American Antiquarian Society
TYPES OF PREHISTORIC
SOUTHWESTERN
ARCHITECTURE
BY
J. WALTER FEWKES
Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Societyfor April, 1917.
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
1917
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The Davis Press
Worcester, Mass.
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TYPES OF PREHISTORIC SOUTHWESTERNARCHITECTURE
By J. Walter Fewkes
Among primitive peoples the calendar, sun worshipand agriculture are closely connected. When manwas just emerging from the hunting or fishing stagesinto early agricultural conditions it rarely happenedthat he replanted the same fields year after year, forit was early recognized that the land, however fertile,would not yield good crops in successive years butshould lie fallow one or more years before replanting.The primitive agriculturist learned by experiencethat a change was necessary to insure good crops.To effect this change the agriculturist moved his habitationand planted on the sites where the soil wasfound to be fertile. There was thus a continual shiftingof planting places which accounts in part forfrequent migrations. In our Southwest this nomadiccondition was succeeded by a stationary agriculturalstage. Necessary water was supplied by irrigationwhich also contributed nourishment necessary for theenrichment of the soil. When an agricultural populationis thus anchored to one locality, permanent,well-constructed habitations are built near farmsthat are tilled year after year.
The following ideas on the relation of agriculturalpeople, the calendar and sun worship were practicallyadopted from Mr. E. J. Payne’s “History of the NewWorld called America.”
It is obligatory for the agriculturist, especially whenthe country is arid, to have a reliable calendar; he mustknow the best time for planting that the seeds maygerminate, the epoch when the rains are most abundant[Pg 4]that the plants may grow, and the season whenthe hot sun may mature the growing corn. Agriculturallife necessitates an exact calendar.
Several methods are used by the primitive agriculturistto determine the time for planting, the mostreliable of which is the position of the sun and moonon the horizon rising or setting. The movements ofthe latter, especially the phases of the new moon, althoughimportant, do not serve as the best basis ofthe annual calendar. The time of the year cannotbe told by observations of the moon. The phases ofthe moon play a certain rôle among agriculturalpeople, since this planet takes a subordinate place indetermining the calendar. The positions of the sun,or the points of its rising and setting on the horizonand its altitude at midday, afforded the primitiveagriculturist data that could be relied upon from yearto year to determine the season. The position of thesun at midsummer and m