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Mogollon culture () is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...
and
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, Northern
Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...
and
Chihuahua Chihuahua may refer to: Places * Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state **Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state **Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state **Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state **Chihuahua Mu ...
, and Western
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica. The Mogollon culture is one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the
Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, N ...
and
Northern Mexico Northern Mexico ( es, el Norte de México ), commonly referred as , is an informal term for the northern cultural and geographical area in Mexico. Depending on the source, it contains some or all of the states of Baja California, Baja California ...
. The culture flourished from the archaic period, , to either 1450 or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.


Etymology

The name ''Mogollon'' comes from the Mogollon Mountains, which were named after Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón, Spanish Governor of
New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...
(including what is now New Mexico) from 1712 to 1715. The name was chosen and defined in 1936 by archaeologist
Emil W. Haury Emil Walter "Doc" Haury (May 2, 1904 in Newton, Kansas – December 5, 1992 in Tucson, Arizona) was an influential archaeologist who specialized in the archaeology of the American Southwest. He is most famous for his work at Snaketown, a Hohokam ...
.


Cultural traits

The distinct facets of Mogollon culture were recorded by Emil Haury, based on his excavations in 1931, 1933, and 1934 at the Harris Village in
Mimbres, New Mexico Mimbres is a census-designated place in Grant County, New Mexico, United States. Its population was 667 as of the 2010 census. Mimbres has a post office with ZIP code 88049. New Mexico State Road 35 passes through the community. The post office ...
, and the Mogollon Village on the upper San Francisco River in New Mexico Haury recognized differences between architecture and artifacts from these sites as compared with sites in the
Hohokam Hohokam () was a culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. It existed between 300 and 1500 AD, with cultural precursors possibly as early as 300 BC. Archaeologists disagree about ...
archaeological culture area and the
Ancestral Pueblo The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, a ...
archaeological culture area. Key differences included brown-paste, coil-and-scrape pottery, deeply excavated semi-subterranean pit-houses and different ceremonial architecture. Eight decades of subsequent research have confirmed Haury's initial findings. Today, the distinctiveness of the Mogollon pottery manufacture, architectural construction, ground-stone tool design, habits and customs of residence location, and mortuary treatment is generally recognized. The earliest Mogollon pithouses were deep and either circular or oval-shaped. Over time, Mogollon people built rectangular houses with rounded corners with them not as deep. Their villages also had kivas, or round, semi-subterranean ceremonial structures.


History

Mogollon origins remain a matter of speculation. One theory is that the Mogollon emerged from a Desert Archaic tradition linked to the first (late
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
) prehistoric human occupations of the area (around 9000 BC). In this theory, cultural distinctions emerged in the larger region when populations grew enough to establish villages and larger communities. An alternative theory is that the Mogollon descended from migrants from farming regions in central Mexico around 3500 BC, and displaced descendants of the Desert Archaic peoples. A third theory is that Mogollon descended from the Cochise culture (the early pithouse, late Desert Archaic) who had arrived around 5000 BC, and were not linked to the earlier inhabitants, but adopted farming from Central Mexico. Initially, the Mogollon were foragers who augmented their subsistence by farming. But during the first millennium CE, dependence on farming probably increased. Water control features are common among Mimbres branch sites from the 10th through 12th centuries CE. The nature and density of Mogollon villages changed over time. The earliest villages consist of several pithouses -- houses dug into the ground, with stick and thatch roofs supported by a network of posts and beams, and faced on the exterior with earth. Villages grew and by the 11th century surface pueblos became common. They had ground-level houses with walls of rock and earth and roofs supported by post and beam networks. In the 13th and 14th centuries,
cliff-dwelling In archaeology, cliff dwellings are dwellings formed by using niches or caves in high cliffs, and sometimes with excavation or additions in the way of masonry. Two special types of cliff dwelling are distinguished by archaeologists: the cliff ...
s became common. 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 best-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.


Developmental periods

Mogollon culture is often divided into five periods proposed by Joe Ben Wheat in 1955: * Mogollon 1 (200 – c. 400 CE): Pine Lawn, Georgetown, Penasco, Circle Prairie, and Hilltop phases * Mogollon 2 (c. 400–650 CE): San Lorenzo, Dos Cabezas, Circle Prairie, and Cottonwood phases * Mogollon 3 (650–850 CE): San Francisco, Pinaleno, Galiuro, Forestdale, and San Marcial phases * Mogollon 4 (850–1000 CE): Three Circle, Cerros, Corduroy, Mesilla, and Capitan phases * Mogollon 5 (1000–1450 CE), including the Classic Mimbres phrase (1050–1200 CE): Mangus, Mimbres, Encinas, Reserve, Tularosa, Dona Anna, Three Rivers, El Paso, and San Anders phases. Another way to divide Mogollon history is in three periods of housing types: * Early Pithouse (200–550 CE) * Late Pithouse (550–1000 CE) * Mogollon Pueblo (1000–1450 CE).


Sites

Archaeological sites attributed to the Mogollon culture are found in the Gila Wilderness, Mimbres River Valley, along the Upper Gila river,
Paquime Casas Grandes (Spanish for ''Great Houses''; also known as Paquimé) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture. Casas Grandes has been design ...
and Hueco Tanks, an area of low mountains between the Franklin Mountains to the west and the
Hueco Mountains The Hueco Mountains are a range of mountains that rise in southern Otero County, New Mexico and extend south into Texas, generally along the El Paso– Hudspeth county line just east of the city of El Paso, Texas. The highest point of the rang ...
to the east. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in southwestern New Mexico was established as a
national monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spe ...
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 Hueco Tanks State Historic Site is approximately northeast of
El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the ...
.


Mimbres branch

''Mimbres'' may, depending on its context, refer to a tradition within 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"; 1000–1130 CE, 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 The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...
and parts of the upper San Francisco River in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona as well as the
Rio Grande Valley The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. ...
and its western tributaries in southwest New Mexico. Differentiation between the Mimbres branch and other areas of the Mogollon culture area is most apparent during the Three Circle (825–1000 CE roughly) and Classic Mimbres (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 Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
, and Classic Mimbres pottery designs (mainly drawn from the Swarts Ruin excavations of 1924–1927) were imitated on
Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...
"Mimbreños" china dinnerware from 1936 to 1970. Three Circle phase (825/850–1000) pithouse villages within the Mimbres branch are distinctive. Houses are "
quadrilateral In geometry a quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon, having four edges (sides) and four corners (vertices). The word is derived from the Latin words ''quadri'', a variant of four, and ''latus'', meaning "side". It is also called a tetragon, ...
", usually with sharply-angled corners; plastered floors and walls; and average about in floor surface area. Local pottery styles include early forms of Mimbres black and white ("boldface"), red-on-cream, and textured plainware. Large ceremonial structures (often called "
kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground ...
s") are dug deeply into the ground and often include distinctive ceremonial features such as foot
drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...
and log grooves. Classic Mimbres phase (AD 1000–1130) pueblos can be quite large, with some composed of clusters of communities, each containing up to 150 rooms and all grouped around an open
plaza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
. Ceremonial structures were different from the previous
pithouse A pit-house (or ''pit house'', ''pithouse'') is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larde ...
periods. Most common were ceremonial rooms within roomblocks. Smaller square or rectangular semi-subterranean kivas with roof openings are also found. (The word "kiva", a
Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the United ...
term with specific meaning, has generally been applied to Northern Pueblo populations. It may be a poor term in discussing the Mogollon in their broadest contexts.) 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

Ceramics, especially bowls, produced in the Mimbres region are distinct in style and painted with geometric designs and representational images of animals, people, and cultural icons in black paint on a white background. Some of these images suggest familiarity and relationships with cultures in northern and central
Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
. The elaborate decoration suggests the Mimbres Mogollons enjoyed a rich ceremonial life. Early Mimbres black-on-white pottery, called Mimbres Style I (formerly "Boldface Black-on-White"), is primarily characterized by bold geometric designs, although some early examples feature human and animal figures. Both geometric and figurative designs grew increasingly sophisticated and diverse over time. Classic Mimbres Black-on-White pottery (Style III) is characterized by elaborate geometric designs, refined brushwork, including very fine linework, and may include figures of one or more animals, humans, or other images bounded either by simple rim bands or by geometric decoration. Bird figures are common on Mimbres pots, including images such as turkeys feeding on insects and a man trapping birds in a garden. Fish figures are also depicted on Mimbres pottery, and some are marine species typically found in the
Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja C ...
. Mimbres bowls are often found associated with burials, typically with a hole punched out of the center, known as ''kill holes''. Bowls with kill holes have been commonly found covering the face of the interred person. However, archaeological evidence suggests that most potteries were not buried with the dead. Wear marks on the insides of bowls show they were actually used, not just produced as burial items. The distinctive style, which includes "diamond-shaped eyes and receding chins for human figures", created demand on the black market beginning in the 1960s, and vandalism and looting of gravesite took pace and has continued into the present day. Mimbres pottery is so distinctive that until fairly recently, the end of its production around 1130 to 1150 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.


Descendants

The area originally settled by the Mogollon culture was eventually filled by the unrelated
Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño a ...
people, who moved in from the north. However, contemporary
Pueblo people The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Currently 100 pueblos are actively inhabited, among which Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Z ...
in the southwest claim descent from the Mogollon and other related cultures. Archaeologists believe that the Western Pueblo villages of the
Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the United ...
and
Zuni people The Zuni ( zun, A:shiwi; formerly spelled ''Zuñi'') are Native American Pueblo peoples native to the Zuni River valley. The Zuni are a Federally recognized tribe and most live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Li ...
are potentially related to the Mogollon. Ceramics traditions and
oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
link the Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni, to the Mogollon.


See also

*
List of dwellings of Pueblo peoples Hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings are found across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before , these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest. Many of these dwellings inc ...
* La Junta Indians * Mogollon Rim * Patayan * Prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions * Swarts Ruin * Cuarenta Casas *
Casas Grandes Casas Grandes (Spanish for ''Great Houses''; also known as Paquimé) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture. Casas Grandes has been design ...
, or Paquimé, Chihuahua * Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument * Kinishba Ruins, a National Historic Landmark in the Fort Apache Indian Reservation


Notes


References

* Alfredo López Austin and Leonardo López Luján
''Mexico’s Indigenous Past.''
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. . * Fewkes, J. Walter. ''The Mimbres: Art and Archaeology.'' Avanyu Publishing, Albuquerque, New Mexico, republished 1993. . * Brody, J. J., Steven Le Blanc, and Catherine J. Scott
''Mimbres Pottery: Ancient Art of the American Southwest: Essays.''
New York: Hudson Hills, 1983. . * Noble, David Grant. '' Ancient Ruins of the Southwest''. Northland Publishing Company, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1995. . * Powell-Marti, Valli S., and Patricia A. Gilman. ''Mimbres Society.'' University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2006. * Plog, Stephen. ''Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest''. Thames and Hudson, London, England, 1997. . * Skibo, James M., Michael W. Graves, Miriam T. Stark
''Archaeological Anthropology: Perspectives on Method and Theory.''
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. . * Woosley, Anne I., and Allan J. McIntyre. ''Mimbres Mogollon Archaeology:
Charles C. Di Peso Charles Corradino Di Peso (October 20, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. – November 20, 1982 in Tucson, Arizona) was an American archaeologist. He is known for his research in Northern Mexico and the American Southwest. Biography Di Peso's firs ...
's Excavations at Wind Mountain''. University of New Mexico Press, 1996.


Further reading

* Brody, J. J
''Mimbres Painted Pottery: Ancient Art of the American Southwest''
Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2005. . * Diehl, Michael W., and Steven A. LeBlanc
''Early Pithouse Villages of the Mimbres Valley and Beyond: The McAnally and Thompson Sites in their Cultural and Ecological Contexts.''
Papers No. 83. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2001. . * Reid, Jefferson and Stephanie M. Whittlesey
''Prehistory, Personality, and Place: Emil W. Haury and the Mogollon Controversy''
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010). Examines the controversy occasioned by the American archaeologist's identification of the Mogollon as a people distinct from their Pueblo and Hohokam neighbors. * Shafer, Harry J
''Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin.''
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. .


External links





a Jornada Mogollon pueblo in West Texas
Mogollan artwork
collection of the
National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

Mimbres Pottery at the Weisman Art Museum

Mimbres pottery at Arizona State University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mogollon culture Archaeological cultures of North America Indigenous peoples in Mexico Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica Native American history of New Mexico Native American history of Arizona Mogollon Rim