The pueblos are multi-story modular structures composed of adobe or huge stones glued together with adobe. The roofs are made of grass, clay, wood, or metal.
Each room has a different function: the kitchen is at the center, where food was prepared for the entire family; next to it is the living room with fire place, and around it are the other rooms used for sleeping or storing possessions.
There are two types of pueblos: those built by tribes, and those built by settlers. The first type include Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna. The second type includes Pueblo people who came from Europe. They usually have more rooms, bathrooms, and indoor plumbing than the first type of pueblo.
Both kinds of pueblos can be found in the United States. But they differ in structure, appearance, and material used to build them.
The Adobes are bricks made of clay mixed with straw and water and baked in an oven called a "pit". The pits were usually dug outside of town in fields called "baker's yards". Sometimes ancient peoples used natural rock formations as baking pits. These are known as "rock-ovens".
Adobe homes (also known as pueblos) are Native American dwelling complexes utilized by the Southwest's Pueblo Indians. Adobe pueblos are multi-story modular structures composed of adobe (clay and straw baked into strong bricks) or huge stones glued together with adobe. The largest known surviving adobe building in North America is the 16,000-square-foot San Juan County Courthouse in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, built in 1872.
Each story of an adobe building has a separate function: the first floor is used for living quarters, the second floor for storage, and the third floor for sleeping. The walls inside an adobe building are very thin - only about four feet high - which allows much of the interior space to be used for storing goods. The roofs are usually made of clay tiles or wooden shingles.
The Spanish introduced European-style housing to the New World, but it was the adoption of steel tools that allowed Native Americans to build adobe houses with such precision and ease. The blocks that make up these buildings can be as large as 20 feet long and 10 feet wide.
Although the exact date of their construction is not known, it is believed that there were three major periods of adobe building in North America. The first began around A.D. 600 and lasted until about 1400. The second period started about 1450 and ended around 1750.
The most noteworthy Pueblo constructions were adobe-built residential complexes. Pueblo structures often have a box foundation, a smaller box on top, and an even smaller box on top of that, with the highest reaching four or five storeys. The boxes are sometimes called "towers" but this is not exactly correct, since they do not have any supporting walls inside the perimeter, just the floors and the roofs.
There are several types of Pueblo buildings: single-story, two-story, three-story, and multi-story.
Single-story Pueblos consist of one main room, usually about 100 feet long by 50 feet wide (30 m by 15 m), with a small enclosed area at one end for the family's living quarters. There may be another smaller room attached to one side of the main room for use as a kitchen or storage space. Windows are usually only found in the roof or on some outer wall panels. There are no interior doors; people enter through openings called "kivas" or "manners."
Two-story Pueblos are similar to single-story ones but usually much larger, measuring up to 300 feet long by 150 feet wide (90 m by 45 m). They also have kivas on both sides, but these are used only for religious ceremonies or other special events.
Pueblos were built by laying adobe stones or bricks directly on wood frameworks. Any holes between the bricks were filled with mud. The adobe also served as plaster to cover the walls, which helped to hold the bricks in place and gave the walls a smooth appearance.
The first people to live in what would become Mexico were the Olmecs. They are now considered part of a single culture with other early civilizations such as those of Mesoamerica and South America. It is believed that the Olmecs lived in Mexico City around 1500 BC. Although they used stone tools, it is possible that they also made some items from clay.
The next major group to move into North America was called the Maya. They are thought to have arrived in the southern part of what would later be Mexico about 250 AD at the latest. The Maya built large cities that were connected by roads and bridges. They also developed a writing system that included numbers up to 10,000. Cities like Tikal and Palenque were huge projects with hundreds of buildings constructed only of stone and clay.
After the Maya, several other cultures fought for control of Mexico including the Zapotecs, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs. The Spanish conquistadors brought their horses to Mexico and this allowed them to conquer most of the country in just a few years.
They did have mud, rock, and straw, and they used these elements to build adobe buildings in settlements known as pueblos. Adobe is a hard brick-like substance created from mud and straw combined together and cured. These bricks were placed by Pueblo Indians to form the house's walls. The roof was made of wood or clay.
The shape of the Pueblo Indian house was usually circular or mostly so with some square openings for windows and doors. They were two stories high, with rooms on the first floor opening onto a central hallway. There were no locks on doors back then, so people could come and go as they pleased. The upstairs rooms were used for sleeping while those downstairs were used for living.
There were no bathrooms in the Pueblo Indian house. When it rained, everyone ran outside to one of several common areas called patios where they could wash up. If it wasn't rainin', they would use a public area like a plaza or street corner instead.
The kitchen was located in the center of the house, next to the fire place. It consisted of a counter where food was prepared and stored, a sink, and a stove. A single room was used for eating and socializing; this is where families got together to talk about their day and celebrate special occasions.
There were no bedrooms in the Pueblo Indian house.
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