Existing comment:
Life in the Plaza.
Puerco Pueblo stood one-story high, with 2 to 3 rows of connected rooms surrounding a central plaza. The village, inhabited from about AD 1250 to the late 1300s, housed a number of families. The nearby river provided the water that nourished plant and animal life necessary for this pueblo community.
The residents of Puerco Pueblo farmed the dry slopes below the village, growing cotton, corn, squash, and beans, while hunters sought game. Artisans created the decorated clay pots. On many days, the pueblo's protected plaza bustled with activity. Imagine the sounds of metates grinding corn, of stone tools being chipped into shape, of chants or songs from the kivas, and of children's laughter.
Eventually, the people of Puerco Pueblo left, joining with the ancestors of today's Hopi or perhaps Zuni people. Fragments of their buildings and tools, and their petroglyphs on nearby rocks, remain to tell us of their existence. |