The Southwest is hot, dry grassland, subject to both long droughts and heavy rainfall. Here the unpredictability of the climate and of the vegetation dependent on it early encouraged local hunter-gatherers to tend their preferred plant foods, planting and transplanting, hoeing, weeding, pruning and watering them. When domestic maize was introduced from Mesoamerica, sometime before 1000 BC, its cultivation was readily adopted.
By AD 200, villages of pit-houses were to be seen over much of the Southwest, occupied for most or all of the year. Here people grew crops using techniques designed to make the most of the precious water supplies. They kept dogs and often turkeys but still made great use of wild plants and animals.
Their houses contained sleeping platforms, firepits for cooking, and storage pits. Storage was vital in this land where one year's good harvest of crops and wild seeds and nuts might be needed to feed the village through subsequent years of drought.
As well as dwelling houses some villages contained a special hut which was the forerunner of the pueblo 'kiva' (ceremonial room).
Trade between different regions, both within the Southwest and further afield, supplied households with obsidian and chert (similar to flint) for tools, and turquoise, sea shells and copper for luxury items. Every household now had pottery, along with many objects of perishable materials such as baskets and clothing made of plant fibres.
