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Anasazi -- The Ancient Ones:
Today, this beautiful canyon is much as it was when the first settlers appeared -- prehistoric Indians called Anasazi -- a Navajo word meaning "Ancient Ones." Perhaps they were so named because the Navajo found only their villages -- vacant and crumbling.
Shallow, dry alcoves -- such as you see in the far canyon wall -- provided sheltered building sites for the Anasazi.
Their first dwellings were pit-houses, dug in the ground and roofed with poles, grass, and earth. Later, they built many-roomed structures of stone and mud mortar.
Ruins of two Anasazi villages built more than 700 years ago are visible from here: First Ruin to the left, and Junction Ruin to the right (named by the first archeological expedition into the canyon). |