Mogollon Settlement and Architecture

Mogollon archaeological sites represent sedentary villages and hamlets. These consist of groups of houses. From Mogollon I through 4 these structures were pithouses, later in Mogollon 5 they were built above ground. The pithouse villages tended to be relatively small, averaging, perhaps 20 houses. The small hamlets that developed during the same periods consisted of two or three houses and, occasionally, individual isolated houses were built. The Mogollon 5 villages were generally larger.

As a general rule, the earlier Mogollon sites were located on high ground-ridges, bluffs, or mesas, possibly for defensive reasons, although no artificial defense works have been found. More probably, drainage and other consideration were the deciding factors in the placing of villages. Later sites were frequently in river valleys, either on natural terraces or sometimes-even closer to the stream.

No patterned arrangement can be detected in earlier Mogollon villages. Houses were simply dotted about randomly, although there is a tendency for their entrances to face in an easterly direction. Larger buildings, found within villages and presumed to have fulfilled some kind of community or ceremonial function, were sometimes, but not always, located more or less at the center of the cluster of dwellings.

The pithouses of Mogollon 1 and Mogollon 2 Periods were predominantly circular or oval. Through time, there was a trend, into the later periods, toward r rectangular form; and in some regions D-shaped or bean-shaped houses seem to represent transitional steps in this direction. The pithouses varied considerably in size, although an average floor area for all periods and regions would be about 17 square meters, not including the space taken up by benches, entryways, or antechambers. In the Pine Lawn region, for instance, there is some evidence that later houses were smaller than earlier ones, and some authorities have speculated that this change may reflect a shift from extended to nuclear family living. This trend, however, does not hold for other regions, such as the San Simon, were a gradual size increase seems to have occurred, or for still others, where no particular trend can be followed.

Depth of the houses also varied. Some were less than a half-meter below the surrounding ground surface, others well over a meter. Earlier houses were shallow than later ones and regionally; those of the south tend to be shallow.

The Mogollon pithouses were roofed with timbers over which smaller sticks were laid; the whole then was covered with earth and stones. These roofs were constructed and supported in several ways. The earliest method shunned interior post supports. Instead, the principal timbers were conically propped or were laid horizontally on low walls built on the ground surface beside the pit. Later on, a large, central, interior post was used to form the main support for a conical roof; four main, corner posts sustained a flat roof; more than four peripheral posts were employed to hold up either a flat or a dome-shaped cribbed roof; and in Mogollon 3 times and later, a distinctive gabled roof appeared, supported by there main center posts arranged in a row on the long axis of the house.

Early Mogollon pithouse had very short entrances passages or else none, but in later periods these entrances became the rule. Antechambers or vestibules were relatively rare. Wheat, nevertheless, feels that although rare, their few occurrences indicate their chronological priority in early Mogollon and a subsequent diffusion northward to the Anasazi.

Most Mogollon pithouses did not have benches or banquettes, which were ledges or offsets in the pithouse walls that served a resting place for the sloping side poles of the roof. The bench trait, which was characteristic of the Forestdale region only, was probably imported from the Anasazi subarea, where it was common. Similarly, those other pithouse embellishments, the ventilator shafts and the deflecting stones or walls which shielded the fire from air currents were most likely borrowed from the Anasazi and were built into Mogollon houses only in the northern regions. In Mogollon houses the fire pit generally was about halfway between the center of the floor area and the entry.
The Mogollon people stored food, and perhaps other goods, in bell-shaped pits located outside the houses and also in bins, wall niches and sub floor pits within the houses. These interior pits are a particular feature of the Mogollon I Period Pine Lawn Phase of the Pine Lawn region.

The above descriptions apply to the Mogollon houses and buildings of Period I through 4. Period 5, as we have said, marked a transition to above ground forms. A transition undoubtedly influenced by Anasazi architecture. Intermediate house types of this transition in the Mimbers region were still semi-subterranean, with walls of masonry supporting the roofs. Often these were contiguous or apartment-type houses. The lower levels of the Swarts ruin, placed in the Mangus phase, would be representative of this transition. Farther north, in the Pine Lawn region, above ground jacal structures may have bridged the changeover from pithouse to masonry Pueblos. The fully developed pueblo-style architecture of the later part of Mogollon Period 5 was usually constructed of stone and mud masonry walls. In the Swarts ruin, river boulders were laid up in a large amount of adobe. Rooms were rectangular and roofed with beams that were supported primarily by the masonry walls. Interior walls were plastered with mud and floors were made of puddle adobe. Storage bins, stone-lined fireplaces, wall niches, and shelves and benches were constructed inside the rooms. Doorways were built only in partitions between rooms and not on the pueblo exterior. Entrance from the outside was, apparently, through the roof.

Special large houses or buildings were constructed in all Mogollon regions except San Simon. Because of their size, which averaged about three times the floor space ordinary houses, they were probably used for non-domestic and ceremonial functions.
These large buildings, like the common dwellings of the earlier periods, varied considerably in shape. Some were roundish, others D-shaped, some bean-shaped and some quadrilateral. Most of them contained fire-pits or hearths, and in some were floor pits similar to household storage pits. In later Mogollon periods, the ceremonial buildings in the members region were quadrilateral and had masonry walls. A curious special feature for both early and late chambers was a deep patterning of floor graves. These grooves may be the impressions of interior log-linings or partitions.