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Anasazi is from a Navajo word: ánaasází. It means ancestors of our enemies or of the strangers (not Navajo people). It is sometimes translated now as ancient ones. When white Americans first started exploring the ruins in the 1880s they had Navajo guides and workmen. These men gave them this name. The Navajo are thought to have entered the area around 1100 to 900 years ago and would have encountered these people. When the clans moved out to the locations where Pueblo people are today, the Navajo did not occupy these sites because of cultural taboos about pollution and sickness from possible contact with the dead. But they knew and the Pueblo people knew who had lived there before and thus their name for them.

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11y ago

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