anasazi

listen to the pronunciation of anasazi
English - English
a Native American people who once lived in cliff-dwellings in Utah and Colorado
the language once spoken by these people
"The ancient ones"; culture located in southwestern United States; flourished from 200 to 1200 c e ; featured large multistory adobe and stone buildings built in protected canyons or cliffs (p 212)
A people who lived at the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States between IAD and 1300AD They had a well-developed corn agriculture and a road system for trading between relatively large cities constructed of adobe and stone Famous archeological sites such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde provide evidence of the Anasazi people Anasazi is a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies"
Ancestral Pueblo Indians; the ``Ancients ''
(ah-nuh-SAH-zee) [ Diné Navajo for "enemy ancestors" or "ancient people who are not us"] A distinct culture that lasted from about 200 B C until about A D 1300 in the Four Corners Area of the U S Southwest
ancestors of the Navajo
One of the three desert cultures that shaped life in the American Southwest from 300 B C to A D 1300 Developed a new way of building pueblos and the technique of farming on top of mesas Used both hand-formed adobe bricks and stones to build their homes
{i} member of an ancient native American Indian people who inhibited the southwest USA
a Native American who lived in what is now southern Colorado and Utah and northern Arizona and New Mexico and who built cliff dwellings

Related Terms

Anasazi culture
North American Indian civilization that developed from AD 100 to historic times, centring on the area where the present-day boundaries of the U.S. states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah intersect. Anasazi is the Navajo word for "Ancient Enemy"; the Hopi prefer the term Hisatsinom, meaning "Ancient People." Anasazi is the term most commonly used to refer to the ancestors of contemporary Pueblo Indian peoples. Anasazi civilization is customarily divided into several periods: Basket Maker (AD 100-500), Modified Basket Maker (500-700), Developmental Pueblo (700-1050), Classic Pueblo (1050-1300), Regressive Pueblo (1300-1700), and Modern Pueblo (1700-the present). As among present-day Pueblo peoples, religion in the Anasazi culture was highly developed and centred on rites partly conducted in underground circular chambers called kivas. The best-known Anasazi ruins are the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde (Colo.) and Chaco Canyon (N.M.)