The word Anasazi comes from the Navajo word meaning Ancient Enemy however, today, the word has come to mean ancient ones or ancient people. Yes, these were one of the major groups who inhabited the lands of the Desert Cultures, and except for the Fremont, were in the northernmost area of all the other major stone stackers cultures.

The Anasazi lived in this area from 200 CE until 1300 CE. These ancients are thought to be ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians who today inhabit close by areas of the Colorado plateau.

Today, what is left of the Anasazi culture are a large accumulation of the ruins of where they previously made their homes. (See Desert Cultures Map: Post-Contact Cultures)

The Anasazi, today known as Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient culture that spanned the Four Corners region of the United State. The Anasazi lived in numerous structures including pit houses, pueblos and even cliff dwellings.

Some time during the Early Basketmaker II Era, during the 1100′s, the Anasazi began to link many homes into complex communities and population centers throughout the Colorado plateau.

The word Anasazi being a Navajo word meaning ancient enemies is one that contemporary Ancestral Puebloans object to the use to describe their ancestors, considering it derogatory.

The Anasazi culture possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of astronomical events as well as the celestial sciences which this culture used to predict these celestial events.

Too, it is this knowledge of the celestial sciences that found form in their architecture.

The Kiva, a congregational space is believed to have been used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient peoples community structure and everyday life.