Early Basketmaker II Era

The Early Basketmaker II Era (1500 BC – AD 50) was the first Post-Archaic cultural period of Ancient Pueblo People. The era began with the cultivation of maize in the northern American southwest, although there was not a dependence upon agriculture until about 500 BC.

The population of the Basketmaker people is likely not tied to one particular group of people, but reflective of the migration of agricultural people from the south and adoption of agriculture by local Archaic populations. For instance people on the Mogollon Rim of New Mexico had cultivated maize and adopted a less transitory lifestyle before the Early Basketmakers.

Projectile points, a basketry style known as "two rod and bundle", and other similarities existed between the Basketmakers II and the people of the San Pedro stage of the Cochise tradition.

To adopt the Basketmaker lifestyle, Archaic people would have adopted the cultivation of maize, a less mobile lifestyle and taken up residence in pit-houses. Other differences between the Archaic and Basketmaker cultures were the forms of basketry, symbols used in petroglyphs, burial practices and increase in traded items.

The Early Basketmakers were primarily nomadic hunter gatherers for most of this period. They roamed the Colorado Plateau in small bands to collect ripe wild plants and hunt game. Roaming also put them in contact with other tribes with whom they socialized, traded, and sometimes inter-married. Cultivation of maize began about 500 BC, which affected their mobility.

Dwellings of this period included caves and other shelters, often built below ground and lined with stone.

Maize and squash were first cultivated more than 8,700 years ago in southwestern Mexico. Between 1000 and 2000 BC maize and squash were found on the Colorado Plateau of the present United States. By 500 BC maize was routinely cultivated and a major source of food in the Basketmakers' diet. Cultivating maize allowed the Basketmakers control over their food supply; They cultivated what they needed and stored surplus ground corn for late consumption. At first maize did not significantly modify their nomadic lifestyle. After the early Basketmakers planted the seed, they continued roaming for game and other wild foods. Just as they followed the seasonal growing cycles for wild plants, like pinyon nuts, they returned to harvest their crops when it was ripe for picking.

...
Wikipedia