amaranth
A grain with a blood-red or purplish tassel. In the Amaranthus
family which includes the Love-lies-bleeding, pigweed and
tumbleweed.

Anasazi
(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.

arroyo
(ah-ROY-yo) Dry gully. [Spanish]

atlatl
(aht-LAH-tl) A throwing stick or spear thrower with finger loops
and a dart or spear in a groove, which is projected at high velocity.
Greater range than thrown spear. Replaced by bow and arrow.

Aztec
Indian people in Mexico whose empire was conquered by the Spaniards in 1519.
Aztec Ruins National Monument, near Aztec, New Mexico.

Chaco
(CHAH-koh) 1. Chaco Culture National Historic Park, near Bloomfield, New Mexico, also known as Chaco Canyon. 2. The Anasazi region around Chaco.

Clan
An extended family created by the joining of more than one family.

Clovis
Clovis is the name given to a people, a spear point, and a place in New Mexico where the first clovis "point", or spear head, was found. Clovis points have been found amid the remains of ancient mamoths and mastodons, they were durable and well made weapons for hunting big animals. The clovis people date to around 9500 to 8500 B.C.

De Chelly
The name De Chelly is a Spanish corruption of the Navajo word "Tsegi", which means roughly "rock canyon". The Spanish pronunciation "day shay-yee" has gradually changed through English usage, and the name is now pronounced "d'SHAY". The Spanish name of the chief tributary of Canyon de Chelly, Canyon del Muerto, means "Canyon of the Dead". It received its name in 1882, when a Smithsonian Institution expedition under James Stevenson found the remains of prehistoric Indian burials in this canyon.
 

Diné
(dih-NEH) What the Navaho (or Navajo) people call themselves.

Four Corners Area
An area of the American Southwest named for the only point in the U.S. where four states — Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah — meet.

Frémont or Fremont
A cultural subgroup which coexisted with and was probably influenced by the Anasazi. Located in southern and eastern Utah and northwestern Colorado, the Frémont were a cultural blend of the Southwest Tradition and people of the Great Basin to the west.

Great Basin
A large inland region comprising about 200,000 square miles in the Western United States bounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the west and the Wahsatch Mountains on the east.

Hakataya
(hah-kuh-TIE-yuh) A cultural subgroup of the Southwest Tradition which coexisted with the Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon peoples. The best known regional group of the Hakataya was the Sinagua.
 

Hisatsinom
(hih-ZAHT-sih-nohm) [Hopi for "people of long ago" or "ancestral Hopi" or "the Old Ones"] The name the Hopi usually give to their ancient ancestors.

Hohokam
(ho-HO-kum) A separate culture which coexisted and had
commerce with the Anasazi. These ancient farmers lived in what is now central Arizona.

Homol'ovi
[Hopi for "place of the little hills"] Homol'ovi Ruins State Park, Arizona.

hunter-gatherer
A culture or member of a culture that obtains food by hunting
game and gathering wild berries, roots, grains and fruits rather
than raising livestock or crops (agriculture).

jacal
(hah-KAHL) [Spanish, from Nahuatl] Construction using walls of close-set wooden stakes plastered with mud and roofed with straw, rushes or other materials. Related to adobe.

Kayenta
(kah-YEN-tah) Regional group of the Anasazi, named for the region around Kayenta in northeastern Arizona. Area includes ruins of Betatakin, Keet Seel and other Anasazi communities. The Kayenta Anasazi are ancestors of the Hopi, who prefer to call the area "Wunuqa."

Keet Seel
[Hopi for "broken pottery"] An ancient cliff dwelling built by the Kayenta Anasazi at what is now the Navajo National Monument in Arizona.

kiva
(KEE-vuh) [Hopi] 1. A square, above-ground room used by modern day Hopi for religious and spiritual ceremonies. 2. A subterranean room — usually round, but sometimes square, rectangular or D-shaped — generally believed to have been used by Anasazi men for religious and spiritual purposes.

mano
(MAH-no) [Spanish for hand] Grinding stone. A hand-held stone used to grind grain, nuts and seeds on the larger metate.
 

Mesa Verde
(MAY-suh VAIR-day) [Spanish for "green plateau"] 1. National park in southwestern Colorado, site of many Anasazi cliff dwellings. 2. The Anasazi region around Mesa Verde.
 

metate
(meh-TAH-tay) A flat or slightly concave stone base on which
grain, nuts and seeds were ground using the smaller mano.
[Spanish]

Mogollón
(moh-goh-YONE or moh-goh-LONE) [Spanish for "hanger-on" or "sponger."] A separate culture which coexisted and had commerce with the Anasazi. These ancient farmers lived in what is now southern Arizona-New Mexico and northern Sonora and Chihuahua states in Mexico. Named for the Mogollon Plateau.
 

Moqui
(MOH-kee) A Hopi word meaning "the dead" which is often used to identify their ancestors.

Nomadic
A member of a tribe that has no fixed abode, but moves about from place to place according to the food supply.

petroglyph
Rock carving or rock "art" made by "pecking" the surface with
another rock.

pictograph
Pictures or picture-like symbols that represent an idea or tell a story. Pictographs can be found in the works of many ancient cultures on papyrus or wood, on cloth, on pottery and jewelry, painted on walls. Sometimes used to describe pictures or symbols carved or chipped in rock (petroglyphs).
 

piñon
(pee-NYOHN) Small pine tree with large edible nuts. The nuts
themselves. Also spelled pinyon. [Spanish for "pine nut"]

pithouse
A house built substantially underground. Used by many early
cultures, including the Anasazi. Consisted of a pit, often lined with
rocks, and a roof of branches, mud, etc., held up by vertical
timbers, usually four.
 

potsherd
Fragment or piece of broken pottery. Also "shard."

pueblo
(PWEB-loh) [Spanish for "town," "village," "settlement," "people" or "nation"] Indian village in the American Southwest. Probably derives from the practice of most ancient Southwestern cultures and many modern American Indian tribes to call themselves "the people" in their own language.

sipapu
(SEE-pah-puh) [Hopi] 1. The navel of the Earth from which distant Puebloan ancestors are said to have emerged as they entered the present world. 2. The small hole or indentation in the floor of a kiva which symbolizes the people's Earthly origin.
 

teosinte
(TEE-oh-SIN-tee) Tall grass-like native of Mexico with tassel and
small, hard ears. Believed to be ancestor of maize. [Spanish,
originally from the Nahuatl language]

Tsegi
Navajo word which means roughly "rock canyon".

tree-ring dating
Scientific technique of comparing a cut timber to a master calendar
of tree-ring growth from about 6,700 B.C. to the present. Based
on the fact that a tree grows a ring each year and the rings are
narrower in dry years and wider in wet years.
 

yucca
Member of the agave family with stiff green sword-like leaves and
white flowers on a tall stalk.