Amy's Rear View Mirror

Red Rock Country and Sinagua Ruins

August 2003

 
I went for a day-trip to Sedona with my parents. We saw the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Red Rocks State Park.

The Red Rock State Park property was acquired by the Arizona State Parks Board in 1986 and the park was opened to the public in 1991. The park's 286 acres were originally part of the Smoke Trail Ranch, owned by Jack and Helen Frye.
There's a 5 mile network of walking trails which take you within view of various red rock formations and Oak Creek. Oak Creek wanders through the park creating a habitat for plants and wildlife which is used for environmental education.

One Saturday, I went up to the Camp Verde and Cottonwood area to get out of the Phoenix heat. I walked around Montezuma's Well and Tuzigoot National Monument.

Few tourists are familiar with Montezuma's Well. Montezuma's Well is a sinkhole, a collapsed underground limestone cavern filled with water, that is 368 feet across and 55 feet deep sitting at an elevation of 3,618 feet. More than a million gallons of water a day flow continuously, providing a lush oasis in the midst of surrounding desert grassland.

Montezuma Well is part of Montezuma Castle National Monument. There is a one-third mile self-guided loop trail to the rim of the sinkhole and other trails to Montezuma Lake.

Many researchers have been baffled when trying to locate the source of the well's water. They have performed tests using gas and dye, but have not been able to establish a connection between the well's water and any other water source in the area. For those of you who are into trivia, the U.S. Park Service used scuba equipment for the first time ever to explore Montezuma's Well in May 1948.

The well is a unique closed ecosystem with several plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. This habitat may be due to the flow of large quantities of warm water (76° F) that enters through underground springs, keeping the environment within the well very stable.

The well empties into Beaver Creek, a trickle during drought years and a torrent during wet years. These unpredictable weather conditions may have contributed to the appearance and disappearance of two distinct desert cultures, the Hohokam and the Sinagua who both irrigated their crops with the well's waters. Sinagua is a Spanish word that means "without water."

Native peoples started living in the region about 2000 years ago. The Verde River and Beaver Creek are two principle waterways in the Verde Valley whose flow changes as the seasons change. It is similar with native peoples. They arrived, lived and cultivated, then after several hundred years seemingly vanished overnight. Archeologists speculate that drought, exhausted soil, disease, or wars with marauding bands may have contributed to their disappearance. Whatever the reason, they left their dwellings in the same condition as they had inhabited them.

It is easy to imagine what it was like for these early inhabitants hundreds of years ago, because the National Park Service has done an excellent job of preserving its original look and feel. It's easy to get a sense of what life was like a thousand years ago.

Archeologists suspect that the first permanent settlers in the valley were the Hohokam, a Pima word for "all used up." These resourceful farmers arrived in the area around 600 AD and lived in one-room houses made of poles, sticks and mud. These specialized structures are not found among other prehistoric Indians of the southwest. They irrigated their crops from cracks in limestone rocks which carried water from Beaver Creek and Montezuma Well. About 1070 AD some of them left the valley.

A typical Hohokam pithouse is on display next to the entrance road to Montezuma's Well. The Sinaguan dwellings are different from the Hohokam pithouse and vary in size from large pueblos of 55 rooms (Montezuma's Castle) down to one-room dwellings.

The Sinagua were peaceful village dwellers. They are believed to have arrived in the valley about 900 AD, and the well supported a community of over 200 Sinagua until 1400 AD. You can still see traces of ancient lime encrusted irrigation ditches from past farming activity. One typical example is seen in the visitors picnic area.

Perched atop a ridge high above Arizona's Verde River lies Tuzigoot National Monument, the remnants of one of the largest pueblos built by the Sinagua. Tuzigoot, an Apache word meaning "crooked water," was built between 1100 and 1450 AD.

The pueblo consisted of 110 rooms including second and third story structures. The first buildings were built around A.D. 1000. The Sinagua were agriculturalists with trade connections that spanned hundreds of miles. The people left the area around 1400. The site is currently comprised of 42 acres.

The Sinagua lived in open areas and were primarily farmers. They augmented their diet by hunting and gathering. The Verde Valley supplied them with more than the basics. There was abundant water, fertile bottom lands and ample game to complement a diet that depended on corn.

The Sinagua were also skilled craftsmen forming stone tools, crafting bone into awls and needles, wove beautiful garments from cotton, and fabricated ornaments out of sea shells, turquoise, and local stone for personal adornment.

The last known native peoples to inhabit the Montezuma Well area were the Western Apache. Two small caves at the well show signs of Apache occupation, sometime after 1800.

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