The Mogollon (pronounced mo-goi-YONE) Native American culture lived in the American Southwest from approximately AD 700 until sometime between AD 1300 and AD 1400. The Mogollon show some similarities to cultures known as the Hohokam and the Anasazi who lived in surrounding areas at approximately the same time periods. The Mogollon and neighboring cultures emerged slowly from a people who had resided in the American Southwest since at least 9000 BC. Cultural distinctions emerged in the larger region when populations grew great enough to establish villages and even larger communities. Trade networks moving valuable goods also helped establish cultural traits which have been attributed to the Mogollon.

The Mogollon were an agricultural people who lived primarily in cliff dwellings or high plateau villages overlooking their farmland. They supplemented their farming with hunting and gathering activities. The Mimbres people, a subset of the larger culture, were centered in the Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico and are particularly famous for their painted pottery. The pottery produced by this culture, often finely crafted bowl forms, is distinct in style and is decorated by figurative drawing of animals, people and cultural icons. Many of these images suggest familiarity and relationships with cultures in northern and central Mexico.

The area originally settled by the Mogollon culture was eventually filled by the unrelated Apache people, who moved in from the north. However, the modern Pueblo people in the Southwest claim descent from the Mogollon and related cultures, although these people generally assert that their descent was from more than one group. Archaeologists believe that the Western Pueblo villages of the Hopi and Zuni are very likely related to the Mogollon.

The Mogollon settled high-altitude desert areas in what is today New Mexico, northern Mexico and western Texas. Cliff dwellings, ruins and other evidence of their culture are found in the Gila Wilderness Area and Hueco Tanks, an area of low mountains between the Franklin Mountains to the west and the Hueco Mountains to the east. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in southwestern New Mexico was established as a national monument on 16 November 1907. It contains several archaeological sites attributed to the Mimbres sub-group. At the headwaters of the Gila, Mimbres populations adjoined another more northern branch of the Mogollon culture. The TJ Ruin, for example, is a Classic Mimbres phase pueblo, however the cliff dwellings are Tularosa phase. The name Hueco Tanks has been also given to an historic site, approximately 32 miles (51.5 km) northeast of El Paso, Texas. The site is culturally and spiritually significant to many Native Americans, partially due to the pictographs (rock paintings) that can be found throughout the region, many of which are thousands of years old.

Cultural divisions

Cultural labels such as Mogollon, Anasazi or Hohokam are used by archaeologists to denote cultural differences among prehistoric peoples. It is important to note that culture names and divisions are assigned by individuals separated from the actual cultures by both time and space. This means that cultural divisions are by nature arbitrary, and are based solely on data available at the time of analysis and publication. They are subject to change, not only on the basis of new information and discoveries, but also as attitudes and perspectives change within the scientific community. It cannot be assumed that an archaeological division corresponds to a particular language group or to a political entity such as a tribe.

When making use of modern cultural divisions in the Southwest, it is important to understand three specific limitations in the current conventions:

• Archaeological research focuses on the enduring evidence, items left behind during people’s activities. Scientists are able to examine fragments of pottery vessels, human remains, stone tools or evidence left from the construction of buildings and shelters. However, other aspects of the culture of prehistoric peoples, such as language, their beliefs and behavior, are not tangible. Cultural divisions are tools of the modern scientist, and so should not be considered similar to divisions or relationships the ancient residents may have recognized. Modern cultures in this region, many of whom claim some of these ancient people as ancestors, display a striking range of diversity in lifestyles, language and religious beliefs. This suggests the ancient people were also more diverse than their material remains may suggest.

• The modern term “style” has a bearing on how material items such as pottery or architecture should be interpreted. Subsets of a larger group can adopt different means to accomplish the same end. For example, in modern Western cultures, there are alternative styles of clothing that characterized older and younger generations. Some cultural differences may be based on linear traditions, on teaching from one generation or “school” to another. Other varients in style may distinguish arbitrary groups within a culture, perhaps defining social status, gender, clan or guild affiliation, religious belief or cultural alliances. Variations may also simply reflect the available resources in given time or area.

• Defining cultural groups, such as the Mogollon, tends to create an image of group territories separated by clear-cut boundaries, like modern nation states. These simply did not exist. Prehistoric people traded, worshipped and collaborated most often with other nearby groups. Cultural differences should therefore be understood as “clinal ,” "increasing gradually as the distance separating groups also increases." (Plog, p. 72.) Departures from the expected pattern may occur because of unidentified social or political situations or because of geographic barriers. In the Southwest, mountain ranges, rivers and, most obviously, the Grand Canyon, can be significant barriers for human communities, likely reducing the frequency of contact with other groups. Current opinion holds that the closer cultural similarity between the Mogollon and Anasazi and their greater differences from the Hohokam is due to both the geography and the variety of climate zones in the Southwest.

Reference

• Noble, David Grant. Ancient Ruins of the Southwest. Northland Publishing Company, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1995. ISBN 0-87358-530-5.

• Plog, Stephen. Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest. Thames and Hudson, London, England, 1997. ISBN 0-500-27939-X.

External links

National Park Service official site