By Michael Ruggeri
The Ancient America’s Breaking News
The Dillard Site in southwestern Colorado is giving archaeologists new insights into early Pueblo Society in the Southwest.
The ruins there were built during the Basketmaker III period of the Anasazi. The site dates from the 7th century and has a great kiva and many pit houses. 120 pithouses have already been found nearby. Stone-and-mortor masonry was used to build the great kiva. This is 200 years before the earliest known masonry of this kind in the Southwest. One of the pithouses appears to have a ramped entryway, going against the rooftop entryway model of other pithouses.
Basketmaker III lasted from 500-750 CE. It was a period of rapid population growth in the Mesa Verde region of the Dillard Site. Wide scale immigration into the central Mesa Verde area brought with it domesticated beans, pottery, the bow and arrow. A favorable climate may have been the reason for the influx. The Crow Canyon Archaeological Society is instrumental in these digs at Dillard and is looking for volunteers.
Contact; www.crowcanyon.org or call 800-422-8975.
Popular Archaeology has the story with photos;
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/december-2011/article/excavation-providing-new-insights-to-the-rise-of-pueblos-of-the-american-southwest
