A name on the map
Open the map in 900 over the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. Find the label the map uses for this region. Many Pueblo people prefer the term "Ancestral Puebloans". Why might a name matter?
Open this view on the mapAncestral Puebloans · c. 850-1300
Chaco Canyon: great houses of the Ancestral Puebloans
In a dry canyon in the American Southwest, Ancestral Puebloans built stone great houses with hundreds of rooms, long straight roads and calendars of light. Students explore Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, and why their people moved on rather than vanished.
- Length
- 45 minutes
- Ages
- 11–14
- On the map
- 3 steps, AD 900 to AD 1280
- Live lesson
- 7 rounds, 3 on the map
- Worksheet
- Two A4 pages, with Classroom
- You need
- A projector; phones for live
Live lesson · new in Classroom
Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.
Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.
€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.
- 7 rounds
- 3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
- About 15 minutes
- Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
- A report
- Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
Introduction
5 minRead aloud
In a dry canyon in the American Southwest, Ancestral Puebloans built stone great houses with hundreds of rooms, long straight roads and calendars of light. Students explore Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, and why their people moved on rather than vanished.
By the end of the lesson, students can
- Locate Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and the Hopi mesas on the map.
- Describe a great house such as Pueblo Bonito and what it may have been used for.
- Explain why Pueblo people say their ancestors moved, rather than disappeared, around 1300.
Explore the map
12 minProject the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.
Chaco Canyon
Jump to 1100 and zoom in on Chaco Canyon. Pueblo Bonito, its largest great house, had more than 600 rooms and rose four storeys high. Look at the land around it: where would water and food come from?
Open this view on the mapCliff houses
Move north to Mesa Verde in 1280. Families built homes in the cliffs here, then left by about 1300 during a long drought. Zoom out and find the Rio Grande to the south-east: many of them moved there.
Open this view on the mapClass discussion
14 minPick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.
- Chaco Canyon is dry and has a short growing season. Why might people still build a great centre there?
- Straight roads up to 9 m wide lead out from Chaco. What could they have been for?
- Cacao and macaw feathers from Mesoamerica were found at Pueblo Bonito. What does that tell us about trade?
- Tree rings show a great drought from 1276 to 1299. How can tree rings record the weather of the past?
- Pueblo people say their ancestors moved on and live on in their descendants. Why do they object to the phrase "mysterious disappearance"?
Game round
9 minPlay one round of Rule History as Genghis Khan, who conquered much of Asia in the decades when families at Mesa Verde built homes in the cliffs. Afterwards, compare: Genghis Khan moved armies to gain land, while Ancestral Puebloan families moved to survive a drought. What makes a move like that a wise choice?
Open Rule HistoryWorksheet
5 minThis worksheet comes with Classroom
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