Earliest Inhabitants of the Southwest

UNTIL recent times, there were no people in America. During most of the million-year history of mankind, in the period called Pleistocene by geologists, animals of the Western Hemisphere ranged unmolested save by other beasts. Finally, after the climax of the last glacial advance of the Pleistocene ice age, several thousand years ago, bands of hunters entered North American from northern Asia and spread southward.In the rich New World of abundant game, with no competition and few natural enemies, the human population must have increased very rapidly. From these early American hunters are undoubtedly descended most of the Indians south of the Canada-United States border.

There may have been several separate migrations, or a slow and steady gradual drift of people from Asia in very small numbers, or there may have been only one or two original groups which grew fast after arrival and split up at an early time, long enough ago for the many great differences in language and in way of life to develop.

Of course, this is all theoretical, based on a comparatively small number of actual finds of stone tools and other early remains, and on logic or informed guessing. Actually, we cannot rigorously prove even that the people came from Asia. But, in the first place, they must have done so; they had to enter from the Old World, where mankind developed, and in late Pleistocene time there was a broad land-bridge at Bering Strait. Secondly, the physical type of the Indians is, broadly speaking, Asiatic. It is not specifically Oriental like the Chinese, but it is definitely of a general Asiatic cast.

The various groups of American Indians are not all alike, by any means, but the several important features common to them all are Asiatic characteristics, such as straight black hair, brown skin, dark eyes, broad faces with prominent cheekbones. There are also cultural comparisons with parts of Asia, and even possibilities of language relationships.

Three large groups of natives of the Western Hemisphere entered separately and much later, and the connections with the Old World are a little clearer. Only one of these reached or affected the Southwest, however.

First of the late-arriving groups, the ancestors of the Algonkians and tribes speaking related languages, entered northern North America around 3,000 years ago, probably, bringing cord-marked pottery and other new traits from Eurasia, perhaps including tumuli (burial mounds). This group, correlating with the "Sylvid" or "Northeastern Longhead physical type, is found along both sides of the border between Canada and the United States, from coast to coast, and occupied eastern Canada and most of the northeastern United States.

Secondly, the Athapaskawans came in, perhaps a little over 2,000 years ago, with a northern forest hunting culture, bringing the sinew-backed bow, the snowshoe and toboggan, tailored garments, and hide moccasins. They can be correlated with the "Pacifid" or "Northwest" physical typeround heads with low skull vaults and very broad faces. A language connection with the major linguistic stock of eastern Asia has been suggested. Concentrated in western Canada and interior Alaska, the Athapaskawan group also includes the Apache tribes of the Plains and the Southwest.

Finally, the Eskimo may have entered about the same time or even more recently, probably coming originally from western Siberia. They are quite distinct in culture, physical type, and language from the other North American groups, and are similar in many ways to peoples of northern Eurasia. The language of the Eskimo is very possibly related to Samoyed and Ugrian and other Old World languages.

In the case of the early people, however, who were the presumed ancestors of the Indian tribes south of the Algonkian group, no such specific statement or comparisons can be made. Their history in the New World goes back more than 10,000 years, to a time at which we know practically nothing about even our own ancestors in Europe and the Mediterranean area. The earliest Americans were essentially Upper Paleolithic hunters of big game, like the Europeans of the same period. In the New World they found elephants, horses, camels, bison, pronghorn, and other large animals in plenty. Equipped with stone-headed spears, and probably using the fire-drive or the surround method, they successfully hunted even the elephants.

Again, this is partly imaginative; but it is based on more than guesswork. Bones of the extinct mammals have been found with flaked spear-points embedded in them. In the original such discovery, at Folsom, New Mexico, in 1926, skeletons of bison, associated with flint points, were found fairly complete, except for the tail bones; and in skinning of an animal, the tail goes with the hide! At Ventana cave in the Papago Reservation in southwestern Arizona, Dr. Emil Haury of the University of Arizona found that stone tools connected with hunting-not just the spear points but also implements for cutting and scraping hides, and so on-far outnumbered those indicating use of plant foods, such as ginding stones, in the deepest layers. The same is true at other early sites.

The early American hunters evidently lived especially in the plains, where large game was most abundant. Finds of their beautifully flaked spear points have been made principally in the western plains. At least a few of them spread across parts of the Southwest, where points of early type are found occasionally; and a very few cave sites have yielded remains of this group.

Unfortunately, no dry cave has yet revealed surviving perishable materials which can be identified as representing the earliest periods. We have almost nothing except the stone artifacts. But it is safe to assume that the ancient hunters used wood to make spear shafts, handles for stone knife blades, and a variety of tools. Doubtless the bones of game animals were used for still other tools, and the hides for garments or covers. Very possibly baskets and sandals were woven from plant fibers. Bags may have been made in the same way, or from skins, or both. Cooking may have been by the stone-boiling method in a basket, or simply by roasting of meat over the open fire.

That the early people had houses is conceivable but doubtful; brush or skin shelters around the camp fire seem more likely. They were more or less nomadic hunters, moving about constantly, no doubt in small bands of kindred, large family groups; and they would have had no permanent settled habitations, even though they may have returned fairly frequently to the same camping places. Like the modern Australian natives, the Upper Paleolithic hunters in both Europe and America could not have handled much personal property, limited as it must have been to what could be carried in fairly continual walking.

At quite an early date certain groups in the Southwest began to depend largely on plants for subsistence, in a stage comparable to the "Mesolithic" of Europe. It is not entirely clear whether these were offshoots of the bison hunters of the plains, or a separate group. They might also represent an earlier immigration which had largely moved-or been pushed-on southward into Mexico. At any rate, the Cochise people living in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico some 5,000 years ago were using plants, even be-ginning to cultivate them. Corn spread northward from Middle America to this area by 3,000 years ago or even earlier, apparently. Grinding stones, the same kind of thing as the metates and manos which are still in use, developed. Few spear points of flaked stone are found among their remains, although hunting was no doubt important also. Spear points of some other material-bone or fire-hardened woodmay have been in use. Simple pit houses (probably introduced from the northward and originally from Asia) began to be used.

ginning to cultivate them. Corn spread northward from Middle America to this area by 3,000 years ago or even earlier, apparently. Grinding stones, the same kind of thing as the metates and manos which are still in use, developed. Few spear points of flaked stone are found among their remains, although hunting was no doubt important also. Spear points of some other material-bone or fire-hardened woodmay have been in use. Simple pit houses (probably introduced from the northward and originally from Asia) began to be used.

These quite early dates apply to the southern part of the Southwest. How soon the same way of life was carried into the north, the Four Corners regions, we do not know. Here the end-dates-the time of introduction of pottery, bows and arrows, and other advanced traits are definite, whereas in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico they are uncertain because of lack of adequate tree-ring material for establishing dates. The general type of life is far better known in the northern Southwest, owing to preservation of remains other than stone in the dry caves of the Four Corners region.

These remains, characterized by abundant and artistic weaving of basketry, sandals, and bags, are classified under the name of "Basket Maker." This group, the earliest known in the northern part of the Southwest, is defined by: basketry but no pottery, fur-string blankets, but no cotton cloth; corn and squash, but no beans; the spear and atlatl or spearthrower, but no bow and arrow; curved flat wooden clubs, but no stone axes; no artificial or cradle-board flattening of the back of the head; no domestication of turkeys, but evident use of the feathers; pit houses, and stone slab cists.

Between 475 A. D. and 775 A. D., the introduction and development of pottery, surface structures, beans, cotton, grooved stone axes and mauls, skull deformation, and turkey. keeping transformed the Basket Makers of the San Juan region into the distinctive Pueblo Indians of the same area. Other groups of early Indians farther south similarly developed into other divisions of the general Pueblo pattern. The descendants of these people still live along the upper Rio Grande in New Mexico and at Zuñi and in the Hopi villages today. Another early group in southern Arizona, as represented by the cave finds in the Papago Reservation, became at least one element of the unique Hohokam complex and, with further changes in culture and additions of new people, the historic Pima Indians.