2-736-269 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Olla (Jar), c. 1100-1250. The Anasazi lived for centuries in small agricultural settlements scattered across Four Corners region of the southwest. After AD 850, however, favorable factors converged and they built the most ambitious architectural projects ever constructed in native North America: Chaco Canyon's great houses and cliff dwellings at such sites as Mesa Verde. Pottery-making also reached a high point during this period, as this vessel testifies. By 1300 the Anasazi had dispersed, forming groups ancestral to many modern Pueblo peoples, including the Hopi and the Zuni.