Types of prehistoric Southwestern architectureFewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Types of prehistoric Southwestern architecture
Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Indian architecture -- North America; Pueblos
Transcriber’s Note
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American Antiquarian Society
TYPES OF PREHISTORIC
SOUTHWESTERN
ARCHITECTURE
BY
J. WALTER FEWKES
REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY
FOR APRIL, 1917.
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
1917
THE DAVIS PRESS
WORCESTER, MASS.
TYPES OF PREHISTORIC SOUTHWESTERN ARCHITECTURE
BY J. WALTER FEWKES
Among primitive peoples the calendar, sun worship and agriculture are
closely connected. When man was just emerging from the hunting or
fishing stages into early agricultural conditions it rarely happened
that he replanted the same fields year after year, for it was early
recognized that the land, however fertile, would not yield good crops
in successive years but should lie fallow one or more years before
replanting. The primitive agriculturist learned by experience that a
change was necessary to insure good crops. To effect this change the
agriculturist moved his habitation and planted on the sites where the
soil was found to be fertile. There was thus a continual shifting of
planting places which accounts in part for frequent migrations. In
our Southwest this nomadic condition was succeeded by a stationary
agricultural stage. Necessary water was supplied by irrigation
which also contributed nourishment necessary for the enrichment of
the soil. When an agricultural population is thus anchored to one
locality, permanent, well-constructed habitations are built near
farms that are tilled year after year.
The following ideas on the relation of agricultural people, the
calendar and sun worship were practically adopted from Mr. E. J.
Payne’s “History of the New World called America.”
It is obligatory for the agriculturist, especially when the country
is arid, to have a reliable calendar; he must know the best time for
planting that the seeds may germinate, the epoch when the rains are
most abundant that the plants may grow, and the season when the hot
sun may mature the growing corn. Agricultural life necessitates an
exact calendar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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