bowl illustrated here (FIG. 14-31) dates to about 1250 and features an
animated graphic rendering of two black cranes on a white ground.
The contrast between the bowl’s abstract border designs and the birds
creates a dynamic tension. Thousands of different compositions ap-
pear on Mimbres pottery. They range from lively and complex geomet-
ric patterns to abstract pictures of humans, animals, and composite
mythological beings. Almost all are imaginative creations by artists
who seem to have been bent on not repeating themselves. Their designs
emphasize linear rhythms balanced and controlled within a clearly de-
fined border. Because the potter’s wheel was unknown in the Americas,
the artists constructed their pots out of coils of clay, creating countlesssophisticated shapes of varied size, always characterized by technical
excellence. Although historians have no direct knowledge about the
potters’ identities, the fact that pottery making was usually women’s
work in the Southwest during the historical period (see “Gender Roles
in Native American Art,” Chapter 32, page 863) suggests that the Mim-
bres potters also may have been women.
ANCESTRAL PUEBLOANSThe Ancestral Puebloans, for-
merly known as the Anasazi, northern neighbors of the Mimbres,
emerged as an identifiable culture around 200 CE, but the culture did
not reach its peak until about 1000. (Anasazi, Navajo for “enemy an-
cestors,” is a name that the descendants of these early Native Ameri-
cans dislike, hence the new designation.) The many ruined pueblos
(urban settlements) scattered throughout the Southwest reveal the
masterful building skills of the Ancestral Puebloans. In Chaco
Canyon, New Mexico, they built a great semicircle of 800 rooms
reaching to five stepped-back stories, the largest of several such sites
in and around the canyon. Chaco Canyon was the center of a wide
trade network extending as far as Mexico.
Sometime in the late 12th century, a drought occurred, and the
Ancestral Puebloans largely abandoned their open canyon-floor
dwelling sites to move farther north to the steep-sided canyons and
lusher environment of Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado. Cliff
Palace (FIG. 14-32) is wedged into a sheltered ledge above a valley
floor. It contains about 200 rectangular rooms (mostly communal
dwellings) of carefully laid stone and timber, once plastered inside
and out with adobe. The location for Cliff Palace was not accidental.
The Ancestral Puebloans designed it to take advantage of the sun to
heat the pueblo in winter and shade it during the hot summer
months. Scattered in the foreground ofFIG. 14-32are two dozen large
circular semisubterranean structures, called kivas,which once were
roofed over and entered with a ladder through a hole in the flat roof.
These chambers were the spiritual centers of native Southwest life,
male council houses where ritual regalia were stored and private ritu-
als and preparations for public ceremonies took place—and still do.
The Ancestral Puebloans did not disappear but gradually
evolved into the various Pueblo peoples who still live in Arizona,
New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. They continue to speak their na-
tive languages, practice deeply rooted rituals, and make pottery in
the traditional manner. Their art is discussed in Chapter 32.390 Chapter 14 NATIVE ARTS OF THE AMERICAS BEFORE 130014-31Bowl with two cranes and geometric forms, Mimbres, from
New Mexico, ca. 1250 CE. Ceramic, black-on-white, 1^1 – 2 diameter.
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Hugh L. and Mary T. Adams Fund).
Native Americans have been producing pottery for more than 2,000
years, long before the introduction of the potter’s wheel. Mimbres
bowls feature black-and-white animals and abstract patterns.14-32Cliff Palace, Ancestral
Puebloan, Mesa Verde National Park,
Colorado, ca. 1150–1300 CE.
Cliff Palace is wedged into a sheltered
ledge to heat the pueblo in winter
and shade it during the hot summer
months. It contains about 200 stone-
and-timber rooms plastered inside
and out with adobe.1 in.
14-32APueblo
Bonito, Chaco
Canyon, mid-9th
to mid-11th
centuries CE.