Existing comment:
Hilltop Living:
In modern Puebloan worldview, the village is a "center place" surrounded by shrines. In Hopi tradition, the highest points would be occupied first by the most important people in the village.
On its rocks perch, Tuzigoot was flanked by farming areas with extensive field systems and shelters. As the village grew over the centuries, a central plaza area emerged. The plaza enclosed by rooms made the village more "pueblo-like" in form. Related households surrounded Tuzigoot to make a community. Nearby hilltop "sister" villages may have formed when families split off from the main village.
Living on hilltops, people had a line of sight between households and could monitor their world. By building where they did, no farmland was sacrificed, and they avoided the mosquitoes and floods that living next to the river invited. |