page_title: Basketmaker III Era
section_title: Communities
hierarchical_section_title: Basketmaker III Era / Communities
caption_attribution_description: English: There is a whole group of Ancestral Pueblo people called the Basketmakers because of their superior basket making skills. The basket pictured, most likely dating from A.D. 450-750, shows the intricacy of woven patterns created by people in the Mesa Verde region as they began to transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural lifestyle. Not only were baskets used for collecting seeds, nuts, fruits and berries, but they were sometimes coated with pitch on the inside, which allowed them to hold water and tolerate heat.
context_page_description: The Basketmaker III Era also called the "Modified Basketmaker" period, was the third period in which Ancient Pueblo People were cultivating food, began making pottery and living in more sophisticated clusters of pit-house dwellings. Hunting was easier with the adoption of the bow and arrow.
context_section_description: Mesa Verde.  Small groupings of pit houses were built on the top of mesas.
  Chaco Canyon. From about AD 450-700 more than 200 Basketmaker sites sat on Chaco Canyon mesas, ridges, and the canyon floor.  The sites had clusters of 1-20 pit-houses. One of its villages, Shabik'eschee, was the type site for this period.  Although most village sites were  relatively small during this period, Shabik'eschee (about AD 550 - 700) contained 18 pit-houses for an estimated 77 people, more than 50 storage pits, and a large pit-house used for celebration and rituals.  This compares to an average settlement for 5 to 15 people.  The large pit-house was likely a "great" kiva.  Based on the number of extra pit-houses for storage, it is possible that the village was visited from nearby settlers.
  Pleasant View, Colorado. There may have been pressure within the Basketmaker III communities to ensure their safety.  Stockades encircled pit-houses in at least 11 sites within a 10 miles of Pleasant View, Colorado. The settlements (dated from AD 600-700) could have been fenced to ensure safety of children or contain domesticated dogs and turkeys.  It is considered is more likely that they were built as a defensive measure, based upon extensive collections of burnt artifacts from the sites.  A theory is that other local people may have waged war having felt displaced by the number of new Basketmaker III settlements in the area.
caption: Basket, Basketmaker Culture, Ancestral Pueblo
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