Pueblo I and II Sites

Pueblo Sites. Pueblo I (ca A.d 700 – 900) is best known as the period of transition from pithouse to above-ground apartment type architecture. J.O Brew has argued that this transition was a gradual, local Anasazi development, pointing out that the previous Basketmaker III storage rooms and cists:

..which were close together in small groups, anyhow, were brought even closer together a single structure of contiguous rooms, and characteristic Pueblo architecture was well om its way.

This transitional nature of the Pueblo I Period is nicely illustrated by several sites. Thus, Kiatuthlanna, in upper Little Colorado region of eastern Arizona, is an example of the very early Pueblo I pattern.

Here, the pithouse was still the principal form of residence, but the individual dwellings were grouped into small clusters of from three to six house. The total village area was composed of four such clusters. Near each cluster were above-ground structures of jacal. Some of these may also have been dwellings, but most of them were probably storage rooms. What looks like a more advanced stage of the transition is displayed in the Piedra region of Colorado. Again, the village was composed of several unit groups of houses, but here each unit was made up of above ground jacal dwellings and storage rooms rather than pithouses.

Most of the jacal buildings stood singly, although close together within each group, and some of them were actually contiguous, their walls common. Within each group there was a tendency for all buildings to be arranged in an arcor row. With at least one unit group was an associated single pithouse, probably a ceremonial chamber. Site 13, Alkali Ridge in Utah, carries the transition still farther.

This large village contained four habitation units, each consisting of from 30 to 50 above-ground and fully contiguous rooms. The dwellings were of a type of jacal construction, made of adobe, small rock, and wooden posts. The rooms which were used for both storage and dwelling purposes, were arranged in long, irregular arcs, with the openings of the arcs on the south or southeast. Within each arc opening, in a sort of small plaza area, were pithouses, from two to four to a plaza, apparently the ceremonial chambers for the respective units.
It is, thus, perfectly feasible to bring Pueblo I architecture and settlement out of Basketmaker III without postulating the advent of a new people into the Anasazi subarea.

During the Pueblo II Period ( ca A.D 900 – 1100) several changes in settlement and architecture occurred. None of these represents a sharp and perfectly synchronized innovation for the entire Anasazi subarea.
Two small sites in the Alkali Ridge locality exemplify these various Pueblo II changes and features. Site 9 contains the definite remains of two small, single-room, rectangular buildings, one of which may have had to other rooms attached to it. The wall foundations revealed small posts packed with adobe and small rocks jacal construction. A few meters to the southeast of these above ground jacal buildings was a circular, subterranean kiva with the typical fire-pit, ventilator shaft, deflector, and sipapu hole. This kiva appears to have had four floor posts supporting the roofs. In everything except its small size, this single unit habitation site contrasts with Alkali Ridge No, 7.

Alkali Ridge No. 7 were two conjoined, coursed-stone masonry, rectangular rooms. The associated kiva, also a short distance to the south of the above-ground building, and identified by its fire-pit, ventilator, deflector, and sipapu, exemplified the newer style, with a wall bench and six masonry pilasters rising from this bench to support the roof.