signs tend to be personal and local and were probably passeddown from mother to daughter. Design elements changed slowly, a characteristicthat helps archeologists track the location and composition of ancient populations.The first Anasazi settled in Mesa Verde (Spanish for green table) aboutA.D. 550. they are known as Basket makers because of their impressive skill atthat craft. Formerly a nomadic people, they were now beginning to lead a moresettled way of life. Farming replaced hunting-and-gathering as their main sourceof livelihood. They lived in pithouses clustered into small villages which theyusually built on the mesa tops but occasionally in the cliff recesses. They soonlearned hot to make pottery and they acquired the bow and arrow, a more efficientweapon for hunting than the atlatl, or spear thrower. These were fairly prosperous times for the Basketmakers and theirpopulation multiplied. About 750 they began building houses above ground withupright awls made of poles and mud. The built these houses one against another inlong curving rows often with a pithouse or two in front. The pithouses wereprobably the forerunners of the kivas of later times. From this time on thesepeople are known as Pueblos, a Spanish word for village dwellers.by 1000 the Ansazi had advanced from pole-and-adobe construction toskillful stone masonry. their walls of thick double-coursed stone often rose two orthree stories high and were joined together into units of 50 rooms or more. Pottery also changed as black drawing on a white background replaced crudedesigns on dull gray. Farming provided more of the diet than before and muchmesa-top land was cleared for that purpose.The years from 1100 to 1300 were Mesa Verdes classic period. Thepopulation may have reached several thousand. It was mostly concentrated incompact villages of many rooms, often with the kivas built inside the enclosing wallsrather than out in the open. Round towers began t...
