Editing Southwestern United States (section)

===Pre-European contact===
{{See also|Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest}}
[[File:Pueblo Bonito Aerial Chaco Canyon.jpg|thumb|left|[[Ancestral Puebloan]] ruins at [[Chaco Culture National Historical Park|Chaco Canyon]]]]
Human history in the Southwest begins with the arrival of the [[Clovis culture]], a [[Paleo-Indian]] hunter-gatherer culture which arrived sometime around 9000 BC.<ref>{{cite book | last=Sheridan | first=T.E. | title=Arizona: A History, Revised Edition | publisher=University of Arizona Press | series=Southwest Center Series | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-8165-9954-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r-8m0NmqUiEC | access-date=2 June 2023}}</ref>{{sfn|Sheridan|2012|pp=11–12}} This culture remained in the area for several millennia. At some point they were replaced by three great [[Pre-Columbian]] Indian cultures: the [[Ancestral Pueblo people]], the [[Hohokam]], and the [[Mogollon culture|Mogollon]], all of which existed among other surrounding cultures including the [[Patayan]].<ref>Archaeology of prehistoric native America: an encyclopedia, By Guy E. Gibbon, Kenneth M. Ames</ref> Maize began to be cultivated in the region sometime during the early first millennium BC, but it took several hundred years for the native cultures to be dependent on it as a food source.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.crowcanyon.org/EducationProducts/peoples_mesa_verde/basketmaker_II_overview.asp | publisher=Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | title=Peoples of the Mesa Verde Region: Overview | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> As their dependence on maize grew, [[Pre-Columbian]] Indians began developing irrigation systems around 600 [[Common Era|CE]].<ref name="Chaco">{{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Michael |last2=Cincinnati |first2=University of |title=Ancestral people of Chaco Canyon likely grew their own food |url=https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancestral-people-chaco-canyon-grew.html |website=phys.org |access-date=April 8, 2024 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Sheridan|2012|p=6}}

[[File:Map Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon cultures-en.svg|thumb|Map of Paleo-Indians in the American Southwest and Mexico]]

According to archeological finds, the Ancestral Pueblo people, also known as the "Anasazi" (although that term is viewed by modern [[Pueblo people]] as derogatory and is becoming more and more disused), began settling in the area in approximately 1500 BC.<ref name=BM2>{{cite web | url=http://www2.nau.edu/d-antlab/Soutwestern%20Arch/Anasazi/basketmaker2.htm | publisher=Northern Arizona University | title=Ancestral Pueblo; Basketmaker II | access-date=June 4, 2018 | archive-date=January 2, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190102125308/http://www2.nau.edu/d-antlab/Soutwestern%20Arch/Anasazi/basketmaker2.htm | url-status=dead }}</ref> Eventually, they would spread throughout the entire northern section of the Southwest.<ref>Nash, Gary B. ''Red, White and Black: The Peoples of Early North America'' Los Angeles 2015. Chapter 1, p. 4</ref> This culture would go through several different eras lasting from approximately 1500 BC through the middle of the 15th century AD: the [[Early Basketmaker II Era|Basketmaker I]], [[Late Basketmaker II Era|II]], and [[Basketmaker III Era|III]] phases followed by the [[Pueblo I Period|Pueblo I]], [[Pueblo II Period|II]], [[Pueblo III Period|III]], and [[Pueblo IV Period|IV]]. As the Puebloans transitioned from a nomadic lifestyle to one based on both dry land and irrigated agriculture,<ref name="Chaco" /> their first domiciles were pithouses.<ref name=BM2 /> The [[Mogollon culture]] developed later than the Puebloan, arising in the eastern area of the region at around 300 BC.<ref>{{cite book | isbn=0870449729 | publisher=National Geographic Society | title=World of the American Indian | last=Jennings | first=J. D. | year=1993 | page=56 }}</ref> Their range would eventually extend deep into what would become Mexico, and dominate the southeastern portion of the Southwest.<ref>{{cite book | url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240039?redirectedFrom=Mogollon#eid | publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica | title=Mogollon | volume=XII | page=204 | date=1957 | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> Their settlements would evolve over time from pit-dwellings through pueblos and finally also incorporating cliff-dwellings. The [[Hohokam]] were the last of these ancestral cultures to develop, somewhere around AD 1, but they would grow to be the most populous of the three by AD 1300, despite being the smallest of the three in terms of area, covering most of the southwest portion.<ref name="AZMNH">{{cite web|title=The Hohokam|url=http://www.azmnh.org/arch/hohokam.aspx|publisher=Arizona Museum of Natural History, City of Mesa|access-date=November 30, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121130091322/http://www.azmnh.org/arch/hohokam.aspx|archive-date=November 30, 2012}}</ref> Beginning in approximately AD 600, the Hohokam began to develop an extensive series of irrigation canals;{{sfn|Sheridan|2012|pages=22–24}} of the three major cultures in the Southwest, only the Ancestral Puebloans of the [[Chaco culture]] and the Hohokam developed irrigation as a means of watering their agriculture.<ref name="Chaco"/><ref name="AZMNH"/>

Not long after the Hohokam reached the height of their culture, all three major cultures in the Southwest began to decline for unknown reasons, although severe drought and encroachment from other peoples have been postulated. By the end of the 15th century, all three cultures had disappeared. The [[Puebloan|modern Puebloan]] tribes of the [[Isleta Pueblo|Isleta]], [[Sandia Pueblo|Sandia]], [[Cochiti Pueblo|Cochiti]], [[Kewa Pueblo|Kewa]], [[Santa Ana Pueblo|Santa Ana]], [[Taos Pueblo|Taos]], [[Jemez Pueblo|Jemez]], [[Acoma Pueblo|Acoma]], [[Laguna Pueblo|Laguna]], and [[Zia Pueblo|Zia]], as well as the [[Hopi]] and [[Zuni people|Zuni peoples]], trace their ancestry back to the Ancestral Puebloans,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.britannica.com/topic/Ancestral-Pueblo-culture | publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica | title=Ancestral Pueblo culture | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> while the [[Pima people|Akimel O'odham]] and [[Tohono O'odham people|Tohono O'odham]] claim descent from Hohokam.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://arizonaexperience.org/remember/hohokam-canals-prehistoric-engineering | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120914014516/http://arizonaexperience.org/remember/hohokam-canals-prehistoric-engineering | url-status=usurped | archive-date=September 14, 2012 | publisher=The Arizona Experience | title=Hohokam Canals: Prehistoric Engineering | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> The area previously occupied by the Mogollon was taken over by an unrelated tribe, the [[Apache]].{{sfn|Skibo|Graves|Stark|2007| page=234}} While it is unclear whether any of the modern Indian tribes are descended from the Mogollon, some archeologists and historians believe that they mixed with Ancestral Puebloans and became part of the modern Hopi and Zuni tribes.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Gregory | first1=David A. | last2=Willcox | first2=David A. Willcox | title=Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology | publisher=University of Arizona Press | place=Tucson | date=2007 |isbn=978-0816524860}}</ref>

[[File:Oraibi.jpg|thumb|left|Oraibi pueblo]]
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Southwestern United States was inhabited by a very large population of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indian]] tribes. The area once occupied by the ancestral Puebloans became inhabited by several American Indian tribes, the most populous of which were the [[Navajo people|Navajo]], [[Ute people|Ute]], [[Southern Paiute]], and Hopi. The Navajo, along with the Hopi, were the earliest of the modern Indian tribes to develop in the Southwest. Around AD 1100 their culture began to develop in the [[Four Corners]] area of the region.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://navajopeople.org/navajo-history.htm | publisher=Navajo People | title=Navajo History | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> The Navajos [[Pre-modern human migration|migrated]] from northwestern Canada and eastern [[Alaska]], where the majority of [[Athabaskan languages|Athabaskan]] speakers reside.<ref>{{cite web |title=Navajo people |date=July 13, 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Navajo-people |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> The Ute were found over most of modern-day Utah and Colorado, as well as northern New Mexico and Arizona.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.southernute-nsn.gov/history/ | publisher=Southern Ute Indian Tribe | title=History of the Southern Ute | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> The Paiutes roamed an area which covered over 45,000 square miles of southern Nevada and California, south-central Utah, and northern Arizona.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://utahindians.org/archives/paiutes/history.html | publisher=Utah American Indian Digital Archive | title=History: The Paiutes | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> The Hopi settled the lands of the central and western portions of northern Arizona. Their village of [[Oraibi, Arizona|Oraibi]], settled in approximately AD 1100, is, along with [[Acoma Pueblo|Acoma Sky City]] in New Mexico, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the United States.<ref>{{cite book | last=Casey | first=Robert L. | title='Journey to the High Southwest | place=Guilford, CT | publisher=Globe Pequot Press | date=2007 | page=[https://archive.org/details/journeytohighsou00robe_0/page/382 382] | isbn=978-0762740642 | url=https://archive.org/details/journeytohighsou00robe_0/page/382 }}</ref> The Mogollon area became occupied by the Apaches and the Zuni. The Apache migrated into the American Southwest from the northern areas of North America at some point between 1200 and 1500.<ref name=Roberts48ff>{{Cite book |title=A History of New Mexico |last=Roberts |first=Susan A. |author2=Roberts, Calvin A. |year=1998 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque, NM |isbn=0826317928 |pages=48–49 }}</ref> They settled throughout New Mexico, eastern Arizona, northern Mexico, parts of western Texas, and southern Colorado.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.americanindianhistory.net/native-americans-of-the-southwest/ | publisher=American Indian History | title=Native Americans of the Southwest | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> The Zuni count their direct ancestry through the ancestral Puebloans. The modern-day Zuni established a culture along the [[Zuni River]] in far-eastern Arizona and western New Mexico.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.zuniindian.net/zuni-history/ | publisher=Zuni Indians | title=Zuni History | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref> Both major tribes of the O'odham tribe settled in the southern and central Arizona, in the lands once controlled by their ancestors, the Hohokam.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/history_culture.aspx | publisher=Tohono O'odham Nation | title=History & Culture | access-date=July 8, 2015}}</ref>