The people also hunted small and large game. Homes at the pueblo were built with the local basalt and mud mortar, covered in mud plaster.
Located between the slopes of the Sierra Nacimiento Mountains and the San Pedro River Valley, the Zia people have long lived an agricultural lifestyle, primarily growing corn, beans, and squash in shared or common ground, to which everyone contributed. Other minor crops were grown in personal, individual gardens, such as peppers, onions, chilies, and tobacco. Zia Pueblo is home to the Spanish mission of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the construction of which began around 1694.Īrchaeologists believe that the Zia people are descendants of the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) people of the Four Corners region, who migrated to the Jemez River Valley sometime in the 13th century. The Zia Pueblo, situated atop a basalt mesa in north-central New Mexico, comprises Keresan-speaking Indians who have continuously occupied the site since the 13th century. Over 600 years old, Zía Pueblo has two plazas, each with a kiva, surrounded by one and two-story traditional dwellings of native rock surfaced with mud.
