Existing comment:
Beyond the Rim:
The Sinagua world did not end at the canyon rim. They were part of a trade network that reached west to the California coast, south into Mexico, and east to the Plains.
The colors of their jewelry tell the story: a flash of blue from an earring made of New Mexican turquoise; a red nose plug carved from argillite mined in central Arizona; a white bracelet cut and polished from a shell found on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
The people who lived at Walnut Canyon were only one community of a larger group known as the Northern Sinagua. Wupatki National Monument preserves the ruins of another Northern Sinagua community. A closely related people, the Southern Sinagua, lived in the Verde Valley at what are now Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments. |