially, foragers who augmented their subsistence efforts by farming. Through the first millennium A.D., however, dependence of farming probably increased. Water control features are common among Mimbres branch sites from the 10th through 12 centuries.
The nature and density of Mogollon residential villages changed through time. The earliest Mogollon villages are little more than hamlets composed of several pit-houses (houses excavated into the ground surface, with stick and thatch roofs supported by a network of posts and beams, and faced on the exterior with earth). Village sizes increase through time, however, and in the 11th century surface pueblos (ground level dwellings made with rock and earth walls, and with roofs supported by post and beam networks) were common. Cliff Dwellings become common during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Archaeological record

Archaeological sites attributed to the Mogollon culture are found in the Gila Wilderness, Mimbres River Valley, along the Upper Gila river, Paquime and Hueco Tanks, an area of low mountains between the Franklin Mountains to the west and the Hueco Mountains to the east. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in southwestern New Mexico was established as a national monument on 16 November 1907. It contains several archaeological sites attributed to the Mimbres branch. At the headwaters of the Gila, Mimbres populations adjoined another more northern branch of the Mogollon culture. The TJ Ruin, for example, is a Classic Mimbres phase pueblo, however the cliff dwellings are Tularosa phase. The name Hueco Tanks has been also given to an historic site, approximately 32 miles (51.5 km) northeast of El Paso, Texas. The site is culturally and spiritually significant to many American Indians, partially due to the pictographs that can be found throughout the region, many of which are thousands of years old.

Descendants

The area originally settled by the Mogollon culture was eventually filled by the unrelated Apache people, who moved in from the north. However, the modern Pueblo people in the Southwest claim descent from the Mogollon and related cultures, although these people generally assert that their descent was from more than one group and location. Archaeologists believe that the Western Pueblo villages of the Hopi and Zuni are very likely related to the Mogollon.

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