Economy

The people of Ladle House were basically self-sufficient farmers. In order to obtain their food, build their houses, cloth their bodies, and manufacture their tools, they depended on locally available resources.

Although their economy was locally based, these people were by no means isolated from the larger Anasazi world. Based on the proximity of other Pueblo II sites, it is logical to assume that the people of Ladle House had relatives and neighbors who lived nearby and with whom they shared experiences. They were also apparently aware of other, more distant Anasazi communities, and even occasionally engaged in trade or exchange with them.

Diet

The Pueblo II people subsisted primarily on the agricultural crops which they produced. Corn was the staple of their diet, and probably composed at least 50% of their caloric intake. Evidence for corn at Ladle House includes corn pollen in the hearth, on the floor and beneath the metate on the floor, and corn starch granules in the hearth. Beans and squash were probably also grown and consumed at Ladle House, but no evidence of this was found, possibly because these plants preserve poorly in archaeological contexts.

The Pueblo II people apparently augmented their diet with wild plants such as pigweed, amaranth, beeweed, wild parsley or carrot, cholla and prickly pear cactus, and grasses. To add animal protein to their diet, they ate turkey, cottontail rabbit, jack rabbit, and mule deer.

Resource Utilization

In their everyday life, the Pueblo II people utilized a variety of raw materials. They used stone to build their houses and fashion their tools; soil and clay to form their pots, mortar their rocks and plaster their walls; wood to build and heat their houses, cook their food and fashion their tools; plants to eat and provide fibers to make their clothes, baskets, rope and twine; animals to eat and provide hide, bone, fur, feathers and sinew for their clothing and tools; and water to drink and to use in washing and building. Most of these resources were probably available within a relatively short (3 miles) distance from the site.

Stone

To line the walls of their kiva, build their masonry rooms, and manufacture some of their tools, the Pueblo II people used locally available sandstone. This sandstone could have been obtained from the bedrock exposed in the bottom of the kiva and from the cliffs just west of the site.

To manufacture other tools, however, the Pueblo II people had to go further for raw materials. These materials were for the most part obtained from the Burro Canyon and Morrison Formation deposits which outcrop in the nearby Alkali, McElmo and Crow canyons. While it is possible that the inhabitants used non-local materials in manufacturing some stone tools, no such tools were identified in the analysis.

Wood and Water

Because the roofing beams were prehistorically removed from the kiva, we have no direct evidence of the kind of wood the Pueblo II people used to build their roof. Based on evidence from other nearby sites, however, it seems logical to assume that they used pinyon and juniper wood. They may even have had a preference for juniper, because it is highly resistant to rot. For firewood, however, they appear to have preferred pinyon pine and sagebrush.

In order to obtain household water for drinking, cooking, washing and building, the Anasazi had to collect and transport it from a variety of sources. To the best of our knowledge, during Pueblo II times no permanent water was available near Ladle House. The nearest source of permanent water was probably Mitchell Springs, which is located three miles to the southeast. Permanent water might also have been available in closer springs in Alkali and McElmo canyons, but this is not known for certain. During the warmer months, rain water was probably collected from "potholes" in sandstone bedrock and from creeks which flowed intermittently after thunderstorms. During the colder months, water was probably collected from these sources and also from melting snow.

Soil and Clay

The Pueblo II people undoubtedly had an in-depth understanding of the kinds and properties of soil and clay available to them. The most important soil resource was the deep and fertile reddish-brown loess which blankets much of the area. This soil was the basis of the Anasazi's dry-land farms and gardens. In addition to its primary use for agriculture, the Pueblo II people also used it as a mortar and plaster. In the kiva this soil was used as mortar on the south wall, as plaster on the floor and bench face, and as coping around the hearth.

The Anasazi used clays for making both pottery and buildings. The Pueblo II potters probably had favorite sources of clay for manufacturing grayware and painted whiteware vessels. These sources were, for the most part, probably located in the shale lenses of the Dakota, Burro Canyon, and Morrison formations, all of which are exposed in nearby canyons. Besides pottery, clay was used as a mortar and plaster for masonry. This is clearly shown in the kiva, where the masonry was set in thick beds of gray clay and then smoothly plastered over with more clay. This gray clay is available on the slope east of the site.

Exchange

While the Pueblo II people were for the most part self-sufficient, they did not live in an economic vacuum. They were apparently involved in regional as well as local trade networks.

Evidence of regional trade is present in sherds from a White Mountain Redware bowl. These sherds, which were used as a scraper, originated from a bowl that was probably produced some 140 miles to the south of Ladle House. Whether the Pueblo II people acquired the actual bowl through direct or indirect exchange, or whether they merely picked up a sherd from it at a nearby site is not known.

Evidence of local trade is, ironically, often harder to demonstrate archaeologically than evidence of regional trade. This is the case at Ladle House. Did the Pueblo II people personally obtain all the raw materials necessary to manufacture the items which they used in their home? Or did they in fact trade locally for some of them? For example, did they manufacture their own grayware cooking vessels, but trade for their whiteware serving bowls?

Drawings courtesy of Anasazi Heritage Center, BLM