The Virgin Anasazi were the westernmost

Ancestral Puebloan The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, an ...

group in the

American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado ...

. They occupied the area in and around the

Virgin River The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The river is about long.Calculated with Google Maps and Google Earth It was designated Utah's first wild and scenic river in 2009, during the ...

and Muddy Rivers, the western Colorado Plateau, the

Moapa Valley Moapa Valley is an unincorporated town in Clark County, Nevada, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 6,924. The valley in which the community lies, also named Moapa Valley, is about long and lies roughly northwest to sou ...

and were bordered to the south by the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

. They occupied areas in present-day

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, and

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Their occupation of the area lasted from about 1 CE to around 1200 CE, which according to the

Pecos Classification The Pecos Classification is a chronological division of all known Ancestral Puebloans into periods based on changes in architecture, art, pottery, and cultural remains. The original classification dates back to consensus reached at a 1927 arch� ...

places the occupation from

Early Basketmaker II Era The Early Basketmaker II Era (1500 BCE – 50 CE) was the first Post- Archaic cultural period of Ancient Pueblo People. The era began with the cultivation of maize in the northern American southwest, although there was not a dependence upon agric ...

to Early Pueblo III periods. Their neighbors were the Fremont culture to the north and the Kayenta Anasazi to the east. There is some contemporary controversy over the term 'Anasazi' (which early U.S. archaeologists borrowed from the Navajo word for 'ancient enemies'), and many contemporary descendants call them 'Ancestral Puebloan' or similar terms instead.

Regional Distribution

The Virgin Anasazi occupied three regional areas:

Plateau

The word plateau refers to the Colorado Plateau. This area is diverse in its natural resources and environs. It is characterized by conifer forests at upper elevations, and juniper and pinon pine zones at lower elevations. There are also areas of desert plains where

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus '' Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub '' Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west. Following is an al ...

is one of the most common plants. This area includes parts of the Grand Canyon and the eastern Great Basin.

St. George Basin

The St. George Basin is located in and around present day

St. George, Utah St. George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, it is the principal city of the St. George Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The city lies in the northe ...

. The people who occupied this area usually built their sites on the edges of streams ranging in elevation from 800-1300m.

Lowland Virgin

The Lowland Virgin area encompasses the areas around the Virgin and Muddy Rivers draining into the

. It is located in the

Basin and Range Province The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternating ...

. The plant life includes

creosote bush ''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush and greasewood as a plant, chaparral as a medicinal herb, and ''gobernadora'' (Spanish for "governess") in Mexico, due to its ability to secure more water by inhibiting the growth of nearby plants. In S ...

mesquite Mesquite is a common name for several plants in the genus '' Prosopis'', which contains over 40 species of small leguminous trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas. They have extremely long roots to seek water from very far under gr ...

, cholla, as well as other desert shrubs and plants.

Lifeways

Unlike their eastern counterparts who constructed monumental architecture (as in

Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote c ...

) the Virgin Anasazi lived in small seasonal

pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

groups of only a few rooms. The Virgin Anasazi practiced seasonal

subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...

corn

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

. They often used "dry" farming techniques, i.e. using ground water and rain as the source for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

. Later on, though, populations in proximity to waterways used check-dams and canal irrigation.{{cite journal , title=Population Growth, Agricultural Intensification, among the Virgin Branch Anasazi, Nevada , journal=Journal of Field Archaeology , first=Daniel O , last=Larson , volume=23 , number=1 , year=1996 , pages=55–76 , doi=10.2307/530608 They also utilized local available wild resources such as

pine nut Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are trad ...

s from the

Pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in Ne ...

and hunted game including

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

, jack rabbits, and rabbits.

References

External links

The Lost City Museum Virgin Anasazi website
Pre-Columbian cultures Archaeological cultures of North America Puebloan peoples