Pueblo II Era

The Pueblo II Period (AD 900 to AD 1150) was the second pueblo period of the Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners region of the American southwest. During this period people lived in dwellings made of stone and mortar, enjoyed communal activities in kivas, built towers and water conversing dams, and implemented milling bins for processing maize. Communities with low-yield farms traded pottery with other settlements for maize.

The Pueblo II Period (Pecos Classification) is roughly similar to the second half of the "Developmental Pueblo Period" (AD 750 to AD 1100).

Villages were larger and more community buildings than in the Pueblo I Period. Structures were generally made of stone masonry. By AD 1075, double-coursed masonry was sometimes used, which allowed for second story construction. Homes made of stone were more sturdy and fire-proof than the materials used previously. The grouping of the pueblos were called "unit pueblos". Some pueblo sites used a standard plan of front and back pairs of rooms which formed a common cluster of 12 rooms; The rear rooms were used for storage and the front rooms used as living areas.

Round-shaped, below ground and standardized kivas were used for ceremonial purposes. Large kivas, called great kivas, were built for community celebrations and were sometimes as large as 55 feet (17 m) in diameter. Towers, up to 15 feet (4.6 m) tall, were built with housing clusters, with underground access to a kiva or as look-out posts. Trash mounds were generally placed south of the village.

Agate House at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

Production and use of water conservation dams and reservoirs were also a community-based activities. Reservoirs might reach 90 feet (27 m) in diameter by 12 feet (3.7 m) deep, such as the reservoir near Far View House in Mesa Verde National Park. Terraced, silt-retaining check dams were created on sloping, drainage areas where melting snow or rain water ran downhill through the terraced dams. The dams retained moisture and silt and effectively managed runoff to lower terraces which made an ideal scenario for southwestern agriculture.

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