The word pueblo translates directly to mean both village and people in their language. Modern descendants reject the label anasazi as derogatory because Navajo speakers applied it with meanings ranging from ancestors of enemies to savage or barbarian depending on the source.
The Colorado Plateau forms the heart of the Ancestral Pueblo homeland extending across four modern states. High elevations range between five thousand and eight thousand feet above sea level within this region.
Pueblo Bonito averaged more than two hundred rooms per structure with some reaching seven hundred total. Anthropologist Alfred V. Kidder popularized the older term during his 1927 Pecos Classification system work.
A fifty-year drought beginning around 1130 CE triggered collapse of communities across the Colorado Plateau. This climatic shift also led to fall of Tiwanaku civilization near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia simultaneously.
Excavations at Cowboy Wash near Dolores Colorado uncovered remains of at least twenty-four human skeletons showing signs of violence. Dismemberment and strong indications of cannibalism appeared alongside evidence suggesting community abandonment during late thirteenth century.