Oasisamerica

Oasisamerica is a large and ancient cultural area located between present-day Mexico and the United States. The Oasis-Americans were sedentary farmers, although climatic conditions did not allow them to carry out very efficient agriculture. They supplemented limited agricultural resources with hunting, fishing, and fruit gathering. They built large villages in New Mexico and their best-known archaeological zone, which is Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua. The natives of these territories believed that the end of the world would take place in 1695.

It is the term derived from the conjunction of oasis and America. It is a land territory, marked by the presence of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre Occidental. To the east and west of these enormous mountain ranges extend the great arid plains of the Sonoran, Chihuahuan and Arizona deserts. At its greatest expansion, Oasisamerica covered part of the surface of the current Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora, as well as Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and California, in the United States of America.

Although it is a dry territory, Oasisamerica is crossed by some water currents such as the Dino, Dangerous, Colorado River, Gila River, Mayo River and Casas Grandes rivers. The presence of these currents (and some lagoons that the desert swallowed over the years), as well as its climate, undoubtedly more benign than that of the eastern arid American region, was what allowed the development of agricultural techniques imported from Mesoamerica..

The Oasisamerica region is rich in deposits of turquoise, one of the luxury materials most appreciated by the high cultures of Mesoamerica. This allowed the establishment of exchange relations between these two large regions.

Characteristics of Oasis-American cultures

The origin of the Oasis-American cultural area takes place about two thousand years after the separation of Mesoamerica and Arid America. Some of the Oasis-American peoples practiced cultivation as a complementary activity to their hunting and gathering economy. These people, among whom are those belonging to the Desert Tradition, became true farmers. The process of the introduction of agriculture in the desert area of northern Mexico and the south of the The United States was gradual and drawn out: around 600 AD. C. (a period that coincides with the time of the decline of Teotihuacan), some groups had recently acquired agricultural techniques. The hypothesis of the importation of agriculture from the south is correct. What is not yet possible to establish is who the bearers of agricultural technology were and what role they had in the development of the high Oasis-American cultures.

At least three hypotheses are proposed about the birth of the Oasis-American cultures. One, of an endogenous nature, indicates that it is an independent cultural development that has its roots in remote antiquity. From this point of view, favored by a better climate (which is really relative, given that the climatic difference between the oasis-American zone and the arid-American zone is not so evident), the ancient desert peoples would have been able to make a discovery of agriculture similar to that which It happened in Mesoamerica.

A second approach presupposes that the bearers of the towards the north. Thus, Oasisamerica would be a derivation of its southern neighbors. In that sense, the development of Oasis-American cultures, such as those of northern Mesoamerica, would have been related to groups that originally lived in Western Mexico. Archaeological evidence indicates that groups of Yuto-Nahua descent would have brought agriculture to the Oasis-American region. Although agricultural techniques had been imported from the south, the Oasis-American peoples built a civilization with particular characteristics, which maintained relations with the farmers of Mesoamerica.

There are numerous traces of the relationship between the two great cultural regions of North America. For example, the turquoise that Mesoamericans prized so much came almost all of it from the southern region of New Mexico and Arizona. In turn, in Paquimé, a site belonging to the Mogollón culture, ceremonial structures related to the Mesoamerican religion have been found, such as the ball game, and a significant number of macaw skeletons, which were most certainly brought from the jungles of the southeast of Mexico.

Cultural areas

In the territory covered by Oasisamerica, three great cultures developed: the Anasazi, the Hohokam and the Mogollon, with which they shared cultural traits: Fremont, Pataya and Trincheras.

Anasazi

The Anasazi culture flourished in the region known as the Four Corners. That is, at the confluence of the states of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, a territory populated by juniper forests, which the ancient settlers knew how to take advantage of, since the plant resources obtained by harvesting were scarce half the year, between November and April. The Anasazi is one of the most complex societies that have ever seen the light of day in the Oasis-American territory, and it is assumed that they are the ancestors of the current Pueblo Indians (Zuni and Hopi).

The Maya is undoubtedly the most studied of the pre-Columbian cultures of the United States. Archaeological investigations have established a sequence of cultural development from a time prior to the first century BC. C., until 1540, when the Pueblo Indians were finally subjected to the Spanish Crown. This long period includes phases Cesteros (basketmakers) I, II and III, and Pueblo I, II, III, and IV. The Basket Makers I phase, prior to 100 BC. C., marks the transition of the Anasazi peoples between nomadic life and a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, based on the cultivation of corn (introduced to the region around 750 BC). In the Cesteros II phase, the Anazasi settled in caves and rock shelters, and in the Cesteros III phase (400-700 AD) they built the first semi-subterranean urban settlements, with up to four circular homes.

The beginning of the Pueblo period is marked by the development of ceramics. The main characteristic of this is the predominance of white or red pieces with black designs. During the Pueblo I phase (700-900 AD), the Anazasi developed their first irrigation systems, replacing their semi-subterranean habitation of the previous phase with houses built of masonry. The Pueblo II phase (900-1100 AD) is marked by the construction of large works of architecture, among which the multi-story multi-family homes stand out, some of them built on the cliffs. The next phase, Pueblo III (1100-1300 AD) was the scene of the maximum expansion of Anasazi agriculture and the construction of large regional communication networks that would finally collapse in the Pueblo IV phase, when the system It contracts, the large centers are abandoned and many of the region's inhabitants return to an economy based on gathering and hunting.

The reasons for the decline of Anasazi culture are still unknown. This fact is associated with the prolonged drought that devastated the region between the years 1276 and 1299. The period between these dates and the arrival of the Spanish to Arizona is profoundly unknown. When the Europeans arrived in the lands of the Anasazi region, it was populated by the Pueblo Indians, who did not form an ethnic unit: among them were the Zuni, with no close relatives; the Hopi, speakers of a Uto-Aztec language; The Tewas and Tiwas were Tanoans and the Navajos, Athapascans. The arrival of the latter is a mystery, the only thing that is known is that they came from Canada, and that they were a group of hunters who ended up assimilating into the culture of the Oasis-American natives.

The religion of the Pueblo Indians was based on the cult of plant deities and terrestrial fertility. They believed that the kachina, supernatural beings, had emerged to the earth's surface through the sipapu, or center of the world, at the time of the creation of human beings. The cult in Pueblo societies was organized through secret corporations made up exclusively of men, who met in the kivas. Members of secret societies used to represent the kachina for purposes of religious worship.

Hohokam

Compared to their northern neighbors, the Anasazi, the people carrying the Hohokam culture are unknown. They occupied the desert lands of Arizona and Sonora. The territory of the Hohokam is crossed by two large water currents, the Colorado River and the Gila River, which frame the nuclear area in the heart of the Sonoran desert. It is one of the ecosystems that imposes the most difficult conditions on agriculture and human life, due to high temperatures and low rainfall. For this reason, the Hohokam were driven to build irrigation systems and channel the Salado and Gila rivers into a network of aqueducts that reached up to 10 km in length and a depth of several meters, which prevented water evaporation. Based on these irrigation works, the Hohokam peoples were able to obtain up to two crops of corn per year, which they complemented with the exploitation of pitahaya and mesquite pods. From these resources they obtained flour, honey, liquor, and wood.

The main settlements of this culture were Snaketown, Casa Grande, Red Mountain and Pueblo de los Muertos, all of them located in the territory of Arizona. A branch of the Hohokam is known as the Trincheras culture, as this is the name of their most representative site, located in the Sonoran Desert, and which has some differences from the former. The Hohokam lived in small villages of a few hundred people. The type of housing was very similar to that of the Cesteros III phase of the Anazasi: semi-subterranean, although with an elongated floor plan. Hohokam pottery is distinguished from that of its Anasazi and Mogollon neighbors by the predominance of bay color with red decoration. Other artifacts also distinguish them, such as shell ornaments (imported from the coasts of California and Sonora) worked with the acid produced by the fermentation of pitahaya; and their axes, trowels and other lithic industry instruments.

Archaeologists discuss the origins and ethnic identity of the bearers of the Hohokam culture. Some point out that the development of this culture was endogenous (unrelated to foreign influences), and for example, they point out that Snaketown had its beginnings in 300 BC. C. For others, the Hohokam culture is the product of a southern migration, coming from Mesoamerica. To defend this position, they indicate that the first samples of Hohokam pottery date back to 300 AD. C. (the time in which Snaketown would have been founded), and that before this time, no signs of autonomous ceramic development have been found in the region. Likewise, other technological advances such as irrigation works, or some cultural features such as the cremation of the dead seem to have originated in Western Mesoamerica.

The development of Hohokam culture is divided into four periods: Pioneer (300 BC-550 AD); Colonial (AD 550-AD 900); Sedentary (AD 900-1100); and Classical (1100-1450 AD). The construction of irrigation works began in the Pioneer period, when the Hohokam built their semi-subterranean houses to protect themselves from the inclement heat of the Sonoran desert. In the Colonial period, relations with Mesoamerica were strengthened. The proof of this is the discovery of copper bells, pyrite mirrors and the construction of ball courts, which were carried out with a very particular touch of the Hohokam. The relations with Mesoamerica and the presence of these described merchandise indicate that during the Colonial period the Hohokam were already organized into chiefdoms and centers of power. For the following period, relations with Mesoamerica decreased, and the construction of multi-story buildings began, such as Casa Grande, which had four levels.

By the time the Europeans arrived in the Arizona and Sonoran desert, a region to which they gave the name Pimería Alta, the urban centers of the Hohokam had already been abandoned, presumably due to a health and ecological disaster that ruined the native social system.. The inhabitants of the region were the Pápagos, a people with the Uto-Aztecan language. This Pimano town had an economy based on gathering and incipient agriculture on the slopes of the mountains. Their residence pattern was semi-nomadic, as they had to migrate at the change of season to face the scarcity of food resources in the foothills they inhabited.

Mogollón

Mogollón is the name of an oasis-American cultural area, located in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, from where it extends northward over a part of the territory of the current states of Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States. Some authors prefer to distinguish two great cultural traditions in this area: the Mogollón, itself, and the Paquimé culture, which would have been a derivation of the first. In any case, the people who inhabited the area in question adapted very well to a geographical environment marked by the presence of pine forests and steep mountains and ravines.

Unlike their neighbors to the north, the Hohokam and the Anasazi, the Mogollons used to bury the dead. The burials of this culture were usually accompanied by offerings of ceramics and semiprecious stones. Since the quality of the material works of the Mogollon culture is quite outstanding, their funerary mounds have been looted with the purpose of feeding private collections, through the illegal trade of archaeological pieces.

Perhaps the most outstanding of the Mogollon ceramic traditions is the one that developed in the Mimbres River valley, in New Mexico. Pottery production in this region had its greatest development between the 8th and 12th centuries AD. It is characterized by the white color of its pieces, decorated with figurative representations of the daily life of the people who created them. It is therefore an exceptional case in the context of a super cultural area where geometric designs predominated over figurative ones.

In contrast to the Hohokam area and the Anasazi area, there is no widely accepted chronological sequence for the development of the Mogollons. For the historical analysis of the region, López Austin and López Luján take up the chronological division proposed by Paul Martin, which divides Mughal history into two long periods. The first covers the year 500 BC. C. to 1000 AD. C., and is called Early. The second covers the years between the 11th and 16th centuries and is called Late.

The first of these periods is characterized by a more or less slow cultural development. Technological changes occur very gradually, and the forms of social relations and arrangement of human settlements have hardly changed in 1,500 years. During the Early period, the Mogollons inhabit rock shelters in the cliffs, with the purpose of defending themselves from their hunting neighbors. Similar to the Hohokam and Anasazi, the Mogollons also lived in semi-subterranean habitations and their settlements often housed a kiva.

In the 11th century of our era, the population of the Mogollon area multiplied more rapidly than in previous centuries. Probably by this time, the area already maintained important commercial relations with Mesoamerica, a fact that facilitated, on the one hand, the development of agriculture and the stratification of society. It is likely that Anasazi influence also increased at this time, since the Mogollons began to build masonry buildings, just as their northern Oasis-American neighbors did.

The greatest apogee of the Mughal culture occurred during the 14th century and XV. At this time, the main settlements of this culture grew in population, size and power. Paquimé, in Chihuahua, was perhaps the greatest of them. It dominated a mountain region in which several archaeological sites known as cliff houses have been discovered, since they were settlements built in the difficult-to-access caves on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre. Paquimé maintained commercial relations with nuclear Mesoamerica, to which it supplied precious minerals such as turquoise and cinnabar. It also controlled the trade in certain products from the coasts of the Gulf of California, especially shells of the Nassarius species. Paquimé received a strong influence from its Mesoamerican partners, as demonstrated by the presence of ball courts and the remains of animals from the Central American tropical region, such as macaws.

The decline of the main Mogollon centers began in the XIII century, before the Paquimenan apogee. By the 15th century, much of the region had been abandoned by its inhabitants. Some groups that populated the cities associated with the Paquimé culture took refuge in the Sierra Madre, others fled to the north, where they joined the Anasazis. The people of the Mimbres River emigrated until they settled in the current territory of Coahuila. It is assumed that the Taracahita groups (Yaquis, Mayos, Opatas, Tarahumaras) living in northwest Mexico are descendants of the Mogollons.

Fremont

The Fremont area occupies much of what is now Utah. It is located north of the Anasazi cultural area. Its cultural development as part of Oasisamerica occurred between the V century and the XIV a. C. According to some specialists, the Fremont culture was a derivation of the Anasazi culture. According to this hypothesis, the Fremont people migrated northward, taking with them the customs, forms of social organization, and technology of the Anasazi. This explains the presence of ceramics very similar to that of Mesa Verde in the Utah region.

Another hypothesis suggests that the Fremont culture would have derived from buffalo hunting people, probably of Athapascan origin. Over time, these foreign peoples would have adopted the culture of their southern neighbors. In both theories, the less complex development of Fremont compared to other regions of Oasis America is justified by the more rugged conditions of the ecological environment.

The decline of Fremont culture begins towards the second half of the X century, and is consummated in the XIV. Upon the arrival of the Spanish, the region was occupied by the Shoshones, a Uto-Aztec speaking people.

Pataya

The Pataya (or Patayana) area occupies the western region of Oasisamerica. It is shared by the states of California and Arizona in the United States, and the states of Baja California and Sonora in Mexico. It is a peripheral area whose cultural development was probably influenced by the Hohokam, its eastern neighbors. From them they would have learned the ball game, the cremation of the dead and ceramic production techniques. The main archaeological site related to this culture is the Blythe Intaglios, which comprises a large number of figures drawn on the surface of the earth.

The Pataya culture began to decline towards the 14th century. When the Spanish arrived in the region, the Colorado River valley (column of this desert area) was occupied by the river Yumans or Rieños.

Chronology