An ancient Native American civilization that lived in the southwestern United States and built impressive cliff dwellings, roughly from 100 to 1600 CE.
From Navajo 'anaasází' meaning 'ancient ones' or 'ancient enemies.' The name was given by later Navajo peoples to describe the earlier inhabitants they found in the region.
Archaeologists now often call them 'Ancestral Puebloan' instead because 'Anasazi' might have meant 'ancient enemies,' but these people were actually ancestors of modern Pueblo peoples—what you call people matters, and language scholars are careful about that.
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