Native American Archaeology in the Parks: A Guide to Heritage Sites in Our National Parks and Monuments 9781538145869, 9781538145876, 1538145863

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Land Acknowledgment
Oh, and Those Other Acknowledgments
Preface
Okay, So Why Did I Write This Book?
Inspiration
Parks and Monuments: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
No Ruins, No Discoveries
Format
Part I: Parks and People
1: National Parks and National Monuments
Roosevelt’s Role
The American Antiquities Act of 1906
The Archaeological Resources Protection Act
2: First People
Who Were the First People of America?
The People
Adaptation
Part II: Oh, the Places You’ll Go
1: Canyon de Chelly National Monument
2: Casa Grande National Monument
3: Montezuma Castle National Monument
4: Navajo National Monument
5: Tonto National Monument
6: Tuzigoot National Monument
7: Walnut Canyon National Monument
8: Wupatki National Monument
9: Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
10: Mesa Verde National Park
11: Aztec National Monument
12: Bandelier National Monument
13: Chaco Canyon National Historical Park
14: Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
15: Hovenweep National Monument
16: Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park
17: Petroglyph National Monument
18: Bears Ears National Monument
19: Canyonlands National Park
20: Capitol Reef National Park
21: Dinosaur National Monument
22: Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park
23: Effigy Mounds National Monument
24: Poverty Point National Monument
25: Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
26: Pipestone National Monument
27: Pecos National Historical Park
28: Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
29: Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site
30: Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
A Brief Epilogue
A Dictionary of Terms
References
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

NATIVE AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE PARKS

NATIVE AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE PARKS A Guide to Heritage Sites in Our National Parks and Monuments

KENNETH L. FEDER

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2023 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-5381-4586-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5381-4587-6 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Jenn. Now and always.

Contents

Acknowledgments  xi Preface  xiii Okay, So Why Did I Write This Book?  xiii Inspiration   xiii Parks and Monuments: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly  xvii No Ruins, No Discoveries  xviii Format  xviii Part I: Parks and People  1 CHAPTER 1

National Parks and National Monuments: Our “Best Idea”  3 Roosevelt’s Role  4 The American Antiquities Act of 1906  5 The Archaeological Resources Protection Act  7 CHAPTER 2

First People  11 Who Were the First People of America?  11 The People  12 Adaptation  13

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viii    Contents

Part II: Oh, the Places You’ll Go  15 Villages before European Contact, American Southwest   1. Canyon de Chelly National Monument  17   2. Casa Grande National Monument  25   3. Montezuma Castle National Monument  29   4. Navajo National Monument  35   5. Tonto National Monument  41   6. Tuzigoot National Monument  47   7. Walnut Canyon National Monument  53   8. Wupatki National Monument  59   9. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument  65 10. Mesa Verde National Park  71 11. Aztec National Monument  85 12. Bandelier National Monument  91 13. Chaco Canyon National Historical Park  97 14. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument  105 15. Hovenweep National Monument  111 First Peoples Rock Art 16. Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park  117 17. Petroglyph National Monument  125 18. Bears Ears National Monument  133 19. Canyonlands National Park  141 20. Capitol Reef National Park  151 21. Dinosaur National Monument  157 Mound Builders of the East 22. Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park  165 23. Effigy Mounds National Monument  171 24. Poverty Point National Monument  177 25. Hopewell Culture National Historical Park  181 Raw Material Procurement Site 26. Pipestone National Monument  189 Villages after European Contact, American Southwest 27. Pecos National Historical Park  195 28. Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument  201

Contents    ix

Villages after European Contact, American Plains and Northwest 29. Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site  207 War 30. Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument  213 A Brief Epilogue  221 A Dictionary of Terms  223 References  229 Index  233 About the Author  241

Acknowledgments

Most books include an acknowledgments section where authors thank the folks who were instrumental in helping their project come to fruition. I’ll provide that later, but for this book there’s also another kind of acknowledgment that I believe I am obliged to give, and it’s even more important than the standard “thanks yous” to the editor, my family, and even my cats. Don’t laugh; that happens more often than you might expect. I wish to highlight and center that acknowledgment right here and right now.

Land Acknowledgment

Only 1 our 63 national parks (Mesa Verde), about half a dozen of our 57 national historical parks, and 27 of the current list of 129 national monuments were established expressly and explicitly to celebrate and commemorate the lives, experiences, and cultures of America’s Native People. It is important to recognize, however, that all of the lands contained in all of the national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments of the United States, including, of course, all thirty of those highlighted in this guide, were located in the homelands of the Native Peoples living within the modern borders of our nation. In some cases, they continue to be, situated, as they are, on the reservation lands of the descendants of those first Americans. All of America’s designated parks and monuments, regardless of the explicit rationale for their designation, were lands where America’s Native Peoples lived, worked, hunted, farmed, constructed villages, traded, battled, buried their dead, and created and left behind, as art, symbols reflecting their histories and sacred beliefs. Everything I hope to celebrate on the pages of this book and every place I hope to encourage the reader to visit and personally engage with was created by those people. By visiting these places, I hope to—and hope to encourage the reader to—celebrate and honor the cultures and histories of the Native Peoples of what is now the United States. Acknowledging that and stating it out loud has been my first obligation in this book. xi

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Oh, and Those Other Acknowledgments

This book simply would not have happened had it not been for the genuine support provided me by the folks at Rowman & Littlefield. I’ve worked with my editor there, Charles Harmon, on a previous book, and once again it has been a fantastic experience. Charles has been a wonderful cheerleader, especially during the very challenging issues of producing a travel guide during a deadly pandemic. Assistant Editor Erinn Slanina has been terrific, as always, at keeping me on task and on time. Thanks, Erinn! A special thanks to Ashleigh Cooke for her diligent work with me on the page proofs. I’m very grateful to her. I would also like to convey a special thanks to all of the park rangers and all of the other National Park Service staff who have worked so diligently, with crippling budget shortfalls, to keep our parks and monuments open and to make sure every visitor has an enjoyable and enlightening experience. They are my heroes. Thanks are, of course, due to my wife, Jenn, as well as Molly, our now four-­ year-­old daughter. They were the perfect traveling companions on my archaeological odyssey to many of the parks and monuments explored in this book. Molly is especially looking forward to the end of COVID and resuming travel; she has a special interest in and love for petroglyphs, just like her mom. And her dad. Jenn has turned my life around in so many ways. I can barely find the words to thank her. Oh, and she’s really good at finding hidden rock art. So there’s that. Our daughter Ellie, just a bit more than two years old, has spent most of her short life on Planet COVID and hasn’t yet been exposed to the wonders of our national parks and monuments. Fingers crossed that we’ll show you the wonders of the world soon, Ellie! Finally, thanks are due to the Native Peoples of the Americas for the spectacular legacy they bequeathed to their descendants, places where modern Native People can commune with the old ones and where we non-­Natives can, if we listen and look with respect, revel in their wisdom and beauty.

Preface

Okay, So Why Did I Write This Book?

My purpose in writing this book is to get you on the road, to the airport, or into your RV, and to encourage you to visit some of the most beautiful, engaging, significant, informative, glorious, and, yes, sacred places in the United States: our national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments. I will focus on those that have meant the most to me in my career as a university professor, as an archaeologist, and as an author; the national parks and monuments that reflect the cultures, histories, and genius of America’s First Peoples, or, as they are more commonly referred to, Native Americans. Burial mounds, effigy mounds, cliff dwellings, multistory pueblos, quarries, art incised or painted onto the sides of canyons and the remnants of villages, as well as battlefields where brave soldiers, Native and settler, fought and died are all material legacies of peoples whose histories stretch back for tens of millennia and who retain their vibrant, living cultures here in the twenty-­first century.

Inspiration

I was a professor at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut (CCSU), for more than forty years. I had amazing and wonderful students, some of whom have reached out to me years after they had taken one or more of my classes, just to reconnect. One in particular stands out. He was a nontraditional student, a bit older than the other students in the intro class he took with me, married, and the father of a one-­year-­old daughter. Four years after he graduated, he wrote me a letter thanking me for inspiring him to visit an archaeological site with his growing family, which included a now five-­year-­old and a one-­year-­old. I was totally blown away. I never expected to hear from him, an otherwise nondescript undergrad, one of literally thousands who passed through my classes during my tenure at CCSU. xiii

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Preface    xv

MAP LEGEND 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Canyon de Chelley National Monument, Arizona Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Arizona Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona Navajo National Monument, Arizona Tonto National Monument, Arizona Tuzigoot National Monument, Arizona Walnut Canyon National Monument, Arizona Wupatki National Monument, Arizona Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico Hovenweep National Monument, Utah and Colorado Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico Bears Ears National Monument, Utah Canyonlands National Park, Utah Capitol Reef National Park, Utah Dinosaur National Monument, Utah and Colorado Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, Georgia Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa Poverty Point National Monument, Louisiana Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ohio Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico Salinas Pueblo National Monument, New Mexico Knife River Indian Villages National Historical Park, North Dakota Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana

He told me in the letter that he and his wife had traveled to Arizona recently and, doing the usual tourist thing, had flown into Phoenix, rented a car, and driven up the interstate, I-17, headed to the Grand Canyon. He told me that along the way he spotted a National Park Service sign for a place called Montezuma Castle. He immediately recognized the name from my class, turned to his wife, and said: “Hey. Remember that crazy archaeology professor I’ve mentioned? He showed slides of this place. I remember it looked amazing, like a castle high up in a cave in a cliff. We’re in no hurry. Wanna stop and walk around?” He told me his wife thought it was a great idea to have the kids get a little sunshine and get out a little energy and agreed that it would be a fun, extra excursion. Bonus for me: I love being remembered as “that crazy archaeology professor.” I was genuinely touched that, four years after a student had taken a course with me, he wanted to share with his family a very cool archaeological site I had talked about in class. Fantastic. But it gets even better. He went on in the letter to tell me

Like my student, we took our daughter, Molly, to see Montezuma Castle, when she was just two years old. Molly’s four now and has endured COVID restrictions for, essentially, half her life, but she still talks about seeing this place and wanting to see more rock art. Take your kids too. They’ll love it, just like Molly. KEN FEDER

Preface    xvii

that he and his wife were absolutely knocked out by the beauty of the pueblo in a cliff—the “castle” in the place’s name. His one-­year-­old burned off some energy walking around and then napped in the car for the rest of the drive north. It was his five-­year-old, however, who may have had the best experience of the entire family. Back in the car, as they were leaving the parking lot, his older daughter became very serious and shared this with her parents: “Daddy. Mommy. I think when I grow up, I want to be an archaeologist.” Just wow. You know, as a prof, I often wondered if the students physically present in my classes were really there in spirit and whether they were at all intrigued by the archaeological sites I introduced them to and that so interest me. Yet here, in my ex-­student’s letter, was clear evidence that, at least in this instance, I had not only inspired one of them to visit one of those sites, but also my impact was multigenerational! A kid of a former student was excited by an archaeological site I had introduced her father to in my class. Sure, it may sound overblown—and no, I don’t really expect she will grow up to be an archaeologist—but when you’re a college professor teaching a required general education course for undergrads whose major course of study requires enormous investments in time and toil, who may have to work to pay for their educations, and who may have, like my letter writer, a family to help take care of all at the same time, well, it’s really pretty great when you know you’ve actually made them think and inspired them to act on that thinking. In a sense, the impact I had on this student is a model for what I hope you are inspired to do by reading this book and seeing the photographs. Grab your spouse, significant other, best friend, travel buddy, kids, and/or pets and get up close and personal with the breathtaking Native American cultures and histories enshrined in our national parks and monuments. You won’t be disappointed.

Parks and Monuments: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

There is an important and uncomfortable fact to confront when discussing what historian Wallace Stegner called our “best idea” (see chapter 1). Too often, what America’s European settlers perceived to be untrammeled, uninhabited wilderness worthy of preservation and protection by the federal government, in truth was neither untrammeled nor uninhabited. These areas, in fact, included vast swaths of territory that were part of the homelands of various Native People of North America. Their presence in and long-­standing use of these “wild” areas was inconvenient for the myth of a wilderness that had never experienced the “hand of man” and that should then be appropriated for preservation and showcasing, all for the common good. Well, the common good of mostly non-­Natives. As author Mark David Spence (1999) discussed so eloquently in his book Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of National Parks, the establishment of many of our national parks required the forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands. For example, he devotes entire chapters to their

xviii    Preface

removal from what became Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana as well as their “exclusion” from lands that included what became Glacier National Park in Montana. I get it. If you’re reading this book in all likelihood you are interested in visiting national parks and national monuments—and that’s exactly what I hope you will do—and not so much in hearing my rant about how poorly Native Americans were treated in the establishment of those parks and monuments. But the truth is, it is important to know it, and also to celebrate those instances where removal and exclusion were not the result and where Native People had and continue to have some measure of control over the lands and the cultural legacies of their ancestors. Certainly that’s true in the case of Canyon de Chelly National Monument and Navajo National Monument. Both are on the Navajo homeland in Arizona and are jointly administered by the Navajo Nation and the federal government of the United States. Some Native control is also the case to an important extent at Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota. I get it, we can’t change the past, but it’s worthwhile to confront it, the good as well as the bad. Okay, rant over.

No Ruins, No Discoveries

Except where the term is part of the official name of a place, I have tried to avoid using the word “ruins” in this book. “Ruins” implies that a place is dead and empty, an abandoned husk. That is far from reality. Many of the places highlighted here, though no longer occupied by people, haven’t been abandoned. They are alive, bursting with stories and spirits, however you define those terms. Many Native People object to the terms “abandoned” and “ruins,” viewing these sites as still inhabited by the spirits of their ancestors and where they continue to hold ceremonies. I understand and honor that objection. It is also important to remember that, though you will commonly hear their names, it is wholly inaccurate to credit non-­Natives for “discovering” any of the places I highlight in this book. Certainly, there were Spanish explorers, soldiers, and missionaries along with American land surveyors, soldiers, and settlers who first drew attention to these sites to non-­Natives in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. I talk about them throughout this book and present some of their early artistic depictions. But in every single case, Native People had been aware for generations of the existence of the panels of rock art, great pueblos, cliff dwellings, and earthworks highlighted in this guide. So, there are no ruins, there are no discoveries presented here, only fascinating encounters with the cultures and histories of America’s First People.

Format

The format of this book is pretty simple and straightforward. I begin with a couple of introductory chapters. Chapter 1 provides historical context for the federal policy of setting aside lands for national parks and national monuments. We have

Preface    xix

preserved the wonderful places discussed in this guide because of those governmental laws and policies. Chapter 2 is a very brief overview of Native American history. Following those chapters, there are thirty entries, one for each of the parks or monuments highlighted in the book. My list of thirty is in no way inclusive; Native American history is a part of many other parks and monuments. The thirty I chose to include are, I think, those in which that history is centered and readily accessible. Each entry follows this template: State: State location (obviously) Address for GPS: I’ve provided an address in most cases that you can punch into your phone or GPS. However, some sites simply don’t have an address—especially where there’s no dedicated visitor center. In those cases I provide a more detailed set of directions at the end of the entry for getting to the parking lot adjacent to the trailhead that will get you to the places of most interest. Particulars: Is it a national park, national historical park, or national monument? Established: The year of the place’s designation. President: Which president designated the place? Administered by: National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, or Forest Service. Size: The size of the park or monument in acres. First Encounter and Preservation: I provide in this section a little bit of the history of the location, identify the Native People who call it home, the earliest non-­Native recognition that the place contained elements of the legacy of those Native People, and a bit about the process by which the place received national recognition and designation as a park or monument. Site and History: This section is all about the Native history of the place, including who lived there, what can be seen by the modern visitor, and, where possible, the sacred nature of the place to Native Americans. You will also find here the details of a visit, the trails you can hike, and a listing of the marvelous things you will see. Of course, I have included lots of photographs of these places.

xx    Preface

Within individual site entries, other sites highlighted in this book are set in bold face. Following the entries, I’ve included a bit of a dictionary for some of the more specialized terms I’ve used throughout.

PARKS AND PEOPLE

I

National Parks and National Monuments Our “Best Idea”

1

In 1983, historian Wallace Stegner characterized America’s national park system as “the best idea we ever had” (Stegner and Etulain 1990). Of course, I had to lead with his famous assertion, even if it is a bit exaggerated. After all, there are some other pretty good ideas that underpin the American experience. Little things like freedom of speech and the right to vote. I will not, however, dispute Stegner concerning the wonderfulness of our national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments. As a longtime and frequent visitor to those places, I heartily

Figure C1.1.  Noted for its remarkable concentration of geysers, Yellowstone was our first national park. Here pictured is an eruption of the very impressive Castle Geyser.  RIISHEDE–ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

3

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agree that a national policy of setting aside large swaths of land to preserve their splendid and inspiring beauty along with their great historical and cultural resonance is an inarguably fantastic idea. The policy has a very long pedigree. The first officially designated “national park” was Yellowstone in Wyoming and Montana, named by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 (figure C1.1). A few more, including Sequoia, Yosemite (President Lincoln had already set it aside for special protection in 1864), Mt. Rainier, Crater Lake, and Wind Cave, were named soon thereafter in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Roosevelt’s Role

With these national park designations providing precedent, the process of identifying, celebrating, and protecting America’s natural and historical treasures greatly accelerated in the early twentieth century. While he had lots of help along the way, we have one political leader in particular to thank for the vigorous implementation of what Stegner characterized as our “best idea”: President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, the twenty-­sixth president of the United States. Roosevelt rose to the office following the assassination of President William McKinley at the Pan-­ American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. Roosevelt was McKinley’s vice president and continued to serve as president through 1909 (Brinkley 2009). Teddy Roosevelt was a complex person, and he said some truly awful things about Native Americans. Look at what he said in a speech he gave in 1886: “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth” (Hagdorn 1921). That’s an awful thing to joke about, especially in the context of the genocide—there’s no other word for it—visited upon America’s Native People by European colonists. I bring him up here because, as you may know, Roosevelt loved nature and was, as president, an indefatigable supporter Figure C1.2.  President Theodore Roosevelt (left) posed of legislation that served to alongside the iconic naturalist John Muir in 1903 at Yel- protect and preserve America’s lowstone National Park with Yellowstone Falls in the backwild places, if not necessarily ground.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

National Parks and National Monuments    5

Figure C1.3.  The Grand Canyon is likely our best known and most visited national park and is truly emblematic of America’s policy for the preservation of natural beauty along with places of historical and cultural significance reflected in our national park and national monuments.  MEINZAHN–ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

the Native inhabitants of those wild places. For example, describing sleeping under the vast and clear skies of Yosemite during a camping trip there with renowned naturalist John Muir in 1903, Roosevelt eloquently stated: “It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hand of man” (figure C1.2). Later, speaking about the Grand Canyon (figure C1.3) upon his designation of the place as a national monument in 1907, Roosevelt made an impassioned plea: Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. Keep it for your children and your children’s children and for all who come after you as one of the great sights for Americans to see. (cited in Brinkley 2009, p. 527)

These are beautiful sentiments beautifully expressed and they reflect a perspective that shaped Roosevelt’s philosophy as well as his practical policies toward America’s spectacular natural landscapes for the duration of his presidency. Those policies established precedents practiced by many who followed him in the office.

The American Antiquities Act of 1906

Along with its natural beauty, and perhaps ironically, Roosevelt perceived great value in the physical remnants of American history reflected in the archaeological

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heritage of our nation, a history and heritage that he recognized stretched back far before the coming of Europeans to this continent. As a result, he was more than enthusiastic about signing into law in 1906 a piece of legislation that had been the brainchild of John F. Lacey, a congressperson from Iowa. Lacey held firm to the belief that America’s historical resources, including archaeological sites related to the country’s First Peoples, were as worthy of preservation and protection as were its natural resources. In Lacey’s role as a member of Congress, in 1900 he began crafting legislation aimed at protecting places of historical—in the broadest sense of that word—importance. He was inspired to redouble his efforts in 1902 by his friend Edgar Lee Hewett, an archaeologist who specialized in the Southwest and who gave Lacey a personal tour of some of the most spectacular archaeological sites located there. Fearing for the structural integrity of thousand-­year-­old pueblos and cliff dwellings and concerned about the ravages wrought by treasure hunters, Lacey continuously pushed his colleagues both in the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass legislation to save these remarkable places. Responding to Lacey’s impassioned arguments and after a series of fits and starts along with various forms of legislative haggling, in 1906 Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed into law the American Antiquities Act. The sites highlighted in this book were at least initially afforded special protection and recognition as “national monuments” under the auspices of the 1906 Antiquities Act (with some going on to become national parks). As written, the law is short and to the point with only four provisions: 1. It established penalties of up to $500 and possible jail time of up to ninety days for anyone who damages, defaces, destroys, or steals archaeological or historical remains on federal land; 2. It establishes the concept of “national monuments” on federally controlled land, places deserving of formal recognition because of a concentration of significant historical remains or other elements of great scientific importance. This section of the law grants the president the unilateral power to set aside, protect, and preserve these special places as national monuments, specifically: The President of the United States is authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

The wording continues, but this succinctly encapsulates the intent of this part of the Antiquities Act and the rather simple and straightforward process by which a president can designate a place as a national monument. He or she has merely

National Parks and National Monuments    7

to declare it and it is so. It’s all on the president. Also note that, while the explicit purpose of the Antiquities Act was the preservation of cultural, historical, and archaeological sites and features, the broad wording of the law to include “objects of historic or scientific interest” allowed presidents, including Roosevelt right from the very beginning, to designate places based on purely natural and geological considerations. Generally, national parks are designated for the preservation of places of great natural or scenic beauty while the focus of monuments is historical and cultural. National parks tend to be larger and provide multiple activities (hiking, fishing, hunting, camping) but, in truth, there’s so much overlap—and so many historical resources in the parks—it has gotten to the point that “park” or “monument” has become a distinction without all that much of a difference. There also are “national historical parks,” but that designation is not consistently applied. It makes little difference here; all of the places included in this guide have significant and often stunning remnants of history. Before the Antiquities Act, there was no such a thing as a national monument. Since its passage presidents have designated 129 of them, administered by a number of federal agencies. Most (84) are administered by the National Park Service. The Bureau of Land Management (28), the US Forest Service (13), and the Fish and Wildlife Service (9) administer most of the rest (and several are administered by multiple agencies as well as Indian tribes). 3. The Antiquities Act establishes a policy in which trained researchers may request and be granted permits for their scientific study in national monuments, often involving archaeological excavations; 4. It allows for updating specific regulations regarding the requirements and prerequisites for such studies. That’s basically it. There have been additions and tweaks since 1906, but nothing that fundamentally changes the intent of the legislation.

The Archaeological Resources Protection Act

Admittedly, and perhaps as a result of its brevity, there was some confusion after the Antiquities Act’s initial passage concerning the application of the law’s provisions. The courts ultimately deemed the first part of the Antiquities Act constitutionally vague and eventually another law—essentially a sequel to the 1906 law— with much more precise language, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), was passed in 1979. ARPA clarifies the vagaries of the Antiquities Act’s wording concerning the definition of archaeological remains and what constitutes damage. It also seriously increases the penalties for violating the act. Fines can now exceed $10,000 and multiple convictions can add up to $100,000 in fines. Jail time also increased dramatically with passage of ARPA; violate the law and spend up to a year in prison. ARPA did not, however, address or change the second provision

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of the Antiquities Act (that part of the law related to national monument designation), so the 1906 wording stands, but it sure did put some teeth into the provisions related to protecting sites on federal land from looting (figure C1.4). Roosevelt wasted little time after the June  8, 1906, passage and his signing of the Antiquities Act. Within mere months he had designated the nation’s first national monuments (those in boldface are entries in this book):

Figure C1.4.  Sign posted at many of our national parks and monuments imploring people to, in essence, take only photographs, leave only footprints.  KEN FEDER

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, September 24, 1906; El Morro, New Mexico, December 8, 1906; Montezuma Castle, Arizona, December 8, 1906; Petrified Forest, Arizona, December 8, 1906. (A monument initially; now a national park.)

Figure C1.5.  Devil’s Tower was the first officially designated national monument after passage of the American Antiquities Act of 1906.  AVERY LOCKLEAR/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

National Parks and National Monuments    9

The first, Devil’s Tower, is a gigantic and amazingly impressive, entirely natural volcanic neck (and yes, it is an important location in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind) (figure C1.5). As per the law’s wording, it was designated for its “scientific” rather than its historic interest. Altogether, between 1906 and 1909, Roosevelt named eighteen national monuments. Today, nine of them retain that designation. The others he named (including the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Mount Olympus in Washington State) have either been rebranded as national parks or incorporated into other monuments or parks. The national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments celebrated on the pages of this book directly or indirectly owe their existence and preservation to the forward thinking of Teddy Roosevelt, along with the other presidents who followed him.

First People

2

This book is intended as a guide to the remarkable cultural and historical legacies of the Native People of the United States enshrined in our national parks and monuments. It’s obviously not a textbook, but I thought it important, nonetheless, to preface our journeys with a brief introduction to those cultures and a summary of those histories. Who are the people who built the enchanting cliff dwellings and impressive multistory pueblos found in national parks and monuments located in the American Southwest? Who are the people who constructed the massive monuments of earth scattered in profusion across the American Midwest and Southeast? Who are the brilliant artists and wonderful storytellers who etched and painted entrancing images into and onto the rocks in many of our parks and monuments, creating an ongoing artistic legacy spanning thousands of years? I will try to answer those questions in this chapter, but before doing so it is important first to acknowledge the people responsible for these “wonderful things” and place them right in the center of this story, which is where they belong. And yes, I borrowed the phrase “wonderful things” from Egyptologist Howard Carter, who spoke it in February 1923 when he first gazed into the astonishing tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen. “Wonderful things” was an accurate description of what he saw in the boy king’s tomb and certainly applies as well to what we will see in the places described in this guide.

Who Were the First People of America?

Who were the people who created this legacy and who continue to view these places we call national parks and national monuments as not just interesting and enjoyable for a casual visit, but sacred lands imbued with the spirits of their ancestors? I doubt that very many of you reading this book desire a detailed history or textbook treatment of the story of the original people to inhabit this continent— called variously: Native Americans; First Nations (primarily in Canada); First 11

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People; Native People; and yes, American Indians. About that nomenclature; the original people to inhabit Turtle Island (you may know it as North America) should be called whatever they want to be called. I am not one of them and so, of course, I don’t get a vote. Nor should I. In fact, however, to the best of my knowledge, there is no consensus among America’s original peoples about what they would like to be called collectively. So I will use the above listed terms more or less interchangeably and always with respect. What follows is just a little deep background concerning who they are.

The People

The current archaeological consensus is that all of the modern people called by the various names mentioned above are descended from relatively small groups of nomadic folk who originated in northeast Asia. Those people, the evidence suggests, entered into North America via a one-­thousand-­mile-­wide land connection (measured north to south) between Siberia and Alaska. That vast “land bridge” was exposed and open for travel as a result of lowered worldwide sea level during the Pleistocene Epoch or Ice Age. With so much of the planet’s water locked up in glacial ice, sea level was depressed and lands previously (and currently) under water were exposed, producing what is called the “Bering Land Bridge” or “Beringia” (named for the Russian explorer Vitus Bering). The initial movement of people across and along the land bridge likely first occurred soon after about 30,000 years ago and may have continued intermittently over the course of the next 20,000 years, until sea levels rose and Beringia was again under water at the end of the Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago. For a hugely informative read on the subject, have a look at archaeologist David Meltzer’s (2021) book First Peoples in a New World: Populating Ice Age America and anthropological geneticist Jennifer Raff’s (2022) book Origins: A Genetic History of the Americas. I mentioned that this was the consensus, but admittedly this view is not unanimously held. Many Native American People, for example, reject the assertion that their ancestors came from somewhere else. Their histories tell them that they came into existence right here on this continent, and they reject the idea that they are immigrants to the New World, however long ago archaeologists say that migration happened (DeLoria 1995). Some archaeologists, though very few at this point, suggest that, indeed, the first people to come to America were from Asia, but this migration happened far more than 30,000 years ago, instead dating to perhaps as much as 100,000 or even 500,000 years ago (that date being before physically modern human beings appeared in the Old World). Dr. Paulette Steeves (2021), herself a Native American, presents this hypothesis in her book, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere. A few archaeologists, though agreeing that the first human movement into the New World occurred after 30,000 years ago, contest the consensus that the Native People of North America all came from Asia. They believe that there was a separate influx of migrants from Western Europe soon after about 20,000 years ago (Stanford and Bradley 2013).

First People    13

Science, including archaeology, can be a messy enterprise, and debate, argument, and reassessment is a feature, not a bug, in the process of figuring out what happened in the past and when it happened. Indeed, the consensus view concerning the timing of the earliest human settlement of the Americas has shifted over the last hundred years. Early in the twentieth century the scientific consensus was that “American Indians” migrated to North America perhaps only 3,000 or 4,000 years before Europeans arrived on its shores. With new archaeological data, that consensus shifted and by the 1950s, most archaeologists thought that the first human settlement of the Americas occurred closer to 12,000 or 13,000 years ago. Toward the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-­first century, new data—including now genetic information along with standard archaeological evidence—pushed that date back to more than 20,000 and perhaps as much as 30,000 years ago (Raff 2022). The scientific consensus in archaeology changes when new information forces it to change. This is how it should be in any science and generally how it is. While I am convinced that the existing model is very well supported by our current evidence, I won’t be shocked if new data cause us to reassess that consensus—by a little or by a lot. But for now, the preponderance of evidence shows that ancestors of the Native People of Turtle Island—you know, North America—expanded into North America from Northeast Asia, by foot and by boat, sometime around or soon after 30,000 years ago. Migrants they may be, but migrants with an enormously deep connection—both temporally and figuratively—to the lands of what are now called North and South America.

Adaptation

Following their initial expansion into North America, those first people quickly spread across two continents, North and South America, adjusting to the various environments they encountered along the way, including initially the Ice Age climates of Alaska, Canada, and what today are the northernmost of the forty-­eight contiguous United States. These First People hunted such animals as woolly mammoths and mastodons, caribou, horses, and an extinct form of bison. As the Ice Age waned following 10,000 years ago, the First People adjusted their subsistence strategies, reacting to the extinction of big-­game animals as well as to changes in seasonality, temperatures, and precipitation. Communities of edible and otherwise usable plant and animal species established their predominance in the many post-­Pleistocene environments that developed across the broad and varied expanse of North America. In response, the people living in different regions developed their own distinctive ways of life, resulting in a tremendous amount of cultural diversity spread across the landscape. The important point here is this: There isn’t and there never was a single Native American culture. The common stereotype of the nomadic, tipi-­dwelling, horseback-­ riding, buffalo hunters of the American Northern Plains presented in countless Hollywood movies is just that, a stereotype, an inaccurate and

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oversimplified cliché that actually was the result of the Native People’s ingenious adaptation to changes wrought by Europeans. The horse became vital to the Native inhabitants of the Plains, but there were no horses in the New World after wild horses became extinct here at the end of the Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago. Horses ridden by Native People historically were brought here by European explorers, soldiers, and settlers beginning in the sixteenth century. Those Native People adapted to the presence of horses, ingeniously developing a new and highly mobile way of life. In fact, the First People of America developed a rich and diverse panoply of cultures, as varied in language, religious beliefs, social practices, economies, technologies, and art as those found among the people of Europe, Africa, or Asia. Among the First People of North America there were those who developed ways of life in synch with the arid environments of the American Southwest. Others developed exquisitely well-­conceived strategies for life in the warm, humid, and wet Southeast. Others still crafted ways of life in response to the possibilities offered by the environments of the Eastern Woodlands, the Northern Plains, as well as the West, the Northeast, and the Northwest Coasts. We’ll encounter some of that cultural diversity during our journeys to America’s national parks and monuments. And now, let’s take a trip.

OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO

II

Canyon de Chelly National Monument

1

State: Arizona Address for GPS: Indian Route 7 Chinle, AZ 86503 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1931 President: Herbert Hoover Administered by: National Park Service and the Navajo Nation Size: 83,840 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The first non-­Native person to encounter the community of Navajos living in Canyon de Chelly amid the cliff dwellings and rock art of the Ancestral Puebloan People who preceded them is unknown. What we do know is that by the late eighteenth century, Spanish invaders coveted the rich farmland of the canyon and made every effort to eliminate the Navajo presence there. In fact, during your visit, you will be able to see the place called Massacre Cave in Canyon del Muerto (Dead Man’s Canyon) where more than one hundred Navajo, primarily women and children, were killed by Spanish soldiers in 1805. These soldiers were not especially interested in describing the Navajo way of life or the old structures scattered throughout the Navajo’s canyon home. They simply wanted to eliminate them. In 1849, the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers passed through the Southwest scoping out possible routes for roads leading west. Lieutenant James H. 17

Figure 1.1.  Artist Richard Kern, embedded with the Simpson expedition of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, produced this depiction of White House Pueblo in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, September 8, 1849. Compare to figure 1.4.  RICHARD KERN. ARMY CORPS OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    19

Simpson (1852) described some of the buildings these men encountered in Chaco Canyon as well as Canyon de Chelly. He noted the existence of one structure in particular in the latter that had some of its walls painted white and called it Casa Blanca: White House. The embedded artist, Richard Kern, who produced many amazing works of art for the expedition, rendered this depiction of Casa Blanca (figure 1.1). That structure retains that name and can be visited by the archaeological tourist today (see figure 1.4). Later in the nineteenth century, American soldiers carrying guns and not surveying instruments entered Navajo territory, including Canyon de Chelly, intending to remove the Navajo from their traditional homeland and place them on a reservation where they could be contained and more easily controlled. Between 1864 and 1866, the US military, led by Colonel Kit Carson, conducted what only can be described as an attempt at ethnic cleansing, forcing the Navajo to move three hundred miles to a reservation in Bosque Redondo, in present-­day New Mexico. The Navajo call this forced removal “The Long Walk,” and hundreds died. Fortunately, the federal government had a change of heart in 1868, and the Navajo were allowed to return to their traditional homeland to the west. At this point, the Navajo regained control of Canyon de Chelly, a control they maintain to this day. Named a national monument in 1931 with the support of the Navajo, Canyon de Chelly, located entirely within the Navajo Nation (the official name of their reservation), is administered and maintained jointly by the National Park Service and the tribe. Canyon de Chelly is, in a very real sense, a living monument with a few dozen Navajo families living within its confines. The Navajo welcome visitors and do not believe it is appropriate to charge money to guests to their homeland so, while there is a visitor center, there is no entrance fee. You can freely drive along the north or south rims of the canyon, where there are numerous pullouts and parking places from which you can see the remnants of structures built, not by the ancestors of the Navajo but by the people who preceded them in the canyon. Called the Ancestral Puebloans, these are the ancestors of the modern Hopi and Zuni People. Access to the floor of the canyon itself is restricted and controlled by the Navajo since it is, after all, private property owned and farmed by Navajo families. One trail, leading to the White House noted by Lieutenant Simpson in 1849, is freely open to the public. To see the wealth of other structures built by the Ancestral Puebloans and the rock art, produced both by them and more recently by the Navajo, you’ll need to engage a Navajo guide. It’s not inexpensive, but it is well worth it to have someone who knows the canyon because he or she has lived in it provide a personal tour. As our guide, Harris Hardy, who drove us around, told us, “The canyon was the center of my world. It was my school. My book. My museum. My playground . . . I know every rock, the ruins, the art, the plants, and the animals who live here. Mostly, I know my people.” To have someone with

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that level of knowledge, respect, and reverence for the place share his or her love and understanding, well, that’s priceless. Site and History: First, pronunciation: Canyon de Chelly is pronounced “Canyon de Shay.” This originates from the Navajo word tséy’, which means “inside the rock,” which broadly signifies a “canyon.” The name filters first through Spanish and perhaps French before it ends up in English. The canyon is located in Chinle, Arizona; the pronunciation of the town is “Chin Lee.” One way to engage with the monument is, as mentioned, by driving on the paved roads located along the north and south rims of the canyon, stopping at pullouts, and looking at the structures located along the cliff wall on the opposite side (figure 1.2). With the assistance of a pair of binoculars or a telephoto lens on your camera, you’ll be able to see many of those impressive structures. From west to east: 1. South Rim Drive. Follow the South Rim Drive from the visitor center, heading east. Along the way, on the left there is a pullout labeled Junction Overlook. They are some distance away, but from here you’ll be able to see both First Ruin and Junction Ruin on the opposite face of the canyon (figure 1.3). After that stop, continue east on South Rim Drive until you get to a short spur road to the White House Overlook. You can see the structure below you from the parking lot at the end of the spur road (figure 1.4; see figure 1.1 for Richard Kern’s 1849 depiction of the White House). This is also where you’ll find the freely accessible trailhead

Figure 1.2.  Map of Canyon de Chelly showing paved roads and the locations of major cliff dwellings.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    21

Figure 1.3.  “View of First Ruin from pullout along the south rim of Canyon de Chelly.“  KEN FEDER

down into the canyon and to White House. It’s a 2.7-mile round trip and you’ll descend along a series of switchbacks about six hundred feet to the bottom and then, of course, six hundred feet back up. Plan on at least

Figure 1.4.  View of the White House from South Rim Drive. Compare to figure 1.1.  KEN FEDER

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two hours to hike and see the structure. After viewing White House (either from the overlook or up close), get back on the South Rim Drive and drive east to another spur road on the left; take it (heading north) to the Sliding House Overlook. Here again, the cliff dwelling is visible across the canyon on the south-­ facing cliff wall. After this, if you want to see perhaps the most iconic view of Canyon de Chelly, get back onto South Rim Drive and turn left where the road forks (if you went straight here, you’d be on a rough dirt road). At the end of South Rim Drive, you get a great view of Spider Rock (figure 1.5). This striking geological feature is named for Spider Figure 1.5.  View of the iconic Spider Woman Woman, a powerful spirit being who stone spire in Canyon de Chelly.  KEN FEDER saved the Navajo People from monsters who roamed Earth early in its history. 2. North Rim Drive. From the visitor center, go east on North Rim Drive (Route 64). You will come to a spur road to the south leading to Antelope House Overlook. The structure is called that because of the absolutely stunning paintings of pronghorn antelope that adorn the rock face to the left of the ancient building. You’ll be able to see the structure from the overlook but will need a good pair of binoculars to view the art from here. The good news is that if you hire a Navajo guide, he or she can take you right up to Antelope House (figure 1.6) and you can appreciate the art up close (figure 1.7). It is well worth it; it’s stunning. After seeing Antelope House from afar, you can continue east (actually northeast by compass) on North Rim Drive to a spur road to your right that brings you closer to the north rim of the canyon. That road divides; take it to the right to the Mummy Cave Overlook; take the left fork to the Massacre Cave Overlook. As noted earlier, Massacre Cave is the location where Spanish invaders, as the name indicates, massacred more than one hundred Navajo women and children. According to the Navajo I have spoken with, the slaughter was sanctioned by a priest traveling with the soldiers. There was only one survivor, a young boy who was hidden under the bodies of his murdered family. That boy lived to tell the story and as an adult painted an image of the soldiers who committed the atrocity and the priest who sanctified it (figure 1.8). You can ask your Navajo guide to see this truly stunning and heartbreaking work of art.

Figure 1.6.  Antelope House in Canyon de Chelly, named for the artful depictions of pronghorn antelope adjacent to the structure.  KEN FEDER

Figure 1.7.  Remarkable pictograph panel depicting a pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep adjacent to the structure called “Antelope House.“  KEN FEDER

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Figure 1.8.  Nineteenth-century painting by a Navajo artist depicting Spanish soldiers and their priest on the occasion of their slaughter of more than one hundred women and children in Massacre Cave in Canyon de Chelly.  KEN FEDER

Taking the South and North Rim Drives is an easy and convenient way to see the wonderful, multicultural history of Canyon de Chelly, both Ancestral Puebloan and Navajo. But I highly recommend contacting one of the private, Navajo-­ owned firms that provide tours of the canyon itself. You get a close look at the art as well as the buildings and a personal approach to the culture and history of the people who call Canyon de Chelly home.

Casa Grande National Monument

2

State: Arizona Address for GPS: 1100 W. Ruins Drive Coolidge, AZ 85128 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1918 President: Woodrow Wilson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 472.5 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Casa Grande is one of those interesting examples where the federal government was aware of the place and recognized its cultural, historical, and archaeological significance long before it was named a national monument and, in fact, long before passage of the American Antiquities Act of 1906 (see chapter 1). Of course, Native People were already aware of the massive pueblo building and associated compound. What is now called “Casa Grande” was described by Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1694. He called it, in fact, a “casa grande” (big house) in his native Spanish and the name stuck. One of the earliest depictions of the structure was produced by the artist John Mix Stanley when the site was visited by a military reconnaissance unit (1846–1847) under the command of William Emory (figure 2.1). When US soldiers in the area passed along word of the “ruin” in the mid-­nineteenth century and, especially, when a railroad line was put in 25

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Figure 2.1.  One of the earliest depictions of Casa Grande, produced by the artist John Mix Stanley, who was embedded with the military reconnaissance expedition led by William Emory in 1846–1847.  JOHN MIX STANLEY. U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION.

place only about twenty miles away, the site began to attract attention from visitors interested in the history of the region. This, unfortunately, led to further deterioration; it is, after all, a 650-year-­old building, and visitors had a serious impact on the structure and some took artifacts home with them. Since the site has long been on property controlled by the federal government, in 1892 President Benjamin Harrison decided to protect and preserve it by declaring the area surrounding it in what was then the Arizona Territory as a prehistoric and culture reserve. So, at least in theory, Casa Grande was protected from pottery hunting, graffiti, and other forms of vandalism beginning in the late nineteenth century. In order to protect the main structure, the government constructed an enormous ramada, an open-­sided roof structure, over it. Following this there were efforts to stabilize the main structure, and scientific excavations were conducted at the site. Even today, the low-­lying remnants of walls beyond the main pueblo are protected by an ongoing process of applying adobe-­looking material over them The site was named a national monument by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The visitor center was built beginning in the 1930s, and the old corrugated roof was replaced by what appears to me to be a ridiculously overengineered ramada over the main building designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., whose father codesigned Central Park in New York City. It’s hideous and obtrusive, entirely out of keeping with a 650-year-­old adobe building, but I suppose it has been effective in protecting it. An auditorium was added to the visitor center in 2012, where you can watch an informative film about the site and its history.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    27

Site and History: Casa Grande is one of several buildings in what amounts to a walled compound built about 650 years ago (figure 2.2). The main structure varies from three stories tall along the outside to four in the interior. The material used in construction is caliche, a natural mineral consisting of sand and gravel. There do not appear to be any openings in the surrounding wall—likely in an effort to keep out folks who residents might not have wanted to enter their homes—so access via ladders likely was the rule. Those ladders could be pulled up and into the compound when strangers approached. The people who built and lived in Casa Grande have been labeled the “Hohokam.” This isn’t what they called themselves, but it is one of the terms used by archaeologists today to label a group of Native People in the Southwest before the coming of the Spanish (including Mogollon, Sinagua, and Ancestral Puebloan; see the Dictionary of Terms). The modern descendants of these people are the Hopi, Zuni, and O’Odham. The Hohokam are known for and defined by their impressive architecture and extensive use of irrigation to supply water to their agricultural fields, where they grew corn, beans, and squash as their primary food crops. They also planted cotton and tobacco. Archaeological research reveals the existence of hundreds of miles of irrigation canals in the area. The Casa Grande compound was home to a large, populous, and prosperous community and likely a landmark and meeting place across a broad region for about one hundred years, between about AD 1350 and 1450. See it for yourself

Figure 2.2.  “View from a corner of the walled Casa Grande compound looking northeast toward the roofed main building.”  KEN FEDER

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Figure 2.3.  The main structure, a three-story pueblo at Casa Grande.  KEN FEDER

and marvel at the architecture of the big house, a structure built without the use of machinery, but solely reliant on human ingenuity and muscle (figure 2.3). Walk around the site by yourself, or take a ranger-­guided tour available late November through mid-­April and May through October depending on weather and staffing. The monument is only about a one-­hour drive to the south from Phoenix or to the north from Tucson.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

3

State: Arizona Address for GPS: Montezuma Castle Road Camp Verde, AZ 86322 Particulars: National Monument Established: December 1906 President: Theodore Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 860 acres First Encounter and Preservation: For a moment, let’s revisit my discussion of the American Antiquities Act back in chapter 1. You might remember that the power of the president to designate a parcel of federally owned property as a “national monument” is provided by that law, passed by the Congress in June 1906. Note that, as indicated above under Particulars, the site called Montezuma Castle (never “Montezuma’s Castle,” though you will see that in print quite often) was named a national monument in December of that same year, 1906. So, Montezuma Castle was one of the first places put on the list and, in a very real sense, helped set the tone and context for all subsequent nominations by all subsequent American presidents. One look at Montezuma Castle shows how true that statement is. It isn’t entirely clear who the first non-­Native person was to encounter Montezuma Castle. One early candidate is the Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo. 29

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Seeking places to mine for gold while also searching for a couple of missing friars, he appears to have entered the Verde Valley in what would become Arizona in 1583. In the records of his expedition, mention is made of ancient “ruins,” but nothing in his descriptions matches the highly recognizable site. We skip ahead to 1864 when a secondary site in the Verde Valley that included cliff dwellings on bluffs encircling a lake were seen and named by traveler Henry Clifton. He called it Montezuma Well (Protas 2002). A couple of years later, Edward Palmer, a soldier at nearby Camp Lincoln, drew a clearly identifiable image of Montezuma Well and described encountering nearby a four-­story structure in a cliff overlooking Beaver Creek, which flows from the spring that feeds Montezuma Well. This almost certainly was the structure we today call Montezuma Castle. By the 1870s, Montezuma Castle, with that name, was well known and had become a tourist spot for people who were fascinated by Native history and culture. The first known depiction of the structure appears in Dr. W. J. Hoffman’s article on the Indians of Nevada, California, and Arizona, published in 1878 (Plate LXXIX) as part of the Tenth Annual Report of the US Geological and Geographical Survey. Hoffman called the structure a “cliff fortress” (figure 3.1). Okay, let’s get a couple of things straight up front: Montezuma Castle isn’t a castle, and it has nothing to do with Montezuma the ruler of the Aztec Empire in Mexico upon the invasion of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. That name was applied originally because the first European explorers and settlers thought the building located high up in a cliff looked like a castle and, because it is so very impressive architecturally, they assumed, contrary to fact, that local Indians would have been incapable of building it. So they credited it to what they perceived to be a more “sophisticated” and technologically advanced people from the south. It was all nonsense, but the name has stuck. Located right off the interstate, with a modern visitor center, large, paved parking lot, and a short, paved Figure 3.1.  A beautiful depiction of Montezuma pathway from the center to the “casCastle, then called a “cliff fortress,” published in 1878 as part of the Tenth Annual Report of the U.S. Geo- tle” viewing point, this site is today logical Survey.  U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    31

Figure 3.2.  Montezuma Castle in its cliff-face setting.  KEN FEDER

one of the more highly visited and most accessible of the national monuments mentioned in this guide—and has been since the 1930s when automobiles became a popular mode of transportation. Concerning Montezuma Castle, I like to use the British term “gobsmacked” to describe my reaction at the point along the pathway when the building, looming above me, comes into view. It really is amazing (figure 3.2). Site and History: The approximately twenty-­room, five-­story building was a home for about thirty-­ five or forty Native People commonly called the “Sinagua,” which just means “without water” in Spanish. More than eight hundred years ago, they chose this location for a little village because there’s a permanent water course, Beaver Creek, running at the base of the cliff in which the main building was built, about ninety feet above the level of the water (figure 3.3). These were an agricultural people in a dry region, so the presence of a stream was a great advantage. Beaver Brook is fed by Montezuma Well. Like Henry Clifton in 1864, you too can visit it; it’s located just a few miles away from the “castle” in a noncontiguous part of the monument (figure 3.4). The architects of Montezuma Castle were highly skilled and extraordinarily creative in their planning. They artfully built the front of the structure in a concave curve, matching the overall curve of the cliff in which it is located. It’s really

Figure 3.3.  Beaver Creek is located at the base of the cliff housing Montezuma Castle.  KEN FEDER

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    33

Figure 3.4.  Spring-fed Montezuma Well, with its small cliff-side dwellings, is located just a few miles away from Montezuma Castle.  KEN FEDER

quite beautiful and makes the beauty of the building even greater, appearing to be a nearly natural extension of the cliff face, and I’m pretty sure that was the intent. The raw material of Montezuma Castle is adobe—in this case, rock rubble held together with mud—with sycamore logs set in place to serve as ceilings and floors separating each level of the structure as well as for the roof. You can still see some original logs poking out through the adobe walls. You’ll notice that there are very few windows and only a couple of doors in the structure. There are two likely reasons for this. Montezuma Castle is located in central Arizona, where, trust me, it gets very, very hot. The thick adobe walls provide a high insulation value so the nighttime coolness of the region is maintained to a degree inside the building during the day, a feature that would be lost with large windows and doorways. A lack of windows and entryways may also have been part of an overall strategy for defense against potentially nasty neighbors. The location of the building, ninety feet up a cliff and with no stairs leading up to it, would have made it difficult for an invading army to gain entry. Entry for residents likely was by a series of ladders—the remains of ladders have been found at other sites of a similar age. You can stroll along the path past the “castle” to see the much more fragmentary remains of another building, this one at the base of the cliff. In the loop that brings you back to the castle and then back to the visitor center, there’s a little diorama of the cliff dwelling as well, and you get a variety of very impressive views of the castle.

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There’s lots to do and see but, in all honesty, the reason to go to Montezuma Castle is the view you get of an astonishing bit of architectural creativity produced by Native People about eight hundred years ago. It really is impressive and lovely and, though I have seen it many times, I am, using that Britishism again, gobsmacked every time. I believe you will be too.

Navajo National Monument

4

State: Arizona/Navajo Reservation Address for GPS: Route 564 Shonto, AZ 86045 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1909 President: William Howard Taft Administered by: National Park Service and the Navajo Nation Size: 360 acres (this applies only to the area immediately surrounding the visitor center) First Encounter and Preservation: I will be speaking in some detail about the Wetherill family in relation to Mesa Verde and the role of especially Richard, one of the four sons of B. K. Wetherill, in making that place a popular tourist destination. Richard was also instrumental in getting word out to other Anglos about the three sites included in what would become the Navajo National Monument: Betatakin (the Navajo name meaning “House Built on a Ledge” [the Hopi, whose ancestors actually built the large structures in Navajo National Monument, call it Talastima, “Place of the Corn Tassel”], figure 4.1); Keet Seel (“Broken Pottery”); and Inscription House (Ts’ah Bii’ Kin). Please remember that, while Richard Wetherill alerted white people to the existence of these sites and earned a substantial amount of money by selling artifacts he had excavated and by taking visitors to the sites in an early version of an 35

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Figure 4.1.  Early twentieth-century photograph of Betatakin cliff dwelling at Navajo National Monument.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

archaeological tourist business, Native People had long known about them and viewed them as sacred places where their ancestors had lived. As noted in my discussion of the preservation of Mesa Verde, the Wetherill legacy regarding archaeology and Native history is mixed. However, their obviously sincere interest in archaeology and their popularizing these places, especially on lands controlled by the federal government, led to the designation of several of them as national monuments and, in a few cases, national parks, with all of the protections that those designations provided. Site and History: As noted above, there actually are three major sites incorporated into Navajo National Monument, all of them located within the borders of the modern Navajo Nation. Inscription House. This site is currently closed to visitation. Keet Seel. With a population of about 150 people, Keet Seel was occupied between about AD 1250 and 1300, with most of its construction occurring between 1272 and 1275. It includes a spectacular cliff dwelling and exhibits an incredible degree of preservation. Unfortunately, I have not personally been to Keet Seel, and probably not many people reading this guide will be able to go there either. It is quite a challenge to get there, which explains, along with the fact that it is located in Tsegi Canyon in the heart of the Navajo Nation, its remarkable preservation. Keet Seel is accessible only by a very long hiking trail; no matter how you slice it, it is a seventeen-­mile round-­trip hike. If a strenuous and long hike that includes walking

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    37

through difficult patches of sand (think about how tiring it can be walking across a beach), crossing streams multiple times, avoiding quicksand, and negotiating steep canyon switchbacks under conditions of pretty extreme heat sounds great to you (and it very well may), by all means go for it. You can elect to attempt an exhausting day trip, getting it all in in a single day, though many include overnighting in the monument and taking two or even three days for the round trip. It’s always hot in the middle of the day, so all hikers need to leave early. No hikes are allowed at night. The trip is recommended only for people in great health who also are avid hikers. You need to register and attend an orientation session for the hike through the National Park Service, which has a limit of only twenty hikers per day (https:// www​.nps​.gov/nava/planyourvisit/guidedtours​.htm). Betatakin. Fear not, if Keet Seel seems impossibly inaccessible to you, the other site in Navajo National Monument, Betatakin, is incredibly impressive and, actually, quite easy to see, albeit from a distance. Betatakin is a 120-room cliff dwelling located in a spectacular, arching natural alcove that measures more than 450 feet in height and is more than 350 feet wide at the base. Dendrochronology—dating by using the rings on trees incorporated into the building—indicates that the site was built about AD 1267 and appears to have been abandoned about just twenty years later. A bit smaller than Keet Seel, Betatakin was a community of at least 125 people. You can see the village from a very easy paved trail along the canyon rim and located right behind the visitor center. This so-­called Sandal Trail is only about a mile in length, round trip, and it takes you along a rim of the canyon to a point where you can look directly down into the Betatakin village at the base of the

Figure 4.2.  Distant view of the natural alcove in which Betatakin is located. You can barely make out the structures in this photograph.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 4.3.  A closer, telephoto view of Betatakin.  KEN FEDER

opposing wall of the canyon (figure 4.2). Because of the distance involved, though you will be able to see the building with your naked eye and bring it in a little closer with the zoom function on your cell phone camera, to fully appreciate the place, you really will need a decent pair of binoculars or a large zoom lens attached to an actual camera (figure 4.3). All of the photos I am including here were taken with a camera with a series of different zoom lenses. The final zoom is about 800mm and it’s about the best thing you can do short of walking right up to the structure, which you actually can. If you are up for a pretty strenuous hike, there are ranger-­led walks down the canyon and right up to, but not into, the Betatakin structure. Those hikes are offered twice a day from mid-­May through mid-­September. Depending on the tour, the round trip is either three miles (a three- to four-­hour hike with more than nine hundred steps to walk down and then back up) or five miles (a four- or five-­hour hike), and both are steep down into the canyon and, the bad news, steep back up. Though these trails are much shorter than the one to Keet Seel, they are both tough, and the Park Service recommends that you attempt it only if you are in good health, have no medical conditions that might impede you in hiking a steep and rocky trail under conditions that can be quite hot, and, especially with the three-­mile hike, do not have a fear of heights. I have not taken the hike because of my schedule during both of my visits to Navajo and now, with two metal plates and ten screws in my left ankle after breaking my leg, that hike is not in my immediate future. See the above link for the Keet Seel hike for information about the ranger-­ led hikes to Betatakin.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    39

Figure 4.4.  As close as my telephoto lens could take me. Those are full-size buildings.  KEN FEDER

Rest assured, if you find the photos I’ve supplied here impressive and beautiful, even the easy hike to the end of the Sandal Trail will provide the visitor with an awesome experience and great views of “House Built on a Ledge” (figure 4.4).

Tonto National Monument

5

State: Arizona Address for GPS: 26260 North Arizona Highway 188, Lot 2 Roosevelt, AZ 85545 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1907 President: Woodrow Wilson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 1,120 acres First Encounter and Preservation: It’s almost certain that the Yavapai and the Western Apache, two Native American groups who lived in the Tonto Basin (a rugged area about fifty miles east of Phoenix), had long been aware of two remarkable cliff dwellings located above the Salt River. Non-­ Native settlers began writing about those cliff dwellings soon after they arrived in the area in the late nineteenth century. The best example of this can be found in a remarkable diary kept by a young woman, Angeline (Angie) Mitchell, who moved from New England to what was then the “Arizona Territory” (Arizona became the forty-­eighth state in 1912) in 1875 when she was only twenty-­one years old. She settled in the town of Prescott, about a hundred miles north of Phoenix, to work as a schoolteacher. Impressively, after teaching at a number of schools in Arizona, Mitchell opened and ran her own school. Her 41

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original, handwritten diary has survived, curated at the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona. An annotated version was published in 2014 (edited by Stanley C. Brown). It’s a fascinating read. It is clear in her diary that Ms. Mitchell had a passion for exploring the natural environment of the Tonto Basin, the area in which she lived beginning in 1880. The Tonto Basin appears to have been a cultural melting pot where various Native People, each with their own distinctive pottery styles and architectural practices, came into contact and created a cultural amalgam called by archaeologists the Salado culture. Also clear in Mitchell’s diary is a deep curiosity about and respect for Native American culture and history. She was especially intrigued by the archaeological evidence of the Salado People scattered all around her in the Tonto Basin. As recorded in a diary entry dated December 10, 1880, Ms. Mitchell investigated a small canyon of the Salado (Salt) River, where she and a small group encountered two adobe structures ensconced in separate caves located in the cliff above the river. Mitchell provides a detailed description of the architecture, the drawings still visible on the walls of the structures, and the artifacts, mostly pottery sherds, that were strewn about on the surface. More important, however, was her eloquent discussion of how the place reflected the humanity of the people who lived there. Her perspective, in fact, sounds quite modern, progressive even: It seemed strange to be chatting and laughing so gaily in a house built unknown centuries ago by people unlike us in appearance but who had known joy and grief, pleasure and pain same as our race of today knows them, and who had laughed, cried, sung, danced, married & died, mourned or rejoiced their lives away in this once populous town, or castle, or whatever one would call it! It made an uncanny feeling come over us as we rested till moon rise and talked of this long dead people and told the little we knew concerning them. By & by the moon rose & softened the marks of time on the scarred, weather stained cliff dwellings till it was beautiful (original spelling, grammar, and punctuation).

I find that phrasing very moving. At about the same time, between 1880 and 1885, archaeologist Adolph Bandelier (1892, p. 425), whose name graces another national monument discussed in this book, investigated the same Salado River cliff dwellings that Mitchell visited, describing them as “two cave dwellings of moderate dimensions” (figure 5.1). His archaeological work showing both the significance of the place along with the beauty of the structures found there contributed ultimately to the site being designated as a national monument in 1907, just a year after passage of the federal American Antiquities Act. In 1909, after having lived a wonderfully eventful life, Angie Mitchell died. Fortunately, she lived long enough to see the wonderful place she visited and wrote about so thoughtfully in 1880 gain federal recognition as a national monument. I bet she was pleased. Finally, I clearly find her words a quite touching epigraph describing how I think we might all engage with each of the splendid places presented in this book.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    43

Figure 5.1.  Archaeologist Adolph Bandelier’s 1880s map of what he called “cave pueblos” at what would become the Tonto National Monument. From his Final Report of Investigations of the Indians of the Southwestern United States.  A.F. BANDELIER. U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION.

These are not ruins or abandoned or dead places; they are the homes lived in by people very much like us in every important way and alive with the stories they can continue to tell us. Site and History: As indicated by Angie Mitchell and Adolph Bandelier, there are two major cliff dwellings at Tonto, each one located at a different elevation along the cliff face. Predictably enough, the lower cliff dwelling is called, well, the Lower Cliff Dwelling. You’ll never guess the name of the upper cliff dwelling. Yup, it’s the Upper Cliff Dwelling. Both structures are nestled in shallow caves, both of which are the result of natural erosion. The structure at lower elevation is a multistory adobe building of about twenty rooms built into a natural hollow in the cliff measuring about 85 feet

Figure 5.2.  The Lower Cliff Dwelling at Tonto.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 5.3.  The Lower Cliff Dwelling.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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Figure 5.4.  The Upper Cliff Dwelling.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

across, 48 feet deep, and 40 feet high (figure 5.2). Construction began in about AD 1300, and the builders successively added rooms to eventually accommodate a population of more than one hundred people in as many as seventeen family units, based on the number of kitchen hearths and room clusters. The Lower Dwelling was abandoned by about AD 1450. It’s an impressive structure in an impressive setting (figure 5.3). Located higher up the slope, the Upper Cliff Dwelling is positioned in a cave about 70 feet across, 60 feet deep, and with a height of 80 feet from floor to ceiling. That height afforded the builders plenty of room for a two-­story structure (figures 5.4 and 5.5). Built and abandoned in a sequence similar to the Lower Cliff Dwelling, the Upper is larger, consisting of about forty rooms. One room contains a cistern carved out of the cave floor that would have been capable of storing about a hundred gallons of water. Easy access to fresh water would have been

Figure 5.5.  The Upper Cliff Dwelling.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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a great convenience to the building’s residents high up on the cliff far from the watercourse. There also is a remarkably well-­preserved and nearly intact ceiling/ roof made of juniper and piñon wood. The Lower Cliff Dwelling is easily accessible via a one-­mile round-­trip loop. The trail to the Upper Cliff Dwelling is more of a trudge uphill, a three-­mile round-­trip hike that takes between three and four hours. The Upper Cliff Dwelling can be visited only through ranger-­guided tours restricted to a maximum of eight people. Tours are further restricted to Friday through Monday, November through April. They fill up fast, even months in advance. Reservations should be made. Check out the Tonto National Monument web page for details (https:// www​.nps​.gov/tont/planyourvisit/upper-­cliff-­dwelling-­guided-­tours​.htm). There are no such restrictions for visiting the Lower Cliff Dwelling. Go and visit Tonto and, like Angie Mitchell, consider the stories it still tells of the people of the Salado culture.

Tuzigoot National Monument

6

State: Arizona Address for GPS: 25 Tuzigoot Road Clarkdale, AZ 86322 Particulars: National Monument Established: July 25, 1939 President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 58 acres First Encounter and Preservation: As was the case for Montezuma Castle, it’s not entirely clear what non-­Native person first encountered Tuzigoot. Also like Montezuma Castle, located just twenty-­five miles away, it may have been seen by the Spaniard Antonio de Espejo in 1583. We do know for certain that at least by 1876, as the area attracted miners looking for rich deposits of chalcopyrite, the primary ore used in the smelting of copper, Anglos became aware of the remarkable structure on top of the hill. Its existence was commented on for the first time in print in 1890 by Edgar Mearns, an army surgeon stationed at the nearby Fort Verde (Mearns 1890; Protas 2002). Mearns developed a fascination for the remnants of Native villages, wrote explicitly about Montezuma Castle, and touched on other sites as well. He mentions the site (not by name) in his notes, locating it this way: “Top of a hill near a slough of the Rio Verde known as Peck’s Lake” (in Protas 2002, p. 36) (figure 6.1). 47

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Figure 6.1.  Aerial photograph of Peck’s Lake showing its proximity to the Tuzigoot Pueblo.  GOOGLEEARTH

Located on federal land and with federal financial support, Tuzigoot was excavated and investigated by archaeologists from the University of Arizona between 1933 and 1935. Recognizing that the site itself as well as its surroundings were beautiful and impressive enough to attract tourists, the federal government prepared the site for visitation. The still quite beautiful visitor center was built between 1935 and 1936, very soon after excavations ended. Funding for both the excavation and the visitor center was provided by the federal government during the Depression through the Works Project Administration (WPA) as well as the Civil Works Administration (CWA). Both the WPA and CWA were work projects established and administered by the federal government as part of an effort to draw the nation out of the Depression. To be sure, the Depression was a terrible episode in American history, but, fortunately for the study and preservation of historic sites, substantial government funding was earmarked for archaeology. At this time, a number of visitor centers and museums were constructed with federal money. Following completion of the visitor center, on July 25, 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decreed that Tuzigoot would be designated a national monument. On October 15, 1966, further recognition and protection was accorded Tuzigoot when it was added to our national honor roll of significant places that reflect important parts of our history, the National Register of Historic Places. Site and History: Tuzigoot is a multistory pueblo built by the Native People of what is today central Arizona. Its current name is taken from the Apache language and means “crooked

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    49

water,” likely a reference to Peck’s Lake, a nearby body of water—technically a meander scar left behind by an eroding river—that, indeed, looks sort of crooked from above (see figure 6.1). The ancient building’s setting, perched atop a 120-foot-­high knob of limestone and sandstone, is breathtaking today, just as it would have been to the builders who commenced work on the structure more than one thousand years ago. The building is visible from quite a distance from the modern road leading to the visitor center, looking almost like a protected castle culminating in a central tower, the equivalent of a medieval redoubt, high above the surrounding plain (figure 6.2). Containing nearly 100 rooms, the structure was occupied by upward of 250 people between about AD 1000 and AD 1400. We don’t really know what the residents of Tuzigoot called themselves, but they certainly were not alone in the region. Archaeologists have identified at least fifty other pueblo structures dating to approximately the same time period, though none are quite as impressively positioned as Tuzigoot. The old cliché in real estate is that the three most important factors in the value of a property are: location, location, and location. That certainly applies to Tuzigoot, located on a protected ridge, near permanent water sources, and surrounded by arable land. The inhabitants of Tuzigoot were agricultural and based their subsistence on maize (corn), beans, and squash. Their modern descendants are the Hopi and Zuni People, whose vibrant culture has thrived in the Southwest for thousands of years. We know that the people of Tuzigoot had far-­flung trading networks. For example, archaeologists discovered the bones of macaws during Tuzigoot’s

Figure 6.2.  Approaching Tuzigoot.  KEN FEDER

Figure 6.3.  Skeletal evidence of macaws, not native to the American Southwest, have been found at a number of sites there, including Chaco Canyon and Tuzigoot.  KEN FEDER

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    51

Figure 6.4.  The central tower or citadel at Tuzigoot.  KEN FEDER

excavation. Macaws are tropical birds not native to the arid American Southwest, but traceable to about 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) south of the site’s location (figure 6.3). Nevertheless, their bones have been found at Tuzigoot and several other sites in Arizona and New Mexico. Some evidence suggests that individual live birds were traded and captive breeding colonies were kept in the Southwest for the birds’ brilliantly colorful feathers, which were used in weaving (George et al. 2018). Today, researchers refer to the people historically living in this part of Arizona as the “Sinagua,” Spanish for “without water.” Well, it may have seemed “sin agua” to the Spanish, but it wasn’t entirely. The Native inhabitants got along quite nicely by creating a productive agricultural system made possible through their sophisticated approach to water control and conservation. The pathway leading from the visitor center to the site is a relatively short round trip around the primary structure (figure 6.4). While you can’t enter most of the main building, the path places you up close to the exterior walls, and you can peer into interior rooms where the outside walls have crumbled. Luckily, a set of modern stairs lead to the central tower, where you can enter and examine a reconstructed log ceiling. Rooms continue down part of the length of the hill, and you can walk into some of those as well. Tuzigoot is a breeze to get to; access is entirely on paved roads, there’s a parking lot, a visitor center, extremely knowledgeable and helpful rangers on-­site, and, while there is a little bit of uphill walking, the pathway around the site is paved. The site itself is impressive to see, both from a distance as well as up close. Views

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Figure 6.5.  It is a beautiful view from the top of Tuzigoot.  KEN FEDER

from the top are quite beautiful (figure 6.5). The place provides the visitor with a terrific perspective on the architectural genius of the Native People of central Arizona.

Walnut Canyon National Monument

7

State: Arizona Address for GPS: 3 Walnut Canyon Road Flagstaff, AZ 86004 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1915 President: Woodrow Wilson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 3,529 acres First Encounter and Preservation: As is almost certainly the case, the structures in Walnut Canyon were long known to Native People living in the area. The first non-­Native person to report on the remarkable cliff dwellings was researcher James Stevenson, who had been sent out to look for sites by John Wesley Powell of the federal Bureau of American Ethnology, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. Stevenson wrote a letter in 1883 to Powell reporting on his work in which he mentioned the “cliff villages” of Walnut Canyon (cited in Neff et al. 2011). One of the first photographs of the Walnut Canyon cliff dwellings was taken by the expedition photographer, John K. Hillers (figure 7.1). After this notation, a detailed description of the dwellings did not appear for more than twenty-­five years, by which time a lot of the accessible structures had already been vandalized by people looking for treasures (Shimer and Shimer 1910). The work of archaeologists in the region, the unique elements of the 53

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Figure 7.1.  Early photograph by John Hillers of Walnut Canyon, taken in 1883.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

“cliff villages” of Walnut Canyon, and the pressing need to protect and preserve the structures led to its designation in 1915 as a national monument. A visitor center and two primary trails, the Rim Trail, which provides some views of the cliff dwellings, and the Island Trail, which allows direct access to about twenty-­five of the structures, were laid out during the Depression.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    55

Site and History: In the other examples of Native American cliff dwellings included in this book— Mesa Verde National Park; Canyon de Chelly, Montezuma Castle, and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monuments—the structures themselves, especially in the case of Mesa Verde, are gobsmackingly spectacular. Those buildings could have ended up as cover stories in Architectural Digest when they were built. Well, they could have if there had been an Architectural Digest eight hundred years ago. Their geological context in naturally hollowed-­out alcoves in impressive cliffs certainly adds to their beauty, but the buildings themselves are worth the price of admission. The structures highlighted in Walnut Canyon National Monument are different. The twenty-­five or so dwellings that can be visited out of a population of close to one hundred secreted in the canyon, are rather plain and simple, consisting of little more than adobe walls built into natural niches about halfway up the four-­ hundred-­foot-­high cliff walls. Simple and plain they may be, but it is their context, ensconced in the cliffs of a very narrow canyon, that is absolutely stunning and well worth a visit. Walnut Canyon consists of three distinct geological formations—from bottom to top: Coconino, Toroweap, and Kaibab—the same three that can be seen in the upper levels of the Grand Canyon. The Walnut Canyon dwellings were built in the Toroweap formation, which consists of alternating bands of sandstone and limestone, between about AD 1100 and 1250 (figure 7.2). The sandstone is softer than the limestone and was carved into more deeply by Walnut Creek as it cut into the canyon over the course of millions of years of erosion. The resulting horizontal and linear niches are, in places, several feet deep and large enough for a person to stand up in (figure 7.3). The floors and ceilings of the structures, therefore, are entirely natural, provided by harder limestone layers that overlie and Figure 7.2.  Long view of structures across the canyon underlie each softer sandstone from the Island Trail. You can see structures nestled into an eroded layer of sandstone.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 7.3.  Telephoto view of Walnut Canyon structures across the canyon from the Island Trail.  KEN FEDER

layer (figure 7.4). The constructed adobe walls close off the front of the niche, and walls built perpendicular to the rock face separate the rooms (figure 7.5). Based on pottery styles and overall location, the inhabitants of Walnut Canyon are placed in the cultural category Sinagua, along with those who built Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot. They lived in a very dry area—Walnut Creek itself flows intermittently—and were famers of corn, beans, and squash, likely using land around the top of the canyon for cultivation. The visitor center, built through federal programs during the Depression, is perched on the edge of the north rim of the canyon. Nearby, the trailhead for the Island Trail provides a steep descent, with a bunch of modern steps, to a pathway located about 185 feet below the canyon rim, a bit less than halfway into the canyon. The Island Trail takes you right up to about twenty-­five of the dwellings. The trail name results from the fact that it takes you along a tight bend in Walnut Creek—technically a “meander.” From above, that bend gives the impression that the land it encircles is an island within the canyon with the structures ringing the “coast” (it’s really more like a peninsula but I guess the name “Peninsula Trail” doesn’t have the same appeal). The elevation at the top of the canyon is about seven thousand feet. For all of you folks living at sea level, though the Island Trail is only about a one-­mile round-­trip trek, it will be more of a challenge than it would be at sea level. Stay hydrated and take lots of breaks on your way back along the switchbacks and up the steps. I didn’t count, but there are lots of them and your legs will feel the burn as you leave the canyon.

Figure 7.4.  A recently renovated wall of one of the Walnut Canyon structures along the Island Trail.  KEN FEDER

Figure 7.5.  A view into one of the Walnut Canyon structures through a collapsed wall.  KEN FEDER

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As you pass along the walkway to visit the structures, imagine a life lived in this beautiful place, with all the challenges faced by the residents. Firewood, food, even water had to be carried into their homes, probably via a smaller canyon that connects to Walnut Canyon. Parents, whose “yards” were merely narrow pavements of limestone, had to be ever vigilant about their kids playing in front of their homes with a more than two-­hundred-­foot drop to the canyon floor. Travel, to visit relatives living outside of the canyon, to trade for raw materials not immediately available there, and just to get to their agricultural fields up on top, would have been difficult and time consuming. Did residents choose to live in Walnut Canyon with all of those challenges because it was safer, their cliffside homes providing protection from potential enemies? Were the cooler temperatures of their homes in the cliffs in summer and protection from snow and ice in the winter major considerations? Or maybe, after all, it was all about the view; it is pretty stunning. We’re not certain. But visit the place for yourself and appreciate its beauty and its reflection of the remarkable ability of Native People of the Southwest to use what nature provided, even under difficult and challenging conditions, to create a way of life.

Wupatki National Monument

8

State: Arizona Address for GPS: 6400 US Highway 89 Flagstaff, AZ 86004 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1924 President: Calvin Coolidge Administered by: National Park Service Size: 35,422 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The Hopi and Zuni People have long recognized Wupatki in north-­central Arizona as a sacred place where their ancestors lived long ago and where they continue to interact with the living. The first non-­Native to note the existence of the one-­hundred-­room pueblo that is Wupatki was US Army Brevet Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves. Sitgreaves was a member of the US Corps of Topographical Engineers (Captain James Simpson, who entered Canyon de Chelly and, as we’ll see, also Chaco Canyon, also was a member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers). Sitgreaves and his men were scouting out routes for future roads. Entering the valley of the Little Colorado River on October  8, 1851, they encountered, as Sitgreaves (1853, p. 9) described it: ruins of stone houses of considerable size, and in some instances of three stories in height. They are evidently the remains of large towns. They occurred at intervals 59

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Figure 8.1.  The artist Richard Kern, embedded with the expedition of the Army Corps of Engineers led by Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, drew this image of two of the structures at Wupatki in 1851. I’m not trying to be a critic here, but this is not his best work.  RICHARD KERN. US CORPS OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS

for an extent of eight or nine miles and the ground was thickly strewed with fragments of pottery in all directions.

The Hopi called the large town Wupatki; in their language, “Tall House.” The identity of the builders of Wupatki was no great mystery to Sitgreaves: The houses resemble in all respects . . . those of the existing pueblos in New Mexico; and the pottery, of a great variety of fabric and pattern, is similar to that now in use among them. (Sitgreaves 1853, p. 9)

Well-­known artist Richard Kern served as the embedded illustrator in the Sitgreaves expedition and produced an early image of Wupatki (figure 8.1). The primary building appears in the background. Sitgreaves’s report generated some interest in the structures there and, eventually, the Smithsonian conducted some research at the site in 1883. It wasn’t until the turn of the twentieth century that a detailed investigation, including preliminary archaeological excavation, was conducted by a team directed by archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes. Soon thereafter, archaeologists Harold S. Colton and Mary Russell-­Ferrell Colton worked to ensure the site’s protection and preservation, which led, ultimately, to its designation by Calvin Coolidge as a national monument in 1924. The first large-­scale excavation of Wupatki was conducted in the 1930s by the Museum of Northern Arizona under the auspices of the federal government. Much of what we know about Wupatki itself and other nearby sites originates in that excavation and subsequent archaeological research conducted in the decades since.

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    61

Site and History: Wupatki proper is a large, multistoried, freestanding pueblo, a truly impressive bit of architecture designed and built by the Hohokam ancestors of the modern Native People of the Southwest. Tree-­ring dating shows construction began about AD 1130 with subsequent bursts of additional building in the late 1130s, mid-1140s, and 1160s, with a final flurry of construction in the 1250s and 1260s. After that there was little if any construction, and it appears that the pueblo was uninhabited by about AD 1300 (Downum et al. 1999). A short hike from the visitor center brings you to the main building (figure 8.2) and a large outbuilding (figure 8.3). Probably about a hundred people lived in the Wupatki “great house,” and walking the paved trail around the building, you really get a sense of a tight community living together in what amounts to a large, beautifully constructed apartment house. The half-­mile loop trail also brings you to a low-­walled, oval enclosure of rock and adobe. This structure is a nicely renovated (in the 1960s and 1970s) example of what is believed to be a ball court, a place where a ritualized ball game imported from Mesoamerica was played, or perhaps the better word is “performed” (figure 8.4). More than two hundred similar structures have been found in the American Southwest. They certainly appear to be places where civic functions of some type were conducted, but whether those functions were based on or even included a ritualized ball game is uncertain. Along with the great house of Wupatki, there are a number of other very cool structures in close proximity that are included in Wupatki National Monument.

Figure 8.2.  The very impressive Wupatki great house.  KEN FEDER

Figure 8.3.  Large structure located adjacent to the main house at Wupatki.  KEN FEDER

Figure 8.4.  The so-called ball court at Wupatki, near the main building.  KEN FEDER

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    63

Figure 8.5.  Map of Wupatki National Monument and the location of the Wupatki great house, along with Wukoki, Lomaki, Box Canyon, Nalakihu, and the Citadel locations.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Access requires only a short drive along the monument road to each site’s parking area and then a brief hike (figure 8.5): 1. Wukoki is a really striking adobe building positioned on the top of a red bedrock deposit (figure 8.6). It has very few windows or doorways and, oriented as it is facing away from the main Wupatki structure, it looks for all the world like a fortress positioned as a sort of bastion of protection of the main habitation. Go right out of the visitor center parking lot and then turn left onto a short spur road to the Wukoki parking lot. From there, walk the quarter-­mile trail to the structure. You can even walk inside of it. The architecture is quite beautiful, and just the overall positioning of the building in its “splendid isolation” (as singer, songwriter, composer Warren Zevon might have described it) creates a stunning, almost otherworldly image. 2. Head back from Wukoki and pass the visitor center along the monument road. You’ll soon see the parking area (on your left) for the next set of buildings. A quarter-­mile hike brings you to the remains of Nalakihu Pueblo and then to the base of a butte. Walk to the top to see the Citadel. The latter is impressive as a result of its location—like a citadel—atop a high butte affording the visitor who makes the tiring walk up to the top an amazing view of the surrounding desert. 3. Follow the monument road to a side road leading to the parking area for Lomaki and Box Canyon. These buildings provide the visitor with additional stunning examples of Hohokam architecture. These pueblos are located adjacent to a couple of small canyons where the residents grew their agricultural crops.

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What I find most impressive about Wupatki National Monument is the close proximity of the structures and the sense that this gives of a large, spread-­ out community, most people living in the great house of Wupatki, but others living in nearby clusters, all connected by the same culture. It’s absolutely worth seeing for yourself.

Figure 8.6.  The truly stunning fortresslike Wukoki structure, located just a few miles from the primary Wupatki. pueblo.  KEN FEDER

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument

9

State: Colorado Address for GPS: 27501 Colorado Highway 184 Dolores, CO 81323 Particulars: National Monument Established: 2000 President: Bill Clinton Administered by: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Size: 176,000 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument does not designate a single site for preservation; it’s a recognition that the 176,000 acres (nearly 7 square miles) included in this monument located in western Colorado contains a dense concentration of archaeological sites: 8,300 of them at last count and an estimated 30,000 altogether, dating from ten thousand years ago to the period of European settlement. The federal agency that administers the monument, the Bureau of Land Management, asserts that Canyons of the Ancients contains “the highest known archaeological site density in the United States.” Okay, it’s not a competition, but it is abundantly clear that there are a lot of sites there. This site density, perhaps more than anything else, led to the national monument designation. That being the case, there are five sites in the monument that bear special recognition: Painted Hand, Sand Canyon, Lowery, Escalante, and Dominguez Pueblos, all dating from 65

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the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Please note that part of Hovenweep National Monument, which is administered by the National Park Service, is technically located within the boundaries of Canyons of the Ancients but is treated as a separate monument. Site and History: Canyons of the Ancients is a sacred place for the Native People of the American Southwest and an important place for anyone, Native or otherwise, for the stories those thirty thousand sites tell of life in the past. The five sites listed above have been signposted and maintained by the BLM for visitation. Access to Painted Hand Pueblo (figure 9.1), with its beautiful, round masonry tower and named for the pictograph of a hand on one of the structure’s walls, has unfortunately been problematic since 2019. The existing gravel access road crosses private land, and a new landowner apparently had concerns about liability if a traveler to the site had an accident. The BLM does not consider the road to Painted Hand to be closed, but they advise travelers to proceed at their own risk. As a long-­term solution, the BLM plans to improve another existing access route located entirely on public land, now scheduled for the summer of 2022. While we

Figure 9.1.  Painted Hand Pueblo, currently inaccessible.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    67

Figure 9.2.  Lowery Pueblo, with its protective roof. Not a pretty sight.  KEN FEDER

certainly look forward to that, it is probably best to forgo a visit to Painted Hand at this time. It’s simply not worth the risk. Sand Canyon is far more accessible, but there’s not much to see. Certainly it was an enormous building, a D-­shaped pueblo with more than four hundred rooms, ninety circular kivas, and more than a dozen masonry towers. Built and occupied in the thirteenth century, it had a resident population of several hundred people. The site was excavated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When excavation ended, there was no effort to reconstruct or renovate the structure. Stabilization consisted of, essentially, burying the building’s walls. Though well signposted, most of what you can see along a well-­maintained trail past the remains of the structure are piles of rubble representing the tops of those buried walls. Make no mistake: Sand Canyon Pueblo was an important site meticulously excavated, but it hasn’t been fixed up for tourist visits. Lowery Pueblo is a different story. Only about 10 percent the size of Sand Canyon Pueblo, Lowery is, nevertheless, a beautiful three-­story structure of about forty rooms. Here, the walls have been stabilized, and there’s even a genuinely ugly (my opinion) and certainly inappropriate and intrusive roof positioned over the main part of the pueblo (figure 9.2). Certainly, it has served a valuable purpose in preserving the building. However, like Casa Grande National Monument, the modern-­looking roof simply looks incredibly inappropriate. Lowery itself consists of forty rooms, and its most impressive feature is a large kiva, about thirty feet in diameter (figure 9.3). Lowery can be easily reached via a paved road.

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Figure 9.3.  The large kiva at Lowery Pueblo.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

The architecture at Lowery along with the ceramics recovered strongly suggest a connection to the people of Chaco Canyon. If you were to inscribe a rough circle about a hundred miles in diameter with Chaco Canyon’s dense concentration of great houses at its center, you have encircled the vast reach of the Chaco culture between about AD 1000 and AD 1450, approximately eight thousand square miles. Within the area of that circle, people shared architectural styles and pottery designs and, in all likelihood, a religion and political system. Imagine Chaco as a sort of capital of an albeit loosely organized great nation, with its residents acting in the way of a nation’s rulers. A visit to Escalante and Dominguez Pueblos, named for two Catholic priests who passed through the region in July 1776, is the highlight of a visit to Canyons of the Ancients, but not because of the two uninhabited pueblos. Dominguez is quite small, containing only four rooms, likely home to a small family. Escalante, which was described in Father Escalante’s 1776 journal, is much more substantial, with multiple rooms and a large kiva. Built in AD 1129, it was inhabited intermittently until 1200 and is recognized as another Chaco outlier with several typical Chacoan architectural elements (figure 9.4). It’s a small version of a Chaco great house with its square layout, large rooms, and substantial kiva. Dominguez and Escalante are near to each other and easily accessible along a paved hiking trail of only about half a mile from the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument–­Visitor Center and Museum, located in Cortez, Colorado, in the heart of the national monument (figure 9.5). For many, the museum, filled with wonderful exhibits and programs about Native People and local history, will

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    69

Figure 9.4.  Section of the Escalante Pueblo.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 9.5.  The Canyon of the Ancients National Monument-Visitor Center and Museum, perhaps the best reason to go to Canyons of the Ancients.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

be the highlight of their visit to Canyons of the Ancients. It’s really quite wonderful (https://www​.blm​.gov/learn/interpretive-­centers/CANM​-v­ isitor​-c­ enter​ -­museum).

Mesa Verde National Park

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State: Colorado Address for GPS: Mesa Verde National Park, CO 81330 Particulars: National Park Established: 1906 President: Theodore Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 52,000 acres First Encounter and Preservation: If doesn’t surprise me at all that there are multiple and conflicting versions of the story I am about to tell. The version I will share briefly here is likely close to the truth. But only likely. The Wetherill family, consisting of patriarch B. K. (Benjamin Kite), matriarch Marion, brothers Richard, Al, John, and Winslow along with their sister, Anna, was a big deal in the American Southwest in the second half of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth. Think the Cartwrights from the old Bonanza television show with Pa, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe, but with a living mother and a sister. Though the primary family business was focused on cattle ranching, the oldest son, Richard, became, among other things, an amateur archaeologist, a tour guide of the archaeological sites he encountered, and eventually the operator of a trading post. To be sure, from our lofty perch in the twenty-­first century, Richard’s role in excavating and popularizing archaeological sites in the 71

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Southwest is, to put it kindly, ambiguous and complex. He did make quite a bit of money exploiting the legacy of Native Americans, but he also clearly possessed and inspired in other non-­Natives a deep interest in Native history that, in turn, contributed to the preservation and protection of archaeological sites from the kind of damage for which he was, ironically, at least partially responsible. I suppose the fact that he chose to be buried in the heart of Chaco Canyon, near his New Mexico ranch, reflects his love and respect for that place in particular and Native history in general. The Wetherill family ranch, which they named “Alamo,” was located in Mancos, Colorado. The family had a mutually respectful relationship with the local Native People, the Utes, and the tribe granted permission to the Wetherills to graze cattle on their land at the place earlier Spanish explorers called Mesa Verde: “Green Table.” The Utes were well aware that there were remnants of houses built by “the Ancient Ones” in the canyons that cut through the mesa. Acowitz, a Ute man who befriended the Wetherills, had gone so far as to tell Richard: “Deep in that canyon and near its head are many houses of the old people—the Ancient Ones. One of those houses, high, high in the rocks, is bigger than all the others. Utes never go there, it is a sacred place” (as cited in McNitt 1966, p. 22). With that as context, it was a snowy December day in 1881 when Richard Wetherill and his brother-­in-­law, Charlie Mason, were rounding up some stray cattle on the mesa. Richard walked to the edge of one of the many canyons that

Figure 10.1.  Early twentieth-century photograph of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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cut deeply through the mesa, peered in the direction of the bottom, and there, on the opposite side, he spied a magnificent ruin, one larger than he had ever seen before and perhaps the one Acowitz had singled out in his discussion with the Wetherills (figure 10.1). The strays could wait. Wetherill and Mason climbed down the cliff as the snowflakes continued to fall. It took them a while, but once they reached the bottom, they entered into the most spectacular of what turned out to be hundreds of Native American cliff dwellings hidden in the walls of Mesa Verde’s canyons. Richard called it “Cliff Palace.” In the following days, Wetherill and Mason collected artifacts strewn across the surface of Cliff Palace and found more cliff structures, including buildings Wetherill called Spruce Tree House and Square Tower House, the names by which they still are called. Soon after Wetherill and Mason encountered Cliff Palace, photographer and writer Frederick Chapin (1892, p. 140) visited the place and wrote: it strikes one as being the ruin of a great palace erected by some powerful chieftain of a lost people . . . There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand cliff wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined castle with dismantled towers.

Recognizing the monetary value of the artifacts found at Cliff Palace and at the other ruins scattered throughout Mesa Verde, the Wetherills began collecting with the intent of selling them. Obviously, money was a motivating factor, but it is apparent that the Wetherill family was fascinated by Native history and wanted to share their knowledge of it and get others interested and appreciative of that history. Some of the artifacts they collected were even put on display at the World’s Columbian Exposition (the World’s Fair) in Chicago in 1893. The Wetherills also used their ranch as what amounted to a hotel, with Richard being the primary tour guide to the cliff houses. At the same time that they were making money on the heritage of the Native People of Colorado, the family also recognized that Mesa Verde was of enormous, even unique importance in American history. Soon after its “discovery” and their excavations, ironically or not, the Wetherills lobbied the federal government to step in to preserve the site for future generations. Richard’s father, B.  K., even wrote the Smithsonian as early as 1889: We are particular to preserve the buildings, but fear, unless the Govt. sees proper to make a national park of the Canyons, including Mesa Verde, the tourists will destroy them. (Harrell 1987, p. 232)

Whether the Wetherills were acting to keep other people away from the ancient structures so they could monopolize the place or were purely hoping to preserve it is unclear; it probably was a combination of both of those motives. In either event, and unfortunately, Wetherill was unsuccessful at convincing the government to intervene.

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Where Wetherill was unsuccessful, the women of Colorado were. Politically active Denver resident Lucy Peabody in concert with Virginia McClurg, a correspondent for the New York Daily Graphic living in Colorado to report on the Indian civilizations of the Southwest, were among the first women to visit and investigate Mesa Verde and began mobilizing women’s organizations through the Colorado State Federation of Women’s Clubs in an effort to convince the government in Washington that Mesa Verde needed protection and preservation. It was their persistence in that endeavor that ultimately was responsible for President Theodore Roosevelt designating Mesa Verde as a national park in 1906. Because of the instrumental role played by women in this process, Mesa Verde is often referred to as the “Women’s Park.” Though the two primary mesas from which you can see cliff dwellings are named for Richard Wetherill and Frederick Chapin, really it is Peabody and McClurg’s work that led to the place’s preservation, and I thank them each time I visit this marvelous place. Now imagine it. On that snowy day in 1881, Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason encountered—not “discovered,” as the Utes already knew about it—the remnants of a “lost” world reflected in the remnants of about six hundred Native communities spread across the canyons that dissected the green mesa. The inhabitants of that world, however, weren’t lost at all. They had simply moved away, and their descendants were living in northern New Mexico as they continue to do today. But in the remnants of the magnificent communities they left behind hidden in the cliffs, their world was revealed. It is a world that you can encounter today (figure 10.2).

Figure 10.2.  Cliff Palace is, by just about any measure, the most impressive of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. 
You can visit Cliff Palace in a ranger guided tour.  KEN FEDER

Villages before European Contact, American Southwest    75

One more thing. Mesa Verde is so important to the history, not just of New Mexico or the United States, but of the world, that it is not only designated a national park, it is also included on the very exclusive list kept by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) of World Heritage Sites. These are places deemed so important, so iconic, so representative of human history and culture, that they are worthy of celebration and study by all of the world’s people. Among those World Heritage Sites are the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge, and the Taj Mahal, along with sites included in this guide: Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point, as well as the subject of this entry, Mesa Verde. In other words, Mesa Verde, Chaco, and Poverty Point are on the same level of world importance as are those other iconic sites. Site and History: Towards the end of the AD twelfth century, the Native People of southern Colorado, a people now called the Ancestral Puebloans, the ancestors of the people encountered by the Spanish in the sixteenth century and who continue to live in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, created a world that is today defined by, more than anything else, its marvelous architecture. Connected by blood and culture to the people of Chaco Canyon, sharing with them ceramic styles, construction practices, and a reverence for macaws and turquoise, the inhabitants of Mesa Verde created a unique series of more than six hundred communities, many of them ensconced in natural niches in the cliffs of the canyons cutting through an enormous, green mesa. It was a phenomenon not seen previously and, when the residents left in the late thirteenth century about a hundred years after its founding—likely as the result of a devastating and prolonged drought—not seen since. You can travel back in time and see this splendid and evanescent cultural legacy today by visiting the place included within the boundaries of Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is a spectacular and enormous park. It would take days for you to see and experience everything the place has to offer. This entire book could be devoted to the possibilities. I can’t do that, obviously, but I’ll offer five levels of engagement here from which you can choose depending on the amount of time you’d like to spend there, your penchant for hiking, and, maybe a little, your level of comfort with heights. The levels are additive; each level presupposes you’ve completed the previous one. First, by way of preface, the park’s entrance is located on Route 160, about ten miles east of Cortez, Colorado. There’s a visitor and research center that includes a museum and shop soon after you turn south onto the well signposted park road. This is the best place to begin your adventure and get an overview of what might initially seem like an overwhelming place. Don’t worry about seeing absolutely everything in one trip. Leave some of Mesa Verde for a subsequent visit! From the entrance to the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum, it’s a twenty-­mile drive that will take the better part of forty-­five minutes to an hour. The museum at Chapin

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Figure 10.3.  Map of Chapin Mesa.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Mesa is located at the starting point of the Cliff Palace and Mesa Top Loop road, where there are pullouts from which you can see many of the cliff dwellings, at least from afar. Level 1: Something everyone can do is drive the Cliff Palace Loop and Mesa Top Loop roads (figure 10.3), located south of Far View Terrace (there’s a hotel and a

Figure 10.4.  New Fire House, visible from the Mesa Top Loop drive on Chapin Mesa.  KEN FEDER

Figure 10.5.  The spectacularly beautiful Square Tower House is visible from a short trail that begins at the Mesa Top Loop drive on Chapin Mesa. Do not miss this one!  KEN FEDER

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couple of eateries here). By the way, if you are planning to tour Mesa Verde for multiple days (which I highly recommend), the hotel at Far View Terrace is the place to stay. There are pullouts along Cliff Palace Loop and Mesa Top Loop with available parking and very short walks to the canyon rim, where you will find fenced overlooks. From those overlooks, you can see with the naked eye and, better yet, a pair of binoculars or a telephoto lens (even something as minor as a 135mm lens) a splendid array of cliff dwellings, including a close look at Cliff Palace and more distant views of Balcony House, Oak Tree House, Fire Temple, and adjacent New Fire House (figure 10.4). On the Mesa Top Loop, along with another nice, distant view of Cliff Palace, there’s also a short hike from a pullout leading to a stunning overlook of Square Tower House, not the largest but one of the most beautiful of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings (figure 10.5). Don’t miss Square Tower House! Level 2. If you are a little more adventurous and would like a closer view of cliff dwellings, at the parking area for the Chapin Mesa museum and before taking either of the loop roads, branch off to the right (west) to Spruce Tree Terrace, where there are restrooms, a shop, and an eatery. From there, take the trail to the Spruce Tree House ruin. Though entry to the structure is forbidden because of rock falls over the past few years, you can get pretty close. For even closer encounters, you can actually walk right up to and even into two of the structures on Chapin Mesa: Cliff Palace (figure 10.6) and Balcony House (figure 10.7). To control crowds, you will need to sign up for a ranger-­led group tour and pay a nominal fee online at

Figure 10.6.  Cliff Palace at ground level, accessible on a ranger-guided tour.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 10.7.  Balcony House. Accessible on a ranger-guided tour.  KEN FEDER

https://www.recreation.gov/ticket/ facility/233362. Both hikes are fantastic, and the rangers do a great job. Note of caution: Entry to both Cliff Palace and Balcony House requires climbing wooden ladders, which replicate the originals used by the inhabitants (figure 10.8). The Cliff Palace ladders are relatively short and there is little elevational exposure. That means that even if you have a minor fear of heights, you should be fine. Balcony House is another story. The main ladder is pretty tall (about thirty feet) and there is exposure; don’t look back when you’re on that ladder. If you get dizzy just looking Figure 10.8.  Balcony House ladder. You must climb this ladder on the tour to reach the interior of this cliff dwelling. If you can’t climb a ladder or have an extreme fear of heights consider forgoing a visit to Balcony House. KEN FEDER

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at figure 10.8, Balcony House might not be for you. The entrances to both of those hikes are located along the Cliff Palace Loop. Level 3. Extend your stay another day and take the twelve-­mile, forty-­five-­minute drive to Wetherill Mesa (figure 10.9). It’s never as crowded as Chapin Mesa, and there are two beautiful cliff dwellings you can explore (only in the summer), Long House and Step House, as well as several more you can see from a distance. Park at the end of the road where there’s a lot and a kiosk with rangers to answer your questions and guide your experience. The kiosk is also where you meet your ranger for the tour of Long House you reserved and paid for back at https://www​

Figure 10.9.  Wetherill Mesa map.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 10.10.  Long House on Wetherill Mesa, accessible on a ranger-guided tour.  KEN FEDER

Figure 10.11.  View of Nordenskiöld dwelling, visible from the Wetherill Mesa trail.  KEN FEDER

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.recreation.gov/ticket/facility/233362 (figure 10.10). From the kiosk, follow the Long House Loop road, a five-­mile paved “trail” on which the Park Service used to provide a tram. You now have to walk that pavement to access trailheads to overlooks of other cliff dwellings, including Kodak House and the Nordenskiöld (figure 10.11). These are quite impressive as well, and by all means check them out if you want an inclusive experience. Here are the lengths of some of the trails at Wetherill Mesa. All distances are round-­trip from the kiosk. Obviously, you can shorten your hike by visiting a few of these places without returning to the kiosk each time. To Step House: 1-mile round trip To Nordenskiöld overlook: 1.8-mile round trip To Longhouse overlook: 3.2-mile round trip To Longhouse (for the ranger-­guided tour): 2.25-mile round trip

Level 4. There are other sites at Mesa Verde that are readily accessible, including the Far View Sites complex and Cedar Tree Tower. These aren’t cliff dwellings and not quite as impressive, but if you want to check everything off the list, visit those as well.

Figure 10.12.  The petroglyph panel accessible from the Petroglyph Point Trail. The trail is moderately strenuous. If you’re in good health, enjoy hiking, aren’t very afraid of heights, and not averse to a bit of scrambling (just a little and just hand over hand), you will probably enjoy this hike.  KEN FEDER

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Level 5. There are many hiking trails in Mesa Verde that afford the visitor wonderful vistas and plenty of solitude. My favorite is the Petroglyph Point Trail, accessible at Spruce Tree House. It is a moderately strenuous trail, the views are spectacular, and, at the halfway point of the loop, there’s a lovely little rock art panel (figure 10.12). After the panel, there’s a bit of a scramble and even a little climb back to the top of the mesa. Be forewarned: You need to be reasonably physically fit to complete this hike. Finally, the Park Service does offer other ranger-­led hikes on an intermittent basis to some of the ordinarily inaccessible cliff dwellings. Make sure to ask about the availability of hikes to Square Tower House. I’ve not been lucky enough to have been at Mesa Verde when rangers were offering that particular hike, but considering the amazing beauty of Square Tower House, it would be well worth the moderately strenuous hike. Reservations for the ranger-led hike to Square Tower House and Mug House, another cliff dwelling, can be made at https://www​.rec​ reation​.gov/​ticket/​facility/​233362. Tickets for all of the ranger-led tours can be made beginning 14 days in advance of your visit. Don’t delay. Tours fill quickly.

Aztec National Monument

11

State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 725 Ruins Road Aztec, NM 87410 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1923 President: Warren G. Harding Administered by: National Park Service Size: 318 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The earliest confirmed sighting by a non-­Native person of the remains of what became known as the “Aztec Ruins” dates from 1859. During his visit to the site in that year, geologist Dr. John S. Newberry noted the presence of “large pueblos, handsomely built of stone, and in a pretty good state of preservation” (1876, p. 80) along the Animas River in northern New Mexico. He described well-­appointed rooms in the abandoned pueblo and the presence of potsherds scattered across the surface. Finally, and this is wonderfully precocious, Newberry declared that, based on his examination of the architecture of the ruin, “the people who built and occupied these structures belonged to the common aboriginal race of this region, now generally known as the Pueblo Indians” (1876, p. 80). It is amusing that Newberry instantly recognized that the local Pueblo (Hopi) People had built it and lived there. Unfortunately, beginning in about 1876, commentators credited 85

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Figure 11.1.  Photo of Aztec Pueblo, dated from 1890.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

the five-­hundred-­room structure to—and named it after—the Aztec People who lived more than fifteen hundred miles to the south in Mexico. We have seen this previously among our national monuments in the case of Montezuma Castle, which non-­Natives named for the fifteenth-­century Aztec ruler, though he and his people had nothing to do with its construction. An early photograph of the pueblo looking much as it did when Newberry encountered it dates from about thirty years later in 1890 (figure 11.1). Early excavations of Aztec (the name, though wildly inappropriate, stuck) were conducted beginning in 1916 and continued through the early 1920s, led by Earl Halstead Morris under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The museum actually obtained title to the land and, for a time, owned the site. Aztec had already been looted to a degree but was otherwise rather well-­ preserved, and excavations revealed an incredible number of artifacts untouched by the looters, including hundreds of stone spear or arrow points, knives, and axes and fragments of more than 100 sandals, 45 pendants, and 60,000 beads—parts of necklaces and bracelets (Lister and Lister 1990). Morris and his workers exposed part of a preserved ceiling replete with wooden beams and also an intact wooden ladder. Early efforts at tree-­ring dating revealed that at least part of the construction could be dated from AD 1115. Though this research occurred during an early period of American archaeology, the excavations were conducted in a highly professional manner and the results were stunning. Recognizing the great national significance of the site, in 1923 the American Museum sold it to the federal government for one dollar. Soon after, and now under the control and protection of the United States, the site was designated

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as Aztec Ruin National Monument (later changed to Aztec Ruins National Monument). Though it has been rebuilt several times, the visitor center/museum began its life as archaeologist Earl Morris’s on-­site house. More recently, a friend and colleague, Dr. Michelle Turner, directed excavation of one of the outlying structures at Aztec. This work contributed to her doctoral dissertation. Site and History: The remains of the Aztec pueblo are impressive (figure 11.2). The nine-­hundred-­ year-­old building once boasted more than four hundred rooms, being, essentially, a three-­story apartment house with walls reaching a height of thirty feet in places (figure 11.3). The building material consisted primarily of large stone bricks held together with clay mortar. Ceilings and roofs were made with wooden logs, some of which can still be seen. There’s no need to merely imagine what Aztec might have looked like at the height of its occupation. There are modern communities of Hopi People living in large, self-­contained (or nearly so) pueblo apartment complexes. Aztec is very readily accessible to the public. The visitor center is located at the end of Ruins Road (paved), where there is a good-­size parking lot. The pueblo itself is located immediately behind the visitor center. Leaving the center, there is a well-­marked, half-­mile round-­trip trail that takes you right up to and even in to parts of the building. The architecture is quite beautiful. Though there is no set size for the individual stone bricks that make up the walls, the builders did a wonderful job of keeping the

Figure 11.2.  Broad view of the main Aztec great house.  KEN FEDER

Figure 11.3.  The three-story Aztec great house.  KEN FEDER

Figure 11.4.  View of the artfully designed and constructed walls at Aztec, here showing courses of rather beautiful dark-green rock used as bricks.  KEN FEDER

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appearance regular and the walls straight. Not satisfied just to make the walls stable, the builders also made them beautiful. You will find places where a lovely green rock was chipped into rectangular bricks, adding a dash of color to an otherwise plain, tan wall (figure 11.4). Whatever its inhabitants called it, Aztec was a substantial village, a large community of a farming people living in northern New Mexico more than nine hundred years ago. Pottery styles, raw materials, and the age of the place suggest a relationship between its residents and those of the even larger communities located in Chaco Canyon to the south. In other words, like Chimney Rock and Lowery Pueblo (in Canyons of the Ancients), Aztec was another Chaco outlier, a village connected to the substantial community at Chaco Canyon. Once federal ownership of the site was established in 1923 and the site became a national monument, significant funding became available for stabilization and reconstruction of the main Aztec building in order to render the ruins safe, attractive, and accessible to visitors who wished to engage with Native American history and culture. Significantly, the Great Kiva had fallen into ruin and became a fetid pool after infrequent rainfalls. Kivas were and are to Hopi People, both ancient and modern, ceremonial places where traditional worship takes place. In other words, they were and are the equivalent of churches, mosques, or temples. Monies made available during the Depression allowed for the 1934 reconstruction of the Great Kiva there. Today, you can walk into this reconstruction and, perhaps, gain a better

Figure 11.5.  The reconstructed Great Kiva at Aztec. Kivas were ceremonial gathering places for the village’s residents.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 11.6.  The reconstructed interior of the Great Kiva at Aztec. Clearly, this was and is a beautiful space for worship.  KEN FEDER

appreciation for the feel of such ceremonial structures than possible at any other site in the American Southwest (figure 11.5). It really is a quite beautiful space in its reconstructed interior (figure 11.6).

Bandelier National Monument

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 15 Entrance Road Los Alamos, NM 87544 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1916 President: Woodrow Wilson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 33,677 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Like all of the other earthworks, cliff dwellings, great houses, and rock art memorialized in US national parks and monuments and highlighted in this book, the structures and art contained within Bandelier National Monument were well known to the Native People who lived among them long before non-­Native folks arrived on the scene. In fact, the residents of the modern Cochiti, San Ildefonso, San Felipe, Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, and Zuni Pueblos (villages) have long been familiar with those structures and fully understood that their direct ancestors built and lived in the cliff dwellings and surface structures that can be visited there today. Among the first non-­Natives to encounter the place and study its archaeology was the Swiss-­born researcher Adolph F.  A. Bandelier, for whom this national monument is named. Born in 1840, between 1880 until his death in 1914,

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Bandelier devoted much of his life to the study of Native American history, both in the American Southwest and in South America. Bandelier first entered Frijoles Canyon in New Mexico, the location of the clusters of structures that would bear his name, in 1880, guided there by José Montoya, a Native resident of Cochiti Pueblo who shared his knowledge of the place’s history with him. Bandelier conducted archaeological excavations in the canyon, collected artifacts, and also conducted ethnographic research among the Native People, hoping that an understanding of the living Pueblo People might give him insights into the lives of their ancestors, the people who had constructed the buildings he encountered there. Along with his scientific research, Bandelier had literary pretensions, writing a novel, The Delight Makers, based on his knowledge of the Pueblo People. Yup, you can still find copies and even a digital version. It’s not terrible. Bandelier’s focus was on the archaeology of Frijoles Canyon. It took another archaeologist, Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett, to lobby for the area’s designation as a national monument. We have encountered Hewett before, in chapter 1. He is the archaeologist who worked with Congressperson John F. Lacey in crafting the American Antiquities Act of 1906. Under that act, Bandelier was named a national monument in 1916. The dense cluster of residences, both cliff dwellings and freestanding structures, the excavation by Native inhabitants of artificial caves called cavates as a way of adding rooms to the cliff dwellings, and the direct connection of the buildings to living people—the canyon was occupied almost up to the time of the Spanish entrada—all reflected the place’s significance and contributed to its national monument status. The first lodge for visitors was built in the canyon in 1907. Later, during the Depression in the 1920s and 1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers built another lodge and about thirty other support structures. Many of them are still in use and are artifacts of the twentieth century. Site and History: The structures at Bandelier were built and occupied between AD 1150 until 1550. Long House is a nearly continuous structure of interconnected rooms built along and leaning against the south-­facing cliff (figure 12.1). Much of the structure was two or three stories. Reconstructed in 1920, Talus House is an example of what Bandelier’s cliff dwellings looked like when they were occupied. The roof of Long House provided additional living space and, using ladders, residents climbed several feet above roof level and carved out rooms from the soft sandstone above. These are the aforementioned cavates, cool refuges in the heat of summer (figure 12.2). Below Long House, on the canyon floor, the occupants of Frijoles Canyon also built an impressive freestanding pueblo. Called Tyuonyi, the building’s remains are quite beautiful, consisting of about four hundred rooms laid out in two stories in a near circle (figure 12.3). The National Park Service commissioned this very

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evocative depiction of what Tyuonyi may have looked like when it was occupied (figure 12.4). The Pueblo Loop Trail is short (1.4 miles round trip) and a pretty easy hike from the visitor center (figure 12.5). It passes through and around Tyuonyi, with its large kiva, or ceremonial building, and then climbs to the level of Talus House and Long House, where you are able to walk along the cliff dwelling and see rock art, even faded examples of some of the painted surfaces of the back wall of the building. Also, the Park Service has provided wooden log ladders, typical of the kind used by the Native People of the region, to access a few of the cavates. These ladders are not particularly tall, and unless you have an extreme fear of heights, you really should explore the artificial caves. It’s nothing like the Balcony House ladders at Mesa Verde which, I admit, are a bit scary. Along the way the trail affords the visitor a beautiful bird’s-­eye view of Tyuonyi; trust me, it’s worth the hike if only for the perspective it provides of this very impressive building. That hike should take no more than about an hour. If you are a little more adventurous, you can continue off the main Pueblo Loop Trail onto the Alcove House Trail. Round trip, that will add about another mile to your hike, but it brings you to a very impressive cliff structure entirely separate from Long House. Located about 140 feet above the canyon floor—and it looks like a lot more when you’re standing there—Alcove House was, as the name implies, located in a natural alcove or shallow cave in the cliff. It’s relatively small and was home to only about twenty-­ five people. Accessible by stone stairs and four ladders—one of which is

Figure 12.1. Long House at Bandelier. The main trail takes you right up to Long House.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 12.2.  One of the cavates carved into the cliff above the roof of Long House at Bandelier. Some of these extra rooms are accessible by wooden ladders built by the Park Service.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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Figure 12.3.  Tyuonyi, the large pueblo located on the floor of Frijoles Canyon in Bandelier.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

pretty tall—it’s an amazing and impressive place with spectacular views across the canyon. The hike is worthwhile if only to view the impressive setting of Alcove House from below. Getting up into it is not for the faint of heart or, at least, anyone with a fear of heights (figure 12.6). The Pueblo Loop along with the Alcove House trail should satisfy most visitors.

Figure 12.4.  Artist’s conception of Tyuonyi Pueblo at the peak of its occupation. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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Figure 12.5.  The Pueblo Loop Trail at Bandelier National Monument.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

If, however, you’d like something a little more adventurous, drive on State Highway 4 for about 12 miles from the park headquarters to the trailhead to the Tsankawi Ancestral Puebloan village. It’s about a 1.5-mile hike from the trailhead to the pueblo, and you’ll see petroglyphs on rock outcrops along the way. The path is narrow in places and there are ladders to climb. Trail guides are available at the visitor center.

Figure 12.6.  Alcove House, a dwelling separate from the main habitation at Bandelier, is accessible by ladder.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICES

Chaco Canyon National Historical Park

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: Nageezi, NM 87037 Particulars: National Historical Park Established: 1907 (National Monument); 1980 (National Historical Park) President: Theodore Roosevelt (National Monument); Jimmy Carter (National Historical Park) Administered by: National Park Service Size: 34,000 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The Native People of the American Southwest, including the Navajo and Hopi, have long known of the existence of a tight cluster of gigantic pueblos in an isolated canyon in northwestern New Mexico. They have long viewed it as a sacred place where their ancestors once lived and where their spirits continue to exist. That being said, the first record of the structures by a non-­Native person dates from 1823 when New Mexico was still a Mexican territory. The governor of New Mexico, José Antonio Vizcarra, wrote of his army’s encounter with the remains of impressive buildings in Chaco Canyon when they were on a military expedition in their ongoing battle against the Navajo People. As mentioned previously in the Canyon de Chelly entry, a contingent of army engineers led by Lieutenant James H. Simpson were seeking convenient routes for trade and travel in the Southwest. During their expedition, he wrote 97

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Figure 13.1.  Richard Kern’s 1849 rendition of the Chacoan great house he called “Weje-Gi.“  RICHARD KERN. ARMY CORPS OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS

about entering what he called Cañon de Chaco. On August  27 and 28, 1849, Simpson and a group of soldiers traveled through the canyon. Simpson noted in his journal the remnants of imposing adobe structures, each one within walking distance from the other, in this otherwise seemingly isolated and desolate place (Simpson 1964). He described several of the great houses in his journal, applying the names that his Mexican guide provided (Simpson 1964): Weje-­gi; Una Vida; Hungo Pavie; Chettro Kettle; Pueblo Bonito; Pueblo del Arroyo; Peñasca Blanca. Close approximations of all of those names are still used. In a few cases, Richard Kern, the artist embedded in the expedition, produced wonderful illustrations of the buildings (figure 13.1). In the nineteenth century, the canyon’s great beauty and enormous archaeological potential attracted scholars from the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They recovered tens of thousands of artifacts, which ended up largely in museums back east. Richard Wetherill, who we encountered in our discussion of Mesa Verde, was similarly drawn to Chaco, even claiming a homestead there in 1901. You should not be surprised to learn that Wetherill conducted excavations near one of the largest of the structures, Pueblo Bonito, and felt so connected to the place that when he died—he was murdered, but that’s another story— he had his remains buried nearby. His grave and that of his wife can still be seen there. Wetherill’s digging at Chaco was extremely controversial—done for financial reasons as well as intellectual curiosity—and the federal government made sure to use the force of law to hold fast to the land in the canyon, leading in 1907 to its designation, first as a national monument and then, in 1980, as a national historical park. Site and History: Imagine a line of more than a dozen large apartment buildings, each three or four stories high, positioned like beads on a thread several miles long (figure 13.2). The

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Figure 13.2.  Locations of the great houses at Chaco Canyon.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

metaphorical thread is a river in a dry area where rivers are rare and impermanent. Now imagine that the buildings are aligned with significant locations having to do with the position of the moon and the sun. Finally, imagine the entire complex dates to more than eleven hundred years ago. All of that imagining reflects the

Figure 13.3.  Hungo Pavi great house at Chaco.  KEN FEDER

Figure 13.4.  A large kiva at the Chetro Ketl great house at Chaco.  KEN FEDER

Figure 13.5.  Pueblo Bonito great house at Chaco.  KEN FEDER

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reality of Chaco Canyon. As mentioned in the entry on Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon is another World Heritage Site. Chaco is a spectacular place, a place of stark beauty and rich history. From the visitor center, you can drive the monument road (paved) to a series of pullouts, where you can then take brief hikes to the pueblo buildings, including: Una Vida (and a little past this there is a beautiful petroglyph panel); Hungo Pavi (figure 13.3); Chetro Ketl (figure 13.4); Pueblo Bonito (figure 13.5, the largest of the great houses at Chaco and, well, anywhere; it’s four stories and consists of about eight hundred rooms); and Pueblo del Arroyo (figure 13.6). There’s also a short hike from Pueblo Bonito to Casa Rinconada, a gigantic kiva (figure 13.7)—even larger than the restored example I discussed at Aztec National Monument. Farther along that same trail is another structure, Tsin Kletsin. The paved road ends at Pueblo del Arroyo and from there you can hike about .3 mile to Kin Kletso (figure 13.8), and then another .7 mile takes you to Casa Chiquita. If that’s not enough hiking for you, another 2.7 miles and a bit of a climb up a mesa brings you to Peñasco Blanco. One of the draws of this hike is a side trail to the right (north) and not quite half a mile from Casa Chiquita, which takes you past a petroglyph panel and then back onto the main trail (note: this is entirely separate from an additional series of petroglyphs located behind Pueblo Bonito). Don’t stop there! If you’ve made the commitment to walk that far, in about 1.2 more miles past the end of the petroglyph trail, veer to the left and across a dry (most of the time) wash to a little alcove along the rock face. You’ll find a sign there that says Supernova Pictograph. Put your back up against the cliff and look

Figure 13.6.  Pueblo del Arroyo great house at Chaco.  KEN FEDER

Figure 13.7.  Casa Rinconada, the great kiva associated with Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon.  KEN FEDER

Figure 13.8.  Kin Kletso great house at Chaco.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 13.9.  The remarkable “supernova”pictograph at Chaco, perhaps depicting the appearance of a guest star in AD 1054. Its remnant today is the Crab Nebula.  KEN FEDER

up to see three images: a crescent, an asterisk, and a palm print (figure 13.9). Based on the age of the art and the juxtaposition of the crescent and asterisk, the panel may depict an eyewitness representation of a supernova—a stellar explosion—creating what astronomers today call the Crab Nebula. That stellar explosion was visible from Earth in the summer of AD 1054 and first appeared when the moon was in a thin crescent phase. We know this because Chinese astronomers wrote about the appearance of a “guest star” in the sky at that time, providing a precise date. That guest was as bright as a quarter moon and, standing against that cliff face and looking east into the wide-­open sky, Native American astronomers would have seen that surprising visitor in the sky. If you aren’t hiked out at this point (I admit it; I was), there’s another hike of three miles round trip (beginning about a mile east of the visitor center) to another abandoned structure, Wijiji. Another hike well worth the exhaustion begins behind Kin Kletso and leads to the top of the mesa and back around to right above Pueblo Bonito for a truly stunning bird’s-­eye view of the eight-­hundred-­room, three-­story structure (I took the figure 13.5 photo from that vantage point). Extend that hike and you’ll see yet another pueblo, the Pueblo Alto Complex. Chaco is breathtaking; the remnants of the individual structures are awe inspiring. The rock art, especially the possibility that one of the panels represents the Crab Nebula supernova of AD 1054, is remarkable. But it is the size and clustering of so many structures so close together that makes Chaco unique. You just don’t see that anywhere else in the Southwest. Add to this the mystery that there’s not

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a lot of evidence of occupation at these large sites. Chaco does not appear to have been a major population center. However, there was a lot of turquoise processing here, and more than 200,000 pieces of turquoise, including carvings and lots of beads, were recovered here. Was the primary function of the buildings at Chaco ceremonial? It’s unclear. We know Chaco was the center of a society based on the extensive network of roads, some built with steps leading up steep inclines, all leading to the canyon. I’ve already discussed national monuments that are considered to be “outliers” far from Chaco but connected in myriad ways: Aztec, Chimney Rock, Lowery Pueblo (in Canyons of the Ancients). We also know that important people were buried here, especially in Pueblo Bonito, often with a plethora of finely made objects. One of those burials, a man in his forties when he died, included more than eleven thousand turquoise beads, more than three thousand shell beads, and other pieces of jewelry (Kennett et al. 2017, p. 2). DNA extracted from the bones of nine individuals buried in Pueblo Bonito shows that they were related in the female line, reflecting, perhaps, that the ruling family was a matrilineage, a group in which membership and inheritance was passed down from women to their children. As is the case in so many of the entries in this book, it is difficult to know for certain what Chaco meant to the people who built it. However, nearly a thousand years after the great houses were built, the rock art was produced, the fine objects were manufactured, and the dead laid to rest, we can appreciate the magic of the place and revel in its beauty. Look, Chaco can be daunting; there’s just so much to see and all those relatively short hikes between structures and trailheads really do add up. See a little; see a lot. Whatever you’re comfortable doing. Even just stopping at the five great houses accessible from the park road (Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Bonito, and Pueblo del Arroyo) will give you an inspiring perspective of the wonderful world that was—and is—Chaco Canyon. There is a campground at the park, but no motel. As a result, for most people Chaco is an exhausting but exhilarating one-­day excursion. Chaco is accessible only along a dirt road. Though graded and passable in a two-­wheel-­drive car, it is bumpy and dusty. If it has rained recently, do not attempt the drive. From US Route 550, three miles southeast of Nageezi, go south on Route 7900 and then turn right onto Route 7950. It’s about twenty-­one miles to the visitor center once you turn onto 7900; only about eight of those miles are paved, and you should expect a bumpy ride. Go slow, and you should be fine if it hasn’t rained recently. The loop road around the ruins is paved.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 26 Jim Bradford Trail Mimbres, NM 88049 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1907 President: Theodore Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 533 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The first mention by a white settler of the Gila Cliff Dwellings dates from 1878 in a journal kept by Henry B. Ailman (though his description became widely available only in 1983 when it was edited and annotated by Helen J. Lundwell and published by the University of New Mexico Press). Ailman was a prospector and miner living in Silver City, New Mexico. Along with four friends, Ailman found out that they all were about to be called for jury duty. Then, as now, not that many people relish the idea of devoting a bunch of their time sitting on a jury. To avoid their inconvenient civic duty, they hurriedly arranged for what they claimed was a prospecting trip along the Gila River, but they were, instead, looking for Indian “ruins” and relics while they hid from court. It was during this trip that they encountered cliff structures about fifty miles from Silver City and along the west fork of the Gila River in a natural cave at the top of a cliff, about two hundred feet above the river. 105

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Figure 14.1.  Bandelier’s 1884 schematic drawing of Gila Cliff Dwellings published in 1892.  A.F. BANDELIER. U.S. GOVERNMENT

Ailman’s description of the site and its location clinch the identification of the ruins as the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The site was noted and a very poorly rendered drawing was produced in 1885 when an army unit led by Lieutenant G. H. Sands explored it and casually dug up artifacts. On what turned out to be just their first trip to the place, the Ailman group found little more than some dried-­out corncobs on the ground. On a subsequent visit about ten years later, they found a very small hidden chamber that had functioned in the manner of a miniature crypt inside of which they plundered the remains of a human infant. A local magazine later asserted that the skeleton had been a member of an “ancient race of dwarfs,” but an analysis of the remains showed quite clearly that they were those of a normal human infant. So, people were aware of this cliff dwelling, at least in Silver City, by the late 1800s. The site also was described in an extensive report commissioned by the federal government and written in 1879 by researcher Adolph Bandelier, for whom Bandelier National Monument is named. Bandelier even supplied a schematic map of the site and the “four caverns” in which he located architectural remains during his visit in 1884 (1892, p. 361; figure 14.1). National monument status was conferred on the site largely on the basis of Bandelier’s discussion of it in his book Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880–1885, Part II.

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Site and History: Gila National Monument gained its national monument status because of a series of adobe structures built in three natural caves located near the top of a cliff overlooking the Gila River. The buildings are quite beautiful and impressive, and their location is spectacular. Perhaps not quite as impressive looking as Montezuma Castle, a visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings provides one significant advantage: You can walk right up to them on the Cliff Dwellings Trail and even walk inside of them. This also provides an opportunity to see the world from the same perspective as the original inhabitants, something you simply can’t do at Montezuma (figure 14.2). The small visitor center has a museum with artifacts and information about the cliff dwellings and the historical Apache People who call the area home. Drive past the visitor center to the end of Arizona State Highway 15 (about two miles). There you will find a building, the Trailhead Contact Station (where a nominal fee is charged), and the trailhead for the Cliff Dwellings Trail. It’s a one-­mile loop. Follow the signs across a wooden bridge that spans the west fork of the Gila River. Other small bridges along the trail cross and recross Cliff Dweller Creek. You’ll gain about 180 feet in elevation as you ascend to the dwellings; it’s not all that strenuous, but on a hot day it will get you breathing. It’s a rocky trail at the top; flip-­flops are not a good idea (well, ever in my opinion, but especially not on a rocky trail). You’ll be able to see the cliff dwellings above your location along the trail when you get about halfway to the top (figure 14.3) and, at the top, you’ll be right there among the structures (figure 14.4) and can even climb up a ladder

Figure 14.2.  “View from inside the Gila Cliff Dwellings.“  KEN FEDER

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Figure 14.3.  “The approach to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The structures can be seen in the two cave openings. This is your first glimpse of the buildings as you hike up the cliff trail.“  KEN FEDER

Figure 14.4.  “Note how the adobe walls cling to the interior of the natural walls of the cave.“  KEN FEDER

and modern stone steps to enter into the caves where the adobe structures are located (figures 14.5 and 14.6). Everything about the place is lovely. The trail over the Gila River and Cliff Dweller Creek, through a beautiful wooded area, is wonderful. The cliff dwellings have been stabilized and are quite impressive. Dendrochronology—tree-­ ring dating—indicates that the buildings were constructed between AD 1276 and 1287 and likely abandoned only a few decades later. They are assigned to the Mogollon culture. As shown in the Dictionary of Terms that’s not what the people called themselves; it’s merely a designator applied by archaeologists to a bunch of sites in the Southwest that share a geography and pottery types (just as the terms “Hohokam,” “Sinagua,” and “Ancestral Puebloan” do). Too often in archaeology we become so focused on the cool stuff—the beautiful ceramics, stunning rock art, and impressive architecture—we neglect the fact that what archaeology is all about is people. The folks who lived in the Gila Cliff Dwellings more than seven hundred years ago weren’t that different from modern people, both Native and settler. I will bet that the reaction you have to the stunning beauty of their territory and the impressive architecture of the remarkable homes in which they lived is likely similar to that of its inhabitants. Celebrating their lives through the study of the things they made, used, and left behind and by visiting the place in which they built their homes, carved out a living, and raised their children is the ultimate goal and contribution of archaeology. There are several other trails in the monument, all wonderful, but I will highly recommend one of them: the Trail to the Past. Located near the Lower Scorpion Campground, the round trip is only about half a mile, with a small pueblo at the end. Along the way, you’ll also see some very impressive,

Figure 14.5.  The walls of the Gila Cliff Dwellings seem nearly to organically emerge from the walls of the cave.   KEN FEDER

Figure 14.6.  Square tower in Gila Cliff Dwellings.  KEN FEDER

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artfully rendered pictographs painted in red (figure 14.7). There are anthropomorphs (human-­like beings) and geometric shapes and well worth the short, flat hike. By the way, if you’re like my wife and have a keen eye for rock art, you may find other small panels as you drive through the monument. Keep a sharp eye out and make sure to fully pull over for a closer look.

Figure 14.7.  Geometric pictograph at the base of the canyon, accessible along the Trail to the Past.  KEN FEDER

Hovenweep National Monument

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State: Utah and Colorado Address for GPS: Hovenweep National Monument McElmo Route Cortez, CO 81321 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1923 President: Warren G. Harding Administered by: National Park Service Size: 784 acres First Encounter and Preservation: You may have realized at this point that I have issues with notions of the “discovery” of at least some of the Native American sites that ended up being designated as national monuments. Hovenweep is a case in point. You will often read that the place was discovered by a Mormon missionary, William D. Huntington, in 1854. And yes, he did visit the place. But discover it? Nope. He was brought there by Native guides who already were well aware of its existence. Huntington may have been the first non-­Native to visit the place and is unintentionally responsible for alerting the non-­Native community in the Southwest of its existence. But he certainly didn’t discover it (figure 15.1). Unfortunately, as was often the case, once the existence of Hovenweep became known, the plundering and wanton destruction for fun and profit began. In 1903, 111

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researcher T. Mitchell Prudden conducted an extensive survey of ruins of the Southwest and took particular note of the vandalism at Hovenweep, going so far as to note that “the scientific value of these ruins has been thus seriously impaired” (Prudden 1903, p. 263). In 1917 and 1918 agents of the Smithsonian Institution, especially researcher J. Walter Fewkes, conducted research at Hovenweep and concluded that protection and preservation by the federal government would be the only way to save the site(s). Though they were too late to protect the place from looting, the government began to actively protect Hovenweep’s structures, leading to its designation as a national monument in 1923. Site and History: There is archaeological evidence for the nearly continuous occupation of the area within the borders of Hovenweep National Monument by Native People beginning more than ten thousand years ago and up to and beyond the period of initial European and Euro-­American entry into the Southwest. But what people come to see in the monument for the most part dates from the two centuries between AD 1150 and 1350. This is the period of construction of impressive buildings and towers. There are six groups of structures you can see in the monument. Five of them—Cajon, Cutthroat Castle, Goodman Point, Holly, and the Hackberry and Horseshoe Trail group are accessible via unpaved roads that may require four-­ wheel-­drive vehicles or, at least, high clearance vehicles depending on the condition of those roads; their condition can vary greatly depending on precipitation as well as use. Fortunately, the sixth grouping—the Square Tower group in Little Ruin Canyon—is the most impressive and also the most accessible. A trail originates at the

Figure 15.1.  Hovenweep trail map.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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monument visitor center and leads you directly to the first structure, Stronghold House. The trail then follows around the rim of the shallow, narrow canyon where the buildings are located (figure 15.1). From this vantage point you’ll be able to see several of the structures to the east along both edges of the canyon (figure 15.2). Look directly across from Stronghold to see the Twin Towers (figure 15.3). Then, from Stronghold House, go right on the trail to Unit House on the south rim of the canyon. Next, continue on the trail until you reach a side trail to the left. That trail brings you out onto what amounts to a little peninsula that juts into the canyon, at the end of which is Tower Point ruin. Return back to the main trail by walking along the other side of the peninsula to Hovenweep Castle, the largest and most impressive of the houses at Hovenweep (figure 15.4). Continue past Hovenweep Castle and get a great view of the multistory Square Tower located at the base of the canyon (figure 15.5). The trail leads to the end of the canyon, where it curves back around to Hovenweep House, another residence. Continue past Hovenweep House, where you will encounter Rim Rock House and then the Twin Towers, two tall structures side by side that you saw at the beginning of the hike from the other side of the canyon. Continue on the trail from there until it veers to the left and takes you down into the canyon—it’s only about eighty feet deep—and then back up again at the other side, near to where you began the hike. Follow the trail to the left again back to Stronghold House. From there you can see most of the structures you’ve just hiked by in a broader context. It’s great to have binoculars or a telephoto lens to obtain a different perspective from your

Figure 15.2.  This is your view of the canyon and stone towers that hug the rim from the beginning of the trail. Stronghold is in the foreground, Twin Towers is to the left, and Rim Rock House is in the foreground just to the right of Twin Towers.  KEN FEDER

Figure 15.3.  The view of the very impressive Twin Towers across the canyon from the building called Stronghold.  KEN FEDER

Figure 15.4.  Hovenweep Castle, one of the residences at Hovenweep.  KEN FEDER

Figure 15.5.  “The multistory Square Tower built on the base of the canyon. Hovenweep Castle looms above and to the right.“  KEN FEDER

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position near Stronghold House. It’s an easy, albeit uphill hike back to the visitor center from there. You can take the hike I have just described in the opposite direction if you prefer. Overall, the round-­trip hike, including the side trip to Tower Point, is about two miles, maybe a little more, and should take about two hours, including stopping along the way at each of the accessible structures on the rim of the canyon. Pretty clearly, some of the structures in the Tower Group at Hovenweep were residences, including Hovenweep House and Hovenweep Castle. The purpose of some of the other structures, however, is unclear. The Twin Towers, the Tower Point structure, and Square Tower likely would not have been residences. They each have a rather small footprint and are just tall; well, they are towers. Could they have been storage facilities, perhaps for corn? Maybe. Some suggest that they were, in fact, lookouts, places where residents of Hovenweep Castle or Hovenweep House could have surveyed their surroundings for dangers in the form of strangers. That could make sense but what was the purpose of Square Tower, for which the entire group around the canyon gets its name? That tower was built at the bottom of the canyon, which makes little sense as a lookout. I’ve seen the possibility presented that fires may have been built on the tops of the towers to signal folks living in some of the other structures located in the other nearby groups. Since the tops of the towers are gone, there’s no way of testing for the existence of those fires and, once again, Square Tower’s location and context simply don’t conform to that explanation. Oh well, let’s admit that we aren’t sure about the overall meaning of the towers, but that won’t prevent you from enjoying this intriguing and beautiful group of buildings and this wonderful national monument.

Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park

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State: Arizona Address for GPS: 1 Park Road, #2217 Petrified Forest, AZ 86028 Particulars: National Park Established: 1962 (National Monument in 1906) President: Theodore Roosevelt (National Monument); John Kennedy (National Park) Administered by: National Park Service Size: 146,930 acres First Encounter and Preservation: There’s just no question: petrified wood is incredibly cool. It is, after all, wood turned to stone, and large pieces look just like logs, with bark and even apparent tree rings (figure 16.1). Petrified wood can be produced when trees fall into wet sediment, becoming encased so quickly that decay doesn’t take place immediately. Instead, parts of what were living trees become fossilized as the organic matter in the wood is replaced by minerals that reflect the fabric of the wood itself, often producing a natural model of the tree in exquisite and colorful detail. Though conditions have to be just right, petrified wood is found all over the world, and one of the most impressive concentrations of it is found in northeastern Arizona. Brevet Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, who in his 1853 report described his encounter with the Wupatki ruins while conducting a survey for the Army Corps 117

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of Topographical Engineers, commented in that same report on the remarkable profusion of petrified wood in northeastern Arizona. Only a couple of years later, another army surveyor, Lt. Amiel W. Whipple, reinforced Sitgreaves’s report, this time reporting from within the actual boundaries of what was to become the Petrified Forest National Park: Quite a forest of petrified trees was discovered to-­day, prostrate and partly buried in deposits of red marl. They are converted into beautiful specimens of variegated jasper. One trunk was measured ten feet in diameter, and more than one hundred feet in length. (in Ash 1969, p. D5)

As an increasing number people became aware of the locations where petrified wood could be found, much of it quite beautiful and obviously ancient, they began collecting it and concern was raised that something needed to be done to preserve at least some of the region where it was being found. It isn’t at all surprising that when President Theodore Roosevelt named the first of the national monuments very soon after passage of the American Antiquities Act of 1906, in that same year, in fact, the Petrified Forest was among the first five. Most of the petrified wood you see in the park is about 225 million years old and can be identified as belonging to an extinct species of conifer tree (Araucarioxylon arizonicum). During the Depression, the federal government, through the Civilian Conservation Corps, built roads and various structures in what was then Petrified Forest National Monument to make viewing the petrified wood more amenable to tourist visits. In 1940, the Painted Desert Inn, now a museum, was built at the north end of the monument originally for housing visitors. The monument was named a national park in 1962. Figure 16.1.  A sample of extremely colorful petrified wood in Petrified Forest National Park.  KEN FEDER

Site and History: Though designated first as a national monument and then a national park due to the presence of all of that remarkable petrified wood, it was long clear that there had been a vibrant Native American presence in the area. Army surveyors and settlers were certainly not the first people to be amazed by the region. Archaeological research shows clearly that there are several hundred Native American sites in the park, and a few are quite impressive, readily accessible, and have been highlighted by the National Park Service.

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Figure 16.2.  Map of the main road through the Petrified Forest National Monument with locations of Agate House, Newspaper Rock, Puerco Pueblo and nearby rock art, and the Painted Desert Inn.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

A paved road runs north/south through the park, with entrances at both ends. There are multiple viewpoints along that main road with pull-offs that allow visitors to see and even hike among some of the more impressive concentrations of petrified wood (figure 16.2). Some of those pullouts are located to allow the visitor to view some of the evidence for the historical presence of Native People. The specific places from south to north, are:

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Figure 16.3.  Agate House, a pueblo built of petrified logs in Petrified Forest National Monument.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

1. Agate House. If you wondered if there was direct proof that Native People were aware of the presence of petrified wood, Agate House, a rather astonishing eight-­room pueblo dating from more than one thousand years ago, provides definitive evidence. Most of the Native buildings you’ll see in the American Southwest are made of adobe with wooden logs used to construct roofs and ceilings. Agate House is different. The builders actually used fragments of petrified logs as the primary building material in their construction of Agate House, cementing them together with a clay mortar (figure 16.3). It’s small and only a single-­story structure—solid stone logs are exceptionally heavy, and it must have been quite challenging to lift them to produce even its one-­story walls—and presents a very different look to Native architecture. It’s well worth stopping here to see it. 2. Newspaper Rock. This is one of two very impressive and readily accessible concentrations of rock art in the park. As you drive north on the park road, several miles north of the turnoff for Agate House, you’ll see the parking area for Newspaper Rock on the left (west). One of several “newspaper rocks” in the Southwest (another one is located within the borders of Bears Ears National Monument, figure 18.1), they all share one thing in common: a plethora of rock art. When I visited the site as a child, there was an access trail down to the petroglyphs but, for

Figure 16.4.  Newspaper Rock, a readily accessible and densely inscribed petroglyph panel in Petrified Forest National Park.  KEN FEDER

Figure 16.5.  Petroglyph of a bent-over man with a cane, viewable from the ridge overlooking Newspaper Rock.  KEN FEDER

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various reasons (including visitor safety as well as protection of the art), the National Park Service long ago closed that trail and provides a lookout where you can examine the art from a distance. There are sighting scopes there for your use, and you really can get some marvelous views of the art. Looking straight down, in the center is a large angular block of stone, more or less rectangular in shape, with lots of incised images on the two faces of the block that meet at a right angle (figure 16.4). There are spirals, human-­like images, handprints, and footprints; my favorite is an arrow with what appears to be the sun rising from behind it. There’s more there that in my experience people miss. But not you! Make sure to gaze both to the right and left of the large block, closer to the top of the little mesa on which you’re standing. Though not as dense, there’s plenty of very impressive art on both sides, including a marvelous image of a bent-­over person walking along with the assistance of a cane, a good reflection of how I feel after a long day of driving and hiking in the search for petroglyphs (figure 16.5)! Can you find it? 3. Puerco Pueblo and associated rock art. Not too far past Newspaper Rock, there’s a parking area on the right bearing the Puerco Pueblo signpost. The pueblo is impressive and one of the largest structures in the area, but the real draw at this turnoff is a mostly paved trail that brings you alongside some really gorgeous rock art. One image reminds me of a woven blanket and is very artfully rendered (figure 16.6). The other, and I admit, my favorite along this hike, is a very tall bird, with a long, arching

Figure 16.6.  Beautiful blanket petroglyph located on the rock art trail near Puerco Pueblo.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 16.7.  Large bird petroglyph that appears to have a tiny person in its beak. Located on the rock art trail near Puerco Pueblo.  KEN FEDER

beak in which it appears to be holding a tiny human being though, in truth, the images may be separate and not directly interacting (figure 16.7). Whichever the case, it’s incredibly cool. 4. If you continue north you will eventually enter into the very beautiful Painted Desert portion of the park. The overlooks are stunning with rock formations seemingly painted in watercolor shades of pink and white. This is also where the previously mentioned Painted Desert Inn is located. The current building was built in the 1930s and serves as a museum where you can see one of the most iconic pieces of rock art anywhere in the Southwest: the Painted Desert mountain lion (figure 16.8). The petroglyph was found on Blue Mesa, a bit south of Puerco Pueblo, and unfortunately, removed from its original location in the 1930s in order to Figure 16.8.  The iconic mountain lion petroglyph, now protect it from vandalism. housed in the Painted Desert Museum at the north end of Of course, you lose a lot the park.  KEN FEDER

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of its meaning and context removed from the location intended by the artists. Nevertheless, it’s certainly worth a stop. One more thing. If you have your heart set on bringing some petrified wood specimens back home as keepsakes, by all means do so, but do NOT take any petrified wood out of the park. There are plenty of places on private land outside of the park that sell petrified wood—raw specimens or fancy, polished knickknacks made of the material. If you take petrified wood from the park, you are in violation of a number of federal laws. If caught, you’ll have the material confiscated and there are stiff fines. Be forewarned; there is a wonderful (terrifying, hilarious) book devoted to letters sent by miscreants who illegally took souvenirs from sacred places who are now begging that the Park Service negate the “curse” that seemingly afflicts them for their misdeeds (Thompson and Orr 2014). Seriously. Now, while I can’t promise divine retribution, I can promise you that there are people like me who, if they see you stealing samples in the park, will report you to the nearest ranger. With a photo of your license plate. I’m not saying I’ve done that. But I did exactly do that. So, as the old admonition goes, “take only pictures, leave only footprints.” Otherwise, well, who knows?

Petroglyph National Monument

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 6001 Unser Boulevard NW Albuquerque, NM 87120 (This is the address of the visitor center. There’s no rock art here, but stop here first for a map and to ask questions of the ranger.) Particulars: National Monument Established: 1990 President: George H.W. Bush Administered by: National Park Service Size: 7,532 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Petroglyph National Monument is singular. It’s the only national monument expressly dedicated to the preservation of Native rock art and designated on the basis of that art. There is a profusion of more than twenty thousand images located in three noncontiguous areas within the boundaries of the monument. There is a visitor center in a fourth location where there is no rock art to be seen. Petroglyph is not an isolated monument far off the beaten track. The three separate clusters of accessible art are located within and at the margins of the city of Albuquerque. One of the trailheads is within walking distance of a shopping plaza. Beginning in 1540 with the expedition of Francisco Coronado, a succession of conquistadors, explorers, colonists, and missionaries passed through or settled in the 125

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area today included within the city limits of Albuquerque. Surprisingly, none of them so much as mentioned the presence of rock art in the area (Winship 1904). Certainly they must have known about it because the Pueblo People they encountered and who they were attempting to convert to Christianity were still creating images on the volcanic boulders that define the geology of the region. Beyond this, in the midst of the thousands of petroglyphs concentrated around Albuquerque, Spanish settlers carved their own symbols into some of those boulders in the seventeenth century. Yet, even in Garrick Mallery’s 1894 voluminous compendium of what he called “picture writing of the American Indian,” though, mentioning Inscription Rock, located only about 120 miles away in what today is El Morro National Monument, Albuquerque’s concentration of rock art is ignored. It seems that serious interest in the art wasn’t expressed until much more recently. National monument designation was inspired largely by local concerns about development and sprawl. Credit the people of Albuquerque for recognizing the great importance of the local geology and history preserved in the volcanic landscape in which their city is located. Concerned about development in the 1960s when Albuquerque was experiencing rapid growth, the city set aside large sums of money to, essentially, beat the developers to the punch and purchase some of the most sensitive, still undeveloped land. It was a bold and timely move. Working with the federal government, the city purchased sensitive areas, preserving impressive, ancient volcanic landscapes littered with large boulders that had, in turn, served as the metaphorical canvasses on which Native People had produced a wealth of spectacular art. As a result of local involvement, Petroglyph National Monument is today jointly administered by the city of Albuquerque and the federal government. As part of that partnership, two of the petroglyph viewing trails, Boca Negra and Piedras Marcadas, are on land controlled by the city. There is a separate, minimal parking fee ($1.00 during the week and $2.00 on weekends) at Boca Negra, which the city had already designated as a park in 1972—Indian Petroglyph State Park— then administered jointly with the state of New Mexico. The visitor center building began its life as a private home and was, for years, the residence of Dr. Sophie Aberle, an anthropologist who the local Hopi People called “Measuring Lady” in their language. She sold the house to the Department of the Interior in 1990, and it became the visitor center soon after that. Be sure to stop by to pick up maps and get any of your questions answered by the ranger on duty. Remember, there is no petroglyph trail or viewpoints near the visitor center. You’ll need to drive (not very far) to the petroglyph trailheads described below. Site and History: Some of the rock art you will see at Petroglyph may be as old as three thousand years, but most of it dates more recently from the period between AD 1300 and up to and including the arrival of Spanish missionaries and settlers in the area in about 1600. The volcanic rock “canvas” for the petroglyphs is primarily black basalt, and

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the art shows up as lighter images etched, pecked, or scratched into the darker surface. The clusters of images along each of the trails in the monument together constitute the equivalent of an extensive outdoor gallery filled with exquisite art. It must be admitted that the meaning of the individual images or of the enormous body of work as a whole is uncertain. Some of it, maybe most of the images, had a sacred and religious significance to the artists. Perhaps some of it represents the recording of historical incidents—the spotting of a magnificent and elusive mountain lion; an encounter with a large, venomous snake—though, in truth, it may not be reasonable to separate the sacred from the historical. Consider European art in the Renaissance. So many of the images are of Jesus or Mary or angels or represent stories from the Bible. We recognize it as art, but certainly themes sacred to the artists underpin the work. The precise meaning of the art at Petroglyph National Monument, especially to those of us, like me, who are not Native People, may always be elusive. We can, nevertheless, appreciate the beauty, skill, creativity, and imagination reflected in the art that surrounds us along the trails.

Figure 17.1.  Map of Petroglyph National Monument with the locations, accessible by paved roads, of the visitor center and the primary petroglyph trails located at Boca Negra Canyon, Rinconada Canyon, and Piedras Maradas Canyon.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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As noted, there are three separate groupings of rock art at Petroglyph National Monument, each accessible from its own parking area and via its own trail(s) (figure 17.1):

Figure 17.2.  Iconic macaw petroglyph at the Boca Negra section of Petroglyph National Monument.   KEN FEDER

1. Boca Negra Canyon. These petroglyphs are by far the most easily accessible in the monument, and there are some very cool, iconic images located here. From the visitor center, drive north on Unser Boulevard, pass Montaño Road on your right, and turn right onto the access road to Boca Negra Canyon. That access road takes you on a short loop along which there are separate parking pullouts for three individual trails leading to the art: Mesa Point, Macaw, and Cliff Base. Perhaps the most famous of the individual images located here is that of a macaw (on, obviously enough, the Macaw Trail; figure 17.2). Macaws are tropical birds and recent DNA testing of their remains found at archaeological sites in the Southwest indicates that the Native People obtained the birds from northern Mexico and Guatemala (George et al. 2018). We’ve already encountered evidence of macaws in the form

Figure 17.3.  Mask petroglyph, Boca Negra section.  KEN FEDER

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of their bones at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park and Aztec National Monument. Other really cool images you’ll be able to see at the three short Boca Negra trails include a mask (figure 17.3) and what appears to be the image of a planet or a star (figure 17.4). Mesa Point involves hiking up some steps, but it’s not too strenuous. Macaw and Cliff Base are very easy trails. 2. Piedras Marcadas Canyon. Head out of Boca Negra Canyon via its access road loop and turn left back onto Unser Boulevard in the direction of the visitor center. Take a left onto Montaño Road and then take another left at the first intersection you see. Figure 17.4.  Star petroglyph, Boca Negra section.  KEN FEDER From that road, you’ll come to a “Y.” Branch off to the right onto Golf Course Road. Pass through the intersection with Paseo del Norte and then make a left onto Jill Patricia Street NW. There’s a driveway leading to a small parking lot on the right (north) soon after you make

Figure 17.5.  Hand petroglyphs, Piedras Marcadas section, Petroglyph National Monument.  KEN FEDER

Figure 17.6.  Coyote and snake petroglyphs, Rinconada Canyon section.  KEN FEDER

Figure 17.7.  Mountain lion petroglyph, my favorite piece of rock art in the monument, Rinconada Canyon section.  KEN FEDER

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that turn. You’re in the right place if you see a Valvoline and a veterinary hospital on the right after you pull into the lot. The parking area for the trail to Piedras Marcadas Canyon is a little to the left of that. The hike is a 1.5-mile loop across flat, sandy ground. It’s an easy walk. You’ll see hundreds of petroglyphs of geometric designs, human hands (figure 17.5), anthropomorphs, and animals on the black basalt boulders on your right, all along the way in. 3. Rinconada Canyon. This requires a little bit longer hike, about 2.2 miles round trip. It is a little more strenuous than the Piedras Marcadas Canyon trail (there is some uphill walking), but I think some of the most amazing art in the monument is found along this trail. And don’t be impatient; you won’t see much art until you’ve walked a good distance from the trailhead. Then it gets really good. Look especially for the coyote and snake panel (figure 17.6) and, my personal favorite, the mountain lion (figure 17.7). There aren’t many rock art images of mountain lions in the Southwest; see especially the depiction at the Petrified Forest National Park (see figure 16.8). The payoff is well worth the extra effort for this trail.

Bears Ears National Monument

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State: Utah Address for GPS: 567 W. Main Street Bluff, UT 84512 Particulars: National Monument Established: 2016 President: Barack Obama Administered by: National Park Service and National Forest Service Size: 1.3 million acres First Encounter and Preservation: Nobody, and, I repeat, nobody has purchased or is reading this book for a political rant by me. I will make an effort here—a heroic one, if I may say so—not to write that rant. Here’s the context. It should be abundantly obvious that I have a passionate respect, love, and reverence for the places designated as national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments. I am deeply moved by their soaring and ethereal beauty, by their inspiring vistas, by their wonderful hikes, and by the splendid stories of humanity embedded in the artifacts, buildings, monuments, and art that reside especially in the parks and monuments on which this guide focuses. Okay, I’m obsessed, but in a good way, and I’ve written this guide to proselytize about these places and to encourage your visiting them.

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As a result, and needless to say, I was thrilled when, during his final month in office in 2016 (in fact in the final days of his presidency, on December 28), President Barack Obama designated more than 1.3 million acres in southeastern Utah as our most recently named national monument, “Bears Ears,” named for a couple of geological eminences that sort of look like the erect ears of a bear. I had been to the region a number of times before the designation and was well aware of the magical beauty of the place and its incredible density of historical resources, including sites related to Native Americans, but also of early Mormon settlers of Utah. Wherever you fit on the political spectrum, please understand that President Obama was appropriately and entirely legally exercising his power as president as conferred on him by the American Antiquities Act. Also, please understand that no privately owned lands were confiscated to complete the boundaries of the monument; all of the land in Bears Ears National Monument was already owned and administered by the federal government, specifically by federal agencies, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the US Forest Service. Also, please understand that this was not a precipitous or unilateral act by President Obama, a last-­minute effort to hurt his political enemies in Utah. The movement to designate a large section of southeastern Utah as a national monument began more than a decade before and was inspired largely by five Native American Peoples: Hopi Tribe, Zuni Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Tribe, and Ute Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservations (https://bearsearscoalition​ .org). The region is, for them, a sacred place, a place where their ancestors lived and where their spirits still reside. Anyone who tells you otherwise, that President Obama had no right to designate a national monument, that private landholdings were seized, or that this was a done on a whim without anyone’s knowledge, is simply not telling the truth. In fairness, there were lots of people, including some Native People, who strongly opposed the designation. Many were concerned about the loss of economic opportunities for mining, natural gas exploration, and grazing rights, all of which are permitted on federal lands, but monument status would have curtailed some of that. Within any society, there will be differences in how people want the government to act. Some people will have their wishes fulfilled. Some will be disappointed, even in the case of iconic national parks—the Grand Canyon is an example. Mining interests had fits over what they perceived to be the violation of their right to extract resources in what has become an iconic monument that draws millions of tourists from all over the world each year. In this case, opposition to the monument was about self-­interest and making money on the resources available on public lands. I have no problem with people wanting to make money (I hope this book sells well and I make some money on its sale). I heat my home with oil and cook my food with propane, so I would benefit from the discovery of a huge oil reserve in Bears Ears. But the place is of such incredible significance and beauty,

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I’m all for disappointing the miners and drillers and protecting and preserving that significance and beauty for us in the present and for future generations. Unfortunately, the previous administration, with President Donald Trump at its head, disagreed, and in 2017 that administration effectively rescinded Obama’s action, eliminating Bears Ears National Monument and, in a manner that one (well, I) might characterize as throwing a bone, named three very small patches as monuments, cutting the original acreage by 85 percent. There’s no legal precedent for one president voiding a previous president’s monument designation. That power is not in the text of the American Antiquities Act. The Trump administration’s actions were brought to court. No legal decision was made before the 2020 election. With Joe Biden as the duly elected president of the United State, it became his job to move on the monument designation for Bears Ears. On October 7, 2021, President Biden restored the original designation and boundaries for Bears Ears. Site and History: Bears Ears is a vast territory with an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites. Yeah, it’s amazing. I will not regale you with a listing of all of those. Instead, I will briefly touch on a handful of places that are very accessible and that at least scratch the surface of the historical significance of the monument.

Figure 18.1.  The intensely inscribed Tse’ Hone (Rock That Tells a Story), or Newspaper Rock.  KEN FEDER

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1. Newspaper Rock: Newspaper Rock in Utah (as already noted, there is another petroglyph panel that has the same name in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona) has long been a state historic monument in Utah (figure 18.1). The borders of Bears Ears include Newspaper Rock. What the Navajo call “Tse’ Hone,” meaning “rock that tells a story,” Newspaper Rock is an impressive cluster of images taking up about two hundred square feet on a large chunk of sandstone. Look closely at figure 18.1 and you’ll see what appear to be people, some riding horses and shooting arrows, bison (American buffalo), deer, bighorn sheep, footprints, shields, wheels, and all manner of other depictions of sometimes mysterious creatures or spirits. Like so many other densely designed petroglyph panels, there doesn’t seem to be a single, coherent story told or sequence to the more than six hundred images seen on Newspaper Rock. Instead, there appear to be many “stories” on the rock, made over an extensive period of time, from as much as two thousand to as recently as five hundred years ago (the recent date is confirmed by the appearance of hunters on horseback). It really is a very impressive tableaux and is very easy to get to. From US 191 in Utah, head west on Highway 211 for twelve miles. There’s a clearly marked, paved parking area on the right and a very short walk to the art. 2. Butler Wash Ruins is a very photogenic cliff dwelling located in a natural alcove in the rock face overlooking Butler Wash, where an intermittent

Figure 18.2.  Butler Wash Ruins, a lovely little cliff dwelling visible from a pullout along Highway 211.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 18.3.  Rock art panel in Bluff, Utah.  KEN FEDER

stream flows south into the permanently flowing San Juan River (figure 18.2). You can see the ruins from a parking area located just off of Utah Highway 95. It’s well signposted. From the parking area, it’s a pretty easy half-­mile hike across bedrock to the rim of the wash. You can see the structure very well from there, especially with binoculars or a telephoto lens. 3. There are a number of beautiful rock art panels just north of the San Juan River and along the southernmost margin of Bears Ears. The Wolfman Panel, for example, has a fascinating cluster of petroglyphs that includes what appears to be a person, a couple of birds (one with its wings outstretched), some complex geometric figures (figure 18.3), and a character that sort of looks like a half-­human, half-­wolf creature (figure 18.4). Drive west out of Bluff onto Route 191 South. In about 4.2 miles 18.4.  “The Wolfman,” seen in the same continue straight onto Route 163 Figure rock face as figure 18.3.  KEN FEDER

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(don’t turn left to stay on 191). In less than a mile, turn right onto a dirt road (County Road 262, located at milepost 40.5 and across from Bluff Airport Road). It’s bumpy but pretty well maintained, and you need to drive only about a mile on that dirt road. Then, before you pass over a cattle guard, turn left and drive about a quarter mile to the parking area. Park there and walk west (to the left). That brings you in about .2 mile back to the rim of Butler Wash. You’ll see a little structure on the other side of the wash. From there, continue walking along the cliff to your left to the Wolfman Panel. It’s not a terribly long hike—less than a mile round trip from where you’ve parked—but you will scramble a bit and need to squeeze through some boulders. 4. Lower Butler Wash. This area has some really spectacular rock art, most easily accessible by taking a guided boat tour of the San Juan River. There are plenty of options; we took a guided tour that takes a few hours from Bluff to Mexican Hat (a town with a geological feature that sort of looks like a sombrero). There are stops along the way to walk around the rock art as well as a cliff dwelling (River House Ruin; figure 18.5). The Lower Butler Wash Panel has a bunch of anthropomorphs, each about

Figure 18.5.  River House Ruin, a cliff dwelling north of the San Juan River in Bluff, Utah.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 18.6.  The absolutely intense Lower Butler Wash petroglyph panel. Butler Wash empties into the San Juan River, which runs through Bluff, Utah. The San Juan servers as the southern border of Bear Ears. There are hundreds upon hundreds of petroglyph scattered along the San Juan and up Butler Wash.  KEN FEDER

five or six feet tall, wearing very interesting headdresses (figure 18.6). It’s very impressive and beautiful. The art style, called Fremont, is common in southern Utah and dates from between two thousand and seven hundred years ago. 5. Procession Panel: This is one of the most intriguing panels of the rock art in and around Bluff. It includes images etched into the rock of 179 people, walking from different places on the rock face, and converging at a single point. The people are all facing the same direction and in a line; thus the name “procession panel.” Follow the directions to the Wolfman Panel but instead of turning to the left when you reach the cattle guard, continue driving north to a parking area and trailhead about 6.6 miles from your turn from Route 163. A four-­wheel-­drive vehicle would be great, but a two-­wheel-­drive car with high clearance should be fine under most circumstances; obviously, check road conditions before you go. The hike from there is about 1.4 miles (one way, and you’ll need to follow the trail back to your vehicle). For a detailed description of the hike and finding the panel, see http://www​.hikingwalking​.com/destinations/ut/ut_se/ bluff/procession_panel/procession_panel_detail. What I’ve provided here is the briefest of descriptions of sites to see in Bears Ears, focusing on those located in and around Bluff. Go to Bears Ears yourself and

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explore to your heart’s content. I am incredibly grateful that its status as a national monument has been reaffirmed and it will forever remain a monument to the history and culture of the Native People of southeastern Utah.

Canyonlands National Park

19

State: Utah Address for GPS: 2282 Resource Boulevard Moab, UT 84532 Particulars: National Park Established: 1964 President: Lyndon Baines Johnson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 740,000 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Canyonlands is one of the “big five” national parks located in southern Utah, along with Arches, Bryce, Zion, and Capitol Reef. There is such a concentration of national parks here for a simple reason. Southern Utah has some of the most spectacular scenery, vistas, and geology in all of the United States. From stone arches, delicate stone spires, and vaulting cliffs painted by nature in a crazy quilt of various hues of red, brown, tan, and white, Utah’s parks have it all. One of them, Canyonlands, also has some of the most astonishing rock art found not just in the United States, but in the world. As in many of the sites in this book, it isn’t clear who the first non-­Native person was to see the Native art that is the focus of this entry; however, one story is perhaps the most intriguing. Horseshoe Canyon in Canyonlands is extremely isolated and includes a morass of side canyons (figure 19.1). In other words, it’s a 141

Figure 19.1.  The astonishing landscape of Horseshoe Canyon, a geographically separate section of Canyonlands National Park. Horseshoe Canyon has some of the most remarkable rock art paintings anywhere in the world.  KEN FEDER

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perfect place for outlaws to hide out and, apparently, one of those outlaws, at least according to legend, was the, well, legendary Butch Cassidy. He appears to have hidden in Horseshoe Canyon in the late 1800s and, while there’s no evidence he encountered the pictographs I’ll be describing here, I’d like to think he did. Later, into the early twentieth century, ranchers used trails in the canyon to move their stock around and, in all likelihood, they encountered the art. Canyonlands was originally proposed for park status in the 1950s by Bates Wilson, at the time the superintendent of Arches National Park, located just northeast of the phantasmagorical landscape of Canyonlands. Not much happened until the Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall (one of his ancestors left his name on the rock face at El Morro National Monument), threw his support behind the proposal in the early 1960s, culminating in its designation by President Johnson in 1964. Canyonlands, like so much of southern Utah, is geologically stunning and not just bordering on but flat-­out achieving an otherworldliness that alone is worth the visit. Here, I will focus on four clusters of rock art located in the noncontiguous section of Canyonlands called Horseshoe Canyon. There are lots of other examples of rock art in the 740,000 acres that make up the park, but most of those require at the very least a high-­clearance, four-­wheel-­drive vehicle. I’ll stick to the most accessible and most impressive site here. Site and History: I consider myself to be a decent writer. I hope you agree and have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy my discussions concerning Native history and culture represented in our incredible national parks and monuments. With that hope in mind, I will freely admit, I simply do not have the words to adequately describe the Great Gallery at Horseshoe Canyon. The art is simply so spectacular, moving, engaging, intriguing, mind-­blowing, and flat-­out gorgeous, my words simply can’t do it justice. Seriously. I’ll tell you how to get there to see it for yourself, I’ll talk a little about the age of the art, and I’ll attempt to describe it, but here I think it best to let the images do the talking. It’s the right thing to do. The art style in Horseshoe Canyon is called “Barrier Canyon.” I realize that’s a bit confusing, but Horseshoe Canyon used to be called Barrier Canyon. The style is found throughout southern Utah and consists of pictographs, usually painted in red but with elements of black and white included, often of anthropomorphs. These human-­like images tend to be armless and legless, and their torsos are elongated or stretched out and taper toward their bases, but it is their faces that are their most remarkable features. They are haunting, often with large, hollow eyes; you’ll sometimes see the phrase “googly eyes,” but that trivializes the art and doesn’t adequately convey the ethereal beauty, maybe even the spookiness, of their appearance. In Horseshoe Canyon and elsewhere, the individual anthropomorphs can be quite large; some of the spirit beings, for want of a better name, are more than seven feet tall and are imposing, even breathtaking.

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It is very difficult to date the art at Horseshoe Canyon in particular and Barrier Canyon art in general. For example, most people have at least heard of the very valuable and accurate technique called radiocarbon dating, but that can’t be applied here. Carbon dating works only on organic material, something that was part of a living thing such as a plant or an animal. The pigment used in Barrier Canyon art is usually mineral based, so carbon dating doesn’t apply. One attempt at dating Barrier Canyon art is based on a comparison of the style of the two-­dimensional paintings with three-­dimensional sculptures found eight miles away from Horseshoe Canyon. Those sculptures show artistic similarities with the painted images and were recovered from an archaeological deposit pretty firmly dated from about seven thousand years ago. So the style in general and the Horseshoe Canyon art in particular could be that old. In another analysis, the rock surface on which some of the images in Horseshoe Canyon were painted was determined to have been exposed to weathering only at most two thousand years ago (Pederson et al. 2014), so the paintings must be less than two thousand years old. It’s like dating a painting indirectly by dating the canvas on which it’s painted. Needless to say, both interpretations are controversial. There we stand, with great uncertainty concerning the art’s age. There is no great uncertainty regarding the beauty and majesty of the pictographs you’ll see in Horseshoe Canyon. Once you reach the bottom of the canyon in a slow descent of about eight hundred feet, proceed to the right (south)

Figure 19.2.  High Gallery pictographs. As the name suggests, the art is located high up on the cliff face. You’ll need a telephoto lens or binoculars to fully appreciate this pictograph panel.  KEN FEDER

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along a well-­marked trail. That trail takes you past four clusters of Barrier Canyon pictographs: 1. High Gallery (on the left (east) wall of the canyon and, as its name implies, high up on the cliff. (figure 19.2) 2. Continue on the trail heading south and, after crossing a small (usually) stream, you’ll encounter Horseshoe Gallery, up close and on the right (figure 19.3). This panel has two segments separated by a large boulder. There are lots of anthropomorphs, animals including what appear to be dogs, and a hunting scene (figure 19.4). 3. Continue and on the right you’ll see Alcove Gallery. For whatever reason, this has faded far more than the other art you’ll see, and it has also been the victim of considerable vandalism. 4. Farther along and at the end of our hike is the Great Gallery, which is absolutely stunning (figure 19.5). Along an approximately 200-foot-­long segment of the concavely curving wall near the base of the cliff are clusters of about two dozen spectacular anthropomorphs, some greater than life-­ size and primarily in shades of red but with some black and white accents (figure 19.6). They are truly splendid and haunting works of fine art (figure 19.7). I’ve said this before (Feder 2016) but when I saw this art, it was the equivalent of encountering Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s Pieta, or the Sistine Chapel. The art in the Great Gallery is the equal of

Figure 19.3.  Horseshoe Gallery. You can closely approach this ground-level art; do not touch any of it. I especially like the hunting scene to the right of the boulder.  KEN FEDER

Figure 19.4.  The hunting scene at Horseshoe Gallery. Note the hunter with a bow and arrow on the far right of the panel.  KEN FEDER

Figure 19.5.  Okay, here’s what you came all that way—3.5 miles—for: the Great Gallery. And it was worth the hike! Here’s a broad view of many, but not all, of the more than two dozen anthropomorphs in this panel.  KEN FEDER

Figure 19.6.  I have no words adequate to describe the surreal beauty of these more than six-foot-tall phantasmagorical anthropomorphs. I’ll let the art speak for itself.  KEN FEDER

Figure 19.7.  A cluster of variously sized anthropomorphs, perhaps spirit beings, rendered in reds and whites.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 19.8.  Another cluster of anthropomorphic spirit beings. Each one is unique. Note the one with animals painted onto his chest.  KEN FEDER

the great art seen anywhere else in the world. It took my breath away and, even more unexpectedly for those who know me, it took my voice away and I could barely whisper in the art’s presence (figure 19.8). This usually loquacious and verbose archaeologist could summon little more than “Wow.” The address listed at the beginning of this entry is for the Canyonlands Visitor Center. To access Horseshoe Canyon, there is a more than thirty-­one-­mile drive along an unpaved but graded road that should not require a four-­wheel-­drive vehicle, at least if it hasn’t rained recently. You access the beginning of that road from Utah Route 24 (which is paved and accessible as an exit off of I-70). At 24.3 miles after you’ve turned onto the graded road from Route 24, you’ll encounter a signed turnoff on the right to the Hans Flat Ranger Station. Do not take that turn; continue straight through for 5.1 more miles on the unpaved road. At the 5.1-mile mark, you’ll see a sign to the Horseshoe Canyon trail on the right. Turn right and in 1.7 miles you’ll reach the end of the road and the edge of the drop-­off into the canyon. There’s a wide parking area there and a pit toilet/outhouse. The trailhead into the canyon is well marked. The trail itself is moderately strenuous and part of it is through sand, so it’s like walking on the beach. For 3.5 miles! And then 3.5 miles back for a 7-mile round-­ trip hike. The ascent back out of the canyon is saved for the tail end of your long

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day of driving and hiking. If that concerns you—and it should—remember you’ll be able to stop at the four waypoints along the way, where you can engage with some of the most remarkable art you’ll ever see, so it’s worth the journey. It’s a long and tiring day for sure. But if you like hiking, are in good health, and your car’s shock absorbers are in good condition, you’ll enjoy it immensely. The drive alone will take a couple of hours, and the hike will take several more hours altogether. Bring lots of water and food, and stop and rest in the shade whenever you can and need to. Most important: prepare to be amazed.

Capitol Reef National Park

20

State: Utah Address for GPS: Route 24 Torrey, UT 84775 Particulars: National Park Established: 1937 (National Monument) 1971 (National Park) President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (National Monument); Richard N. Nixon (National Park) Administered by: National Park Service Size: 242,000 acres First Encounter and Preservation: You will sometimes hear individuals claim that national monument designations are imposed by outsiders and that the entire national monument program is a conspiracy, nothing more than a cynical tool used by the feds in Washington to grab power away from local people. This very claim has been made most recently about Bears Ears National Monument. Such claims are ludicrous. We have seen time and again in this book that national monument designation is regularly the result of lengthy and passionate lobbying efforts on the part of local people, including local Native People, who have a special and personal appreciation and respect for places of great historical significance and natural beauty in their own backyards and, for Native People, places where their ancestors live and where the spirts of those ancestors still reside. It could scarcely be otherwise. After all, how would a bunch 151

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of politicians and bureaucrats in D.C. know about these places scattered across the United States, much less have an inclination to capriciously take them over? In fact, local boosterism and a love and reverence for the historical and natural landscape is precisely and explicitly at the heart of the 1937 designation of, first Capitol Reef National Monument and then its transformed status as a national park in 1971. Though many people contributed in this process, two men stand out for spreading the word about the incredible beauty and rich history of what became Capitol Reef National Monument and then Park: Joseph Hickman and his brother-­in-­law Ephraim Pectol, two early twentieth-­century residents of Wayne County, Utah. Beginning in 1921 the two worked diligently to achieve monument status for what they called “Wayne Wonderland.” Hickman and Pectol even hired a professional photographer to produce promotional imagery as part of a campaign to convince the president of the United States to recognize the significance of the land within Wayne Wonderland and to make it a national monument. Hickman was elected to the Utah state legislature in 1924 and got about sixteen acres of what became the much larger Capitol Reef National Monument declared a state park. His efforts to get national monument status for the park were sadly derailed, however, when soon thereafter he drowned in a boating accident. Luckily, nine years later, in 1933, Pectol was also elected to the Utah state legislature. From his political position he lobbied President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and, sure enough, the president ordered a feasibility study. Following the usual give and take in Congress, in 1937 Roosevelt designated Pectol’s “Wayne Wonderland” as “Capitol Reef National Monument.” It earned that status and that name on the basis of its stunning geological features, some of which do, indeed, resemble the dome of the US Capitol. Because of its enormous size and multiple attractions, Capitol Reef was redesignated as a national park in 1971 and is now one of the “big five” national parks clustered in southeast Utah, along with Bryce, Zion, Canyonlands, and Arches. Site and History: Capitol Reef is a truly beautiful place with lots of choices of activities, including hiking, rock climbing, canyoneering, horseback riding, and camping (figure 20.1). There’s also the Ripple Rock Nature Center, the old Fruita schoolhouse (figure 20.2), and nineteen working orchards containing about nineteen hundred trees lovingly maintained by the National Park Service. The orchards were originally planted and cultivated beginning in the 1880s by residents of the small Latter-­day Saints community of Fruita. Park visitors can pick and purchase all manner of fruits and nuts grown in those orchards, including, in season, apples, peaches, cherries, pears, apricots, plums, nectarines, almonds, and walnuts. The orchards are located a little more than a mile east of the visitor center, accessible from Route 24 and Scenic Drive. Pick your own and eat all you want in the orchards for free but pay for fruit you carry out in bulk.

Figure 20.1. 

Capitol Reef provides the visitor with some truly gorgeous scenery.  KEN FEDER

Figure 20.2. 

The historic Fruita Mormon schoolhouse, built in 1896.  KEN FEDER

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Just past the orchards you also can indulge in some of the most delicious, homemade blueberry pie on the planet, sold at the renovated Gifford House, built in 1901 by polygamist Calvin Pendleton (the Giffords lived in the house between 1928 and 1969). Part of the house, in what had been a new kitchen addition, is now a shop where books, postcards, jams and jellies, along with assorted crafts are sold. Oh, and pie. Really, really good pie. The Fruita Campground is just past the Gifford House. I’m talking great pie. By the way, on our visit in March 2018, after having pie we continued driving for several miles to a trailhead located at the end of Scenic Drive for a nice, easy hike that included a little bit of rock art. On our drive back to Route 24, we encountered a blinding hailstorm. That was, well, interesting. Just be aware that weather can change drastically, especially at higher elevations (Capitol Reef ranges from six thousand to nine thousand feet), in a very short time, so plan accordingly. In the context of this guide, most important at Capitol Reef—right up there with the pie—are the remarkable petroglyphs concentrated on a soaring cliff face located immediately north of a stretch of Route 24, a paved road that passes east-­ west through the monument. With the visitor center on the south side of Route 24 as a landmark, drive east (take a right out of the parking lot) for about a mile to where you will find a paved parking lot on your left on the north side of the road. Here you can access a short wooden walkway leading to a raised rectangular wooden platform that is located directly below the most impressive rock art panels in the park. The theme of two of the panels is bighorn sheep (figures 20.3 and

Figure 20.3.  There are a few wonderful petroglyph panels located right along Route 24. The Park Service built a wooden platform and boardwalk for ease of viewing. This panel of bighorn sheep is one of the best. And yes, those are bullet holes. Just why? It’s grotesque.  KEN FEDER

Figure 20.4. 

More bighorn sheep along Route 24.  KEN FEDER

Figure 20.5. 

Fremont-style, headdresses on anthropomorphs. Simply beautiful.  KEN FEDER

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20.4). The other and I think most stunning panel on the same cliff face consists of a line of seven anthropomorphs, each wearing a unique headdress, some with horns, perhaps of bison, standing side by side and at a slight downward angle from right to left (figure 20.5). The anthropomorphs present the trapezoidal bodies and elaborate headdresses that are typical of the Fremont art style mentioned previously. They are wonderfully rendered, impressive, and as beautiful as their cliff face setting. Unfortunately, a large chunk of the cliff face on the left side of the anthropomorph panel collapsed in the mid-­twentieth century as a result of natural erosion, destroying one of the largest and most beautiful of the anthropomorphs. Sad, but not unexpected. Even more tragic because it is pointless, disrespectful, and just flat-­out stupid, these sacred works of art, beauty, and memory have been riddled with bullet holes (see figure 20.3). You read that right. How is shooting more than one-­thousand-­year-­old works of sacred art fun? Tragic and inexcusable. After viewing those three panels—and taking lots of photographs—continue along the wooden boardwalk that begins near the platform and extends along the cliff face to the east for about eight hundred feet. There, you’ll be able to see quite a few additional petroglyphs. Most are more faded than those in the primary three panels shown in figures 20.3, 20.4, and 20.5 but certainly are worth a look. They include more headdressed, trapezoidal anthropomorphs, bighorn sheep, an image of a bighorn sheep alongside a possible bear, and an animal with erect ears and an upturned tail, possibly a dog (figure 20.6). The Capitol Reef rock art certainly is among the most beautiful as well as the most readily accessible highlighted in this guide. The wooden platform and walkway make Figure 20.6.  A bighorn sheep, a little viewing the rock art, in some cases from a very bear, and perhaps a dog, also along the close vantage point, quite convenient and easy. Route 24 boardwalk.  KEN FEDER

Dinosaur National Monument

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State: Utah and Colorado Address for GPS: 11625 E. 1500 South Jensen, UT 84035 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1915 President: Woodrow Wilson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 210,844 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Dinosaur was originally designated in 1915 as a very small national monument of only about eighty acres. The purpose of its designation was tightly focused on the preservation of very rich fossil bone beds discovered there in 1909. Those deposits encased literally thousands of dinosaur bones, including such species as the 150-million-­year-­old, meat-­eating Allosaurus as well as Deinonychus, a species closely related to those terrible velociraptors in the movie Jurassic Park. The bones had accumulated in this place by a flowing stream. Many of the dinosaur fossils were excavated there in the early years of the twentieth century, but about fifteen hundred specimens were left in place in the so-­ called “wall of bones” now enclosed in the Dinosaur Quarry building, refurbished and reopened in 2011 (figure 21.1). It really is an impressive sight with readily apparent, often gigantic fossil bones, some of them in their original anatomical 157

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Figure 21.1.  In-place dinosaur bone bed housed in the museum at Dinosaur National Monument.  KEN FEDER

positions, all left where they were found on a bed of rock tilted at an angle of about 67 degrees from the horizontal. Okay, why am I talking about dinosaurs and highlighting a monument dedicated to those prehistoric beasts in a book devoted to Native American history and archaeology? That is a reasonable question as it is a pet peeve of many archaeologists that people assume that we study dinosaurs. We don’t. The last of the dinosaurs died off about sixty-­five million years ago, and the earliest evidence for our upright-­walking, small-­brained human ancestors dates from only about six or seven million years ago. Admittedly that’s a long time ago, but not nearly as long ago as even the last of the dinosaurs. I will admit that many archaeologists I know grew up fascinated by dinosaurs. I, for one, was thrilled when visiting Dinosaur National Monument to find an old friend, the model of a stegosaurus who I first encountered at the Sinclair Oil pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and 1965, when I was just twelve years old, which today pretty much makes me a dinosaur as well (figure 21.2). Okay, lame joke. But dinosaurs are the bailiwick of paleontologists, not archaeologists. There’s a simple reason why, as an archaeologist, I encourage you to visit Dinosaur National Monument, above and beyond the dinosaur bones, which you certainly should see. Since its original designation in 1915, the acreage of the monument has expanded from eighty to more than two hundred thousand acres, and in those acres are some of the finest examples of Native American rock art I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. So, though the original intent of monument designation

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Figure 21.2.  The author reconnecting with an old friend: the stegosaurus model I saw as part of the Sinclair Oil pavilion at the 1964/1965 World’s Fair in New York City.  KEN FEDER

was to preserve and highlight dinosaur fossils, Dinosaur is also a wonderful place to see petroglyphs and pictographs. And no, none of the rock art depicts dinosaurs, but that absurd claim is addressed in another of my books (Feder 2018). Site and History: The region in which Dinosaur National Monument is located was home to the Fremont culture. That is merely a modern name applied to the Native People who lived in much of Utah between about seven hundred and two thousand years ago. Fremont is the name of a river in southeastern Utah where many sites dating from that period have been found. The art associated with the Fremont People is beautiful and distinctive, including “anthropomorphs”—images that look human-­ like—with triangular or trapezoidal bodies (the shoulders being the broadest part of the trapezoid). The anthropomorphs often are depicted with intricate headdresses and have minimal arms or legs, or none at all. Dinosaur is filled with incredible Fremont art. Most of it is in the Utah section of the monument and is very easy to access (figure 21.3). From the Quarry building, with its fantastic intact bone bed, head east on Cub Creek Road. Very shortly, you’ll see a little car park on the right with signage for the Swelter Shelter, a small rock overhang on the left (north side of the road). There are some interesting petroglyphs, pictographs, and even some rather uncommon petroglyphs with overlying paint. That art certainly is worth looking at but is just the merest of hints of what is to come. Get back onto Cub Creek Road continuing east. There are a couple of little car parks on the right (south), all signposted. From your car,

Figure 21.3.  Map of primary rock art concentrations at Dinosaur National Monument: 1. Swelter Shelter; 2. Cub Creek Road (a couple of pullouts); 3. Deluge Shelter at Jones Hole; 4. McKee Springs; 5. Pool Creek.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 21.4.  Lizard petroglyphs accessible at one of the pullouts along Cub Creek Road, east of the museum.  KEN FEDER

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at those pull offs, look up at the low-­lying, mostly dark brown rock faces to the north (across the road). Easy trails lead up to the rocks. I remember walking one of those trails and seeing lots of little blue-­throated lizards scurrying about. When we would stop to photograph them, they became nervous, would stop in their tracks, and then do what appeared to be push-­ups I guess to show how badass they were. It was a wonderful surprise when we reached the rocks to find that the majority of the art was depictions of, yup, lizards, some of the most remarkable ones I’ve seen in my years of travel (figure 21.4). Beyond the art on Cub Creek Road, there are three other concentrations of rock art in Dinosaur: 1. The Pool Creek Petroglyphs are accessible from Harper’s Corner Scenic Drive (about thirty-­seven miles from the Canyon Visitor Center at the south entrance to the monument). Pool Creek is located in the Colorado section of the monument. There’s no hiking involved; the rock art is very close to the parking area. 2. Leave the quarry and head west (leaving the monument) on Cub Creek Road, which curves south, and then turn right (west) onto Brush Creek Road. Drive about five miles to the end of Brush Creek Road and turn right at the “T” (not left toward the town of Vernal). Drive seven miles to the intersection with Island Park Road. Turn right. Island Park Road is a well-­maintained, unpaved road (impassible after a lot of rain and snow, but not too bad when dry). In about ten miles, you’ll reach the pullout (on the right) for the McKee Springs petroglyphs. It’s well signposted and, this is important: As long as the road is passable, DON’T MISS McKee Springs. It’s only about twenty-­two miles from the Quarry Visitor Center. Here you will find some of the most impressive petroglyphs I’ve seen anywhere, and some are remarkably well-­preserved examples emblematic of Fremont culture anthropomorphs (figure 21.5). They are breathtaking (figure 21.6). Figure 21.5.  Beautiful shield-wielding anthropomorph at McKee Springs.  KEN FEDER

Figure 21.6.  This may be one of the most remarkable, beautiful, and well-preserved petroglyph panels I have ever seen. At McKee Springs, this art must be seen to be fully appreciated. The big anthropomorph is more than five feet tall.  KEN FEDER

Figure 21.7.  Pictograph of a bighorn sheep with an intense set of horns at Deluge Shelter.  KEN FEDER

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3. If you’d like a little more of a hike, get back to Brush Creek Road north and, instead of turning onto Island Park Road, continue straight onto Dinosaur Mountain Road, which becomes Jones Hole Road. This ends at the Jones Hole Fish Hatchery. It’s a forty-­four-­mile drive from the Quarry Visitor Center. Park there and look for the trailhead for the Jones Hole Creek Trail, which ends at the site called Deluge Shelter. From the fish hatchery, it’s a relatively easy and quite beautiful two-­mile hike to some very cool pictographs. My favorite is an image of bighorn sheep, all in red, with absolutely intense horns (figure 21.7). Dinosaur is one of my favorites of the national monuments. Swelter Shelter is very easy to get to. McKee Springs is a must-­see; it’s well worth the drive. Pool Creek is cool and Deluge Shelter is worth a visit, especially if you’d like a nice hike to achieve pictograph amazingness.

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park

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State: Georgia Address for GPS: 1207 Emery Highway Macon, GA 31217 Particulars: National Historical Park Established: 1936 (National Monument); 2019 (National Historical Park) President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (National Monument); Donald Trump (National Historical Park) Administered by: National Park Service Size: 702 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Ocmulgee Mounds was initially designated as a national monument in 1936 and re-­designated in 2019 as a national historical park with the addition of a noncontiguous mound cluster, Lamar Mounds and Village Site, located about three miles downriver to the south. Also preserved at Ocmulgee is the archaeological site of an eighteenth-­century English trading post built in the middle of the uninhabited Native village. Ocmulgee had been depopulated by the time Spanish explorers first entered into the American Southeast, and it’s difficult to tell for certain which communities, inhabited or not, those explorers did encounter. Probably the best known of these explorers, Hernando de Soto, didn’t mention seeing a place that sounds like Ocmulgee in his walkabout (with six hundred men), which began in AD 1540. He 165

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may have seen the Lamar Mound group, but that’s only a guess based on his written description. Sadly, he and other explorers were carriers of European diseases to which Native People possessed no immunity. Face-­to-­face contact inadvertently initiated plagues that killed off huge numbers of Native People, in some cases wiping out entire communities. Of course, when the British built a trading post in the middle of Ocmulgee in 1690, Europeans became aware, perhaps for the first time, of the uninhabited site. We do know that famed eighteenth-­century naturalist William Bartram visited and described “Oakmulgee fields” in the 1770s (http:// roadsidegeorgia​.com/site/ocmulgee_mounds​.html). Professional archaeological excavation of Ocmulgee was sponsored by the federal government during the Depression through the Smithsonian Institution. A number of professional archaeologists began their careers at Ocmulgee, and about eight hundred workers who initially had no background at all in archaeology were trained—excavation and preservation methods were taught in the evenings— housed, and paid for their labors in such Depression “make work” programs as the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), among others. In other words, during excavations at Ocmulgee in the 1930s, people got paid to work in what we might fairly characterize as the largest archaeological excavation conducted in North America before or since, and a tremendous amount of archaeological knowledge was generated. In another Depression-­era project, architects along with construction workers representing various trades designed and built the on-­site museum that houses many of the objects that were

Figure 22.1.  1943 postcard depicting the Ocmulgee visitor center and museum. I found this postcard in my mother’s possessions after she died. It have been sent to her by her boyfriend—who later became her husband and then my father—when he was in basic training and right before he was deployed to France to fight in World War II.

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recovered during excavation. The building itself is a beautiful example of the art-­ deco design (figure 22.1). Here too, people were provided gainful employment and a valuable project was conducted as part of the effort to put people back to work when unemployment was tragically high (nearly 25 percent in 1933). Site and History: Ocmulgee was a bustling, vibrant town of several hundred people at its peak between about AD 1000 and AD 1350. Today, you are able to see seven mounds distributed across the site’s footprint. Like other people in the Southeast during this period, the inhabitants of Ocmulgee were sedentary agriculturalists. They lived in one place planting corn, beans, and squash and supplemented their diet with wild produce, including deer and, as they were located along the Ocmulgee River, fish. Based on European descriptions at other inhabited mound builder sites, these people had a socially stratified society, just like Europeans, with royalty at one end of the spectrum and farmers at the other. They engaged in far-­flung trading networks and had craftspeople producing fine works of art, some of which ended up in the sumptuous graves of the rulers. The large, truncated pyramids of earth constructed at places like Ocmulgee served as the platforms on top of which the houses of rulers and religious temples were positioned, their physical height metaphorically reflecting their exalted position in society as well. Trails to the mounds are accessible from the on-­site museum. From the back of the building, follow the trail to the village site. This takes you up to a reconstructed, ceremonial earth lodge excavated in the 1930s (figure 22.2). The very

Figure 22.2.  Reconstructed earth lodge at Ocmulgee. You can go inside for a closer look.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 22.3.  View of Great Temple Mound at Ocmulgee, a large platform on which the leader’s house was positioned.  KEN FEDER

impressive structure is covered in turf and supported by log beams. You can walk into its interior, where there is a reconstruction of a chamber where ceremonies likely were conducted. It’s genuinely impressive inside; quiet, dark, magical. Radiocarbon dating of one of the original supporting beams indicates that the structure was built in about AD 1015. From the earth lodge, there’s a trail to the right that takes you past Cornfield Mound, a fairly low tumulus. The most impressive of the mounds—Great Temple Mound and Lesser Temple Mound—are accessible by continuing on the original trail to the southwest. Great Temple Mound is nearly sixty feet tall at its apex, and the entire thing was positioned on a bit of a topographic eminence, making it appear even more imposing (figure 22.3). An impressive temple serving as the ruler’s house was placed on top. A modern stairway allows you to climb the mound, where you can imagine the impressive view it afforded the ruler of the living community he or she ruled. During the village’s occupation, there was an earthen ramp that spiraled around the mound leading to the top. Lesser Temple Mound is located immediately to the north of Great Temple Mound and can also be climbed by way of a modern stairway (figure 22.4). From the tops of both of these mounds you can see another impressive earthwork, Funeral Mound to the northwest (see figure 22.4). Along the eight miles of trails (no, you don’t have to walk them all), other mounds and village features are visible. The hike from the museum, past the Earth Lodge, to Great and Lesser Temple Mounds, and then back to the museum is a leisurely stroll of about 1.5 miles. If that doesn’t interest you, you can take a short drive from the museum to a parking area located near Great and Lesser Temple

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Figure 22.4.  View of the Ocmulgee’s plaza from the summit of Great Temple Mound. Lesser Temple Mound is in the foreground, and Funeral Mound can be seen off in the distance.  KEN FEDER

Mound and continue from there to a parking area near Funeral Mound. Ocmulgee is an impressive place and provides the visitor with an appreciation for the remarkable Native American societies who constructed imposing pyramids of earth.

Effigy Mounds National Monument

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State: Iowa Address for GPS: 151 Highway 76 Harpers Ferry, IA 52146 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1949 President: Harry S. Truman Administered by: National Park Service Size: 2,526 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Some national parks and monuments were designated because, as a result of local geology, culture, or history, there is a concentration of an iconic and engaging feature of the natural or cultural landscape in a relatively circumscribed area suitable for the boundaries of a park or monument. For example, Arches National Park was designated as a result of local erosional conditions that produced a concentration of stunningly impressive, large stone arches in southeastern Utah. Dinosaur National Monument was designated initially for the abundant evidence of dinosaur bones at its location on the border between Utah and Colorado. New Mexico’s Petroglyph National Monument was inspired by the concentration of rock art, specifically petroglyphs, on the outskirts of Albuquerque. The focus of this entry, Effigy Mounds National Monument, in northeastern Iowa, was designated

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for the concentration of Native American earthworks shaped to look like animals, especially bears and birds. The first Europeans to enter into the territory now included in the state of Iowa were the explorers Joliette and Marquette in 1673. Though they passed by the effigy mounds located on the west side of the Mississippi River that would later define Effigy Mounds National Monument, they made no mention of them. Soon thereafter, French fur traders traveled down the Mississippi hoping to obtain valuable animal pelts from the Native People living in the region. Those traders also made no mention of effigy mounds in northeastern Iowa (O’Bright 1989). Zebulon Pike, the American explorer for whom Pike’s Peak in Colorado is named, traveled through northeastern Iowa in 1805. He passed at least nearby the location of the mounds and never mentioned seeing effigies. Even into the 1840s when the military laid in a road located very close to some of the mounds within the land that became the monument, there’s no mention of earthworks shaped like bears or birds or any other animal at all. Perhaps explorers, traders, and road builders didn’t notice the mounds or didn’t know what to make of them and therefore didn’t record their existence. After all, the mounds are low lying; most are only a couple of feet high. In fact, it isn’t until the 1880s, when local researchers Theodore Lewis and Alfred Hill became interested in effigy mounds and began a survey in northeastern Iowa, that the mounds that are now contained within the national monument were noted, measured, drawn, and studied (O’Bright 1989). The preservation of the mounds Lewis and Hill investigated and their eventual inclusion in Effigy Mounds National Monument owes a great deal to the efforts of an Iowan, Ellison Orr. Born of poor Irish immigrants in 1857, Orr was a “pioneer boy,” as he described himself (Orr 1971). Orr devoted much of his adult life to the study of Native Americans and worked tirelessly for the preservation of the effigy mounds found in Iowa. Orr’s scientific work along with his lobbying contributed greatly to President Harry S. Truman’s designation of Effigy Mounds National Monument in 1949. Monument designation has allowed for the preservation of the mounds. Unfortunately, and it should not be ignored, while preservation has largely been successful, the monument has had a bit of a checkered history with its superintendents. In the early 2000s, a number of amenities were added to the monument, including new trails and boardwalks, to allow a more effective encounter for visitors. That’s great, but these additions were done, unfortunately and contrary to regulations, without any kind of assessment of the impact on the archaeology of the place. This resulted, rather ironically, in actual damage to the archaeological record. Worse still, a superintendent removed skeletal remains of forty Native Americans held at the site museum, apparently in order to prevent their repatriation and reburial as required by law (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: https://www​.nps​.gov/subjects/nagpra/index​.htm). Imagine if the bones of your grandparents, for example, were housed in a museum and, though the law required

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those bones to be returned to you for treatment in the manner you wished, instead, someone took those bones and stashed them away to prevent that from happening. A substantial fine and jail time was the result. Fortunately, the monument has transcended these issues and now is a marvelous place to engage with the creative and artistic genius of the effigy mound builders of Iowa. The Native Peoples who maintain a connection to the effigy mounds in the monument include the following: Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma Otoe-­Missouria Tribe of Indians Ho-­Chunk Nation of Wisconsin Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska Upper Sioux Indian Community of Minnesota Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in the State of Minnesota Lower Sioux Indian Community of Minnesota Prairie island Indian Community in the State of Minnesota Sac and Fox of the Mississippi in Iowa Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma Crow Creek Sioux of South Dakota Omaha Tribe of Nebraska Santee Sioux Nation Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Yankton Sioux of South Dakota Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe Ponca Tribe of Nebraska The mounds are sacred to them and deserve your respect. Site and History: When I think of sculpture, ordinarily I imagine a three-­dimensional carving usually in wood or stone. Of course, I have also seen ice sculptures at a winter fair in my hometown. Oh, and there was that butter sculpture, rather appropriately of a cow, at a local agricultural fair here in northwestern Connecticut. But wood and stone are the most common raw materials that are brought to mind. Think Michelangelo’s David or the many wonderful totem poles produced by Native artists in the American Northwest. Most people, myself included, don’t immediately consider earth or soil to be a sculptural medium, yet there was a long-­standing tradition in Native North America of producing often monumentally scaled sculptures made of earth. Called “effigy mounds,” these patterned piles of soil often artfully render animals, commonly snakes and bears as well as birds. Certainly the most famous is Serpent Mound in

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southern Ohio, an undulating, 1,350-foot-­long depiction of a snake replete with an open mouth and a tightly coiled tail. Serpent Mound is in an Ohio state park, not a national monument, but it’s certainly worth a visit when you’re in the neighborhood visiting Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. To see the mounds in Effigy Mounds National Monument, park in the lot next to the visitor center and hike just about anywhere along the fourteen miles of trails to encounter low-­lying conical mounds and earthworks in the shape of birds or bears (figure 23.1). The trail to the north of the center and into the North Unit brings the hiker to the Little Bear Mound Group and the Great Bear Mound Group. It’s an easy two-­mile round trip, and the mounds are very cool, though difficult to capture in a photograph. Upon my visit in March of 2016, we walked to these mounds in what became a blinding snow and ice storm. Because of the weather, we didn’t drive to the Day Use Area gate in the South Unit for the four-­mile round-­trip Figure 23.1.  Map of the trails and effigy mounds that can be seen at Effigy Mounds National Monument.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Figure 23.2.  This aerial photograph using LiDar, Light Detection and Ranging, a sophisticated method of remote sensing that is now a feature of the iPhone Pro, shows this line of large-scale bear effigies more clearly than you can see them from the ground.  JAMES GREEN. FROM DATA PROVIDED BY THE IOWA LIDAR CONSORTIUM.

Figure 23.3.  Bear effigy mounds in the Marching Bear Group at the south end of the monument.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

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hike to the most impressive and densest concentration of mounds, the Marching Bear Group (figure 23.2), where you’ll see ten bear effigies (figure 23.3) and three large bird effigies. That gives us something to do the next time we’re there. Unfortunately, unlike the situation at Serpent Mound in Ohio, the Park Service has not constructed a tower with stairs that would afford a bird’s-­eye view of the mounds. Nevertheless, viewing them at ground level from the trail does give the visitor a pretty good idea of how incredibly cool these mounds are.

Poverty Point National Monument

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State: Louisiana Address for GPS: 6859 Highway 577 Pioneer, LA 71266 Particulars: National Monument, World Heritage Organization Site Established: 1988 President: Ronald Reagan Administered by: Louisiana Office of State Parks Size: 910 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Unlike most national monuments, Poverty Point is not located on federal land and is not, therefore, owned or directly administered by the federal government. It’s actually a Louisiana State Historical Site and included in their state park system, while, at the same time a designated national monument. The earliest encounter with the site as recorded by a European occurred in 1830 when Jacob Walter was prospecting for lead. Instead of a lead mine, I found myself on the site of an old Indian town. The surface of the earth at this place, for several acres around, were strewed in grate profusion with fragments of Indian crockery. (Connolly 2014, p. 100)

He also noted the existence of a monumental earth mound, which he labeled as “Mound A,” a designation that it still possesses: 177

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I soon discovered a mound of colossal size, Mound A. The figure of the base of this superstructure was a rectangle twice as long as wide & about 1000 feet long by 500 feet broad & 150 feet in altitude. (Connolly 2014, p. 100)

The mound is enormous, but his numbers are greatly exaggerated. He does admit that his numbers were guesses; he didn’t actually measure the mound. The site was excavated extensively in the 1950s, with a major monograph describing its archaeology published in 1956. The property was privately owned when the state of Louisiana in 1972 purchased seven hundred acres that constituted the core of the site and its earthworks. Louisiana funded the construction of a museum and opened it to the public in 1976. President Ronald Reagan designated this state park as a national monument in 1988. Site and History: Poverty Point is unique, characterized by a large cluster of earthworks of uncertain use or intent. The primary feature consists of a vast, semicircle of six concentric and segmented mounds. Each of the six concentric semicircles is divided into six individual segments, and the entire feature ends at a waterway called Bayou Maçon. The entire feature looks like a series of concentric, giant Cs from the air (figure 24.1). The outermost circle of segmented rings has a diameter of about four thousand feet; the innermost has a diameter of a little less than two thousand feet. The individual segments today vary from just a few inches to as much as six feet in height. Estimating the amount of dirt that had to be piled up to make the series of segments and then estimating about how much dirt per basket could be transportable solely by people, Kopper (1986) figured it would have taken eighty million such basket loads of dirt to finish this part of the site. That’s a lot of basket loads and, just as important, it would have taken a tremendous level of organization to accomplish. Archaeological research indicates that there is some household refuse on the ring segments, so it is possible that the work was utilitarian, creating dry, livable surfaces above the floodwaters of Bayou Maçon. That, however, seems like a lot of work when placing the settlement a bit farther away from the watercourse would have accomplished the same thing. Radiocarbon dating of organic material found in the mounds of earth indicate that all of that work was accomplished sometime between 2,800 and 2,500 years ago. Beyond the admitted perplexing and monumental semicircular feature, there are other large-­scaled earth features at the site. Mound A, the one described by Jacob Walter in 1830, is a massive platform of soil, topping off at, not 150 feet at Walter suggested, but still an impressive 70 feet in height and containing more than eight million cubic feet of dirt (figure 24.2). Again, that’s a lot of basket loads of dirt necessary to construct Mound A. It isn’t quite rectangular in its footprint but more or less an irregular cruciform in shape—like a cross—with its long axis measuring about 700 feet and its short axis about 660. It is difficult to determine precisely the

Figure 24.1.  Map of Poverty Point. Note the series of six concentric mounds appearing in the shape of an enormous letter “C” and the primary mound at the site, Mound A.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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Figure 24.2.  Mound A at Poverty Point is enormous, reaching a height of about seventy feet.  KEN FEDER

original shape of the mound and impossible to determine the intended meaning of that shape. From above, the irregular cross looks a bit like a monumental bird to some, perhaps a raptor, but that identification is speculative. A modern stairway allows the visitor to climb to the top, affording a nice view of the site. There are five more mounds at the site (B, C, D, E, and F); a trail takes you past them. Mound B is another large one, about twenty feet high; the others are just a few feet in height. Altogether, the amount of work involved in moving and piling earth around at Poverty Point is staggering. Remember, it was accomplished entirely by people power. The builders had no machines or draft animals. They moved the dirt by hand, basket load by basket load. That’s remarkable, but perhaps the most remarkable thing about Poverty Point is that during the period of its construction, the Native People were not agricultural. Their subsistence was based on hunting wild animals, fishing, and the collection of edible plants. Ordinarily, it is assumed that only agriculture provides a subsistence system efficient enough and productive enough to free up large numbers of people who then are capable of creating monumental, communal works like pyramids or mounds. That, however, doesn’t apply at Poverty Point, which is itself an important lesson taught by investigating the site. It also makes it a worthwhile place to have been preserved as a national monument. The on-­site museum is icing on the cake, presenting many of the artifacts, some beautifully made, that have been found during archaeological excavation of the site.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park

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State: Ohio Address for GPS: 16062 State Route 104 Chillicothe, OH 45601 Particulars: National Historical Park Established: 1923 (National Monument); 1992 (National Historical Park) President: Warren G. Harding (National Monument); George H.  W. Bush (National Historical Park) Administered by: National Park Service Size: 1,170 acres First Encounter and Preservation: European settlers of Ohio were fascinated by the abundance of obviously human-­ made earthworks they encountered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These earthworks included tumuli (mounds of soil) that contained human burials, earth-­walled enclosures with expanses of up to fifty acres, and large-­scaled earth sculptures in the shapes of various animals. Among these seemingly mysterious earthworks whose builders could not be identified were the mounds that would ultimately be included in the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (HCNHP). In his 1820 book, Description of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States, Caleb Atwater, and later, Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis, in their 1848 book, Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, produced detailed 181

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Figure 25.1.  Nineteenth-century map of Mound City, one of the primary sites in the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.   FROM SQUIRE AND DAVIS 1848

maps of the earthworks of the American Midwest and even recovered artifacts at some of them (figure 25.1). The consensus at the time was that these often monumentally scaled earth features had been constructed by an unknown race of mound builders whose source might be traced to ancient Israel, Egypt, Rome, or Scandinavia. Even American presidents chimed in. President William Henry Harrison suggested that the mounds he had seen in his home state of Ohio had been built by the Aztecs. Some went so far as to propose that, instead of any known historical group, the mound builders had been refugees from the Lost Continent of Atlantis! For most who speculated about the mounds, one thing they were certain about: They had not been built by ancestors of the Native People living in the American Midwest at the time of European contact. The mounds themselves and the artifacts found within and around them were far too sophisticated, it was believed, for the “primitive” Native People of America to have produced. Unfortunately for those who made such claims, the one identification they nearly universally denied turns out, through careful archaeological and historical study, to have been precisely the case. As shown conclusively by Cyrus Thomas, working for the Smithsonian Institution in 1882, the mounds had been built by the Native People of the American Midwest and Southeast. For a rousing discussion of the myth of a mysterious race of mound builders, check out Jason Colavito’s

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Figure 25.2.  Seip Mound, a large mound with an oval footprint and multiple burials, and part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.  KEN FEDER

(2020) wonderful book, The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a “Lost White Race.” Though many of the Midwestern mounds were destroyed by farming and construction and then pillaged for artifacts, some ended up being preserved to one extent or another and became recognized as being historically important and worthy of study and preservation. First the site called Mound City (the European settlers weren’t particularly creative in their naming of mound sites) near Chillicothe, Ohio, was designated as a national monument in 1923, and then other nearby mound sites were added in 1992 to create a national historical park. The Hopewell Culture National Historical Park allows you to visit and see for yourselves three separate mound builder sites: Mound City Group; Hopewell Mound Group; and Seip Mound (figure 25.2). Two other mound sites are included in the park but are not open to the public: Hopeton Earthworks and High Banks Works. The visitor center and museum are located at the Mound City Group, which is the most impressive of the sites in the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Site and History: Obviously, the Native People of Ohio between 200 BC and AD 500 did not call themselves “Hopewell.” Archaeologists often name “cultures” or “traditions” after an important site that represents the first time a set of characteristics including artifact or architectural types are found together. That “type site” is then used to define and name the people of a region and time period and to categorize other sites that are similar and appear to reflect the same people and way of life. The “Hopewell”

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Figure 25.3.  Aerial view of the thirteen acres and some of the more than twenty burial mounds at Mound City.  RYAN FISHER/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

culture is named for the Hopewell Mound Group found on the property of Mordecai Hopewell and which serves as a model for this archaeological culture. The Hopewell culture is characterized by the construction of earthen burial mounds, including many that are conical in shape, some soaring to as much as seventy feet in height, as well as walls of earth in geometric shapes including circles, squares, and octagons that enclose as much as fifty acres (Lepper 2005). Mound City, for example, part of the Hopewell National Historical Park, is a thirty-­acre necropolis, a two-­thousand-­year-­old city of the dead. There are more than twenty mounds at the site, most of them conical and one with a larger oval footprint, all enclosed within an area of thirteen acres surrounded by a three- or four-­foot-­high wall of earth (figure 25.3). The Hopewell had an extensive subsistence base, focused on the naturally rich river valleys of the American Midwest. The Hopewell supplemented their reliance on wild plant and animal resources with agriculture, but not the stereotypical crops of corn, beans, and squash. The Native People of the Midwest participated in their own, independent agricultural revolution and grew local crops such as sunflower. Corn, beans, and squash moved into the area later in history. Sites with this constellation of Hopewell traits are found across a broad expanse of North America, from the Great Lakes on the north, Florida on the south, Pennsylvania on the east, and the Mississippi River on the west (figure 25.4). Within

Figure 25.4.  Map showing the extent of Adena and Hopewell cultural influence across the American Midwest. Their habitation and burial sites were centered along the major waterways of the Midwest.  KEN FEDER

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that broad region, the Hopewell had an extensive trading network and obtained copper from Michigan, shells from the Gulf Coast, mica from Tennessee, and obsidian from Wyoming. The most impressive of the HCNHP sites is Mound City. It is important to point out that, while Mound City was designated a national monument in 1923, the mounds themselves were leveled during World War I when the area was used as a military training base. Monument status was earned, at least in part, on the wealth of artifacts recovered at the site when it was excavated in the early 1920s. The mounds you see there today are the result of reconstruction based on photographs taken before WWI. Some of the most impressive of the artifacts excavated at the site are on display at the museum, including a remarkable copper bird cutout (figure 25.5) and a large number of smoking pipes, most with the bowls shaped like birds or animals (called effigy pipes; figure 25.6). More than two hundred such pipes were found in the burial mound of a single individual interred in one of the conical mounds located at Mound City. Remember that Native tobacco has a very high nicotine content and has a mood/mind altering effect on the smoker. Now imagine inhaling this smoke while staring into the artfully carved face of a bobcat, hawk, wolf, or fox for an idea of the physiological impact of smoking the pipe. When you consider the amount of labor invested in constructing the earth embankment, the mounds themselves, and the extraordinarily well-­made objects interred with the deceased, it’s obvious that the Hopewell, or whatever they may

Figure 25.5.  An artfully rendered bird, cut from a piece of copper. Copper was mined by Native Americans, especially in Michigan, where it was found in its pure form; no smelting was necessary.   TOM ENGBERG/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

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Figure 25.6.  A quite beautiful Hopewell smoking pipe in the form of a peregrine falcon. Most of the Hopewell smoking pipes were made from local limestone, but some were produced from red pipestone. See the next entry for a visit to Pipestone National Monument.  KEN FEDER

have called themselves, if anything, were a sophisticated people whose legacy is preserved in the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. The Ohio Historical Connection has a wonderful museum in Columbus, and they administer a number of mound sites that, while not part of the HCNHP, are worth visiting as well, including: Miamisburg Mound (one of the largest conical burial mounds in North America; Great Circle Mound; and Serpent Mound (a spectacular effigy of a coiled snake).

Pipestone National Monument

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State: Minnesota Address for GPS: 36 Reservation Avenue Pipestone, MN 56164 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1937 President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 282 acres First Encounter and Preservation: I confess my great love for stone. Unsurprisingly, this emotional attachment is typical for many archaeologists. For some people, however, stone isn’t just something cool to study and appreciate for its beauty, usefulness for making things, and geological history. For the Lakota, Dakota, Sisseton-­Wahpeton, Brule, Chippewa, Anishanabi, Cheyenne, Arikara, Winnebago, Omaha, and other Native Peoples living in the Northern Plains of the United States and Canada, one stone in particular isn’t just beautiful, useful, and interesting. It is sacred. The Sioux call the red stone that can be found only in southwestern Minnesota “Channupa-­aykay,” or “Blood of the People.” It is called “pipestone” in English by Native People and non-­Natives alike for the fact that its primary use is for the making of sacred smoking pipes by the aforementioned Native Peoples. Even Native People who lived hundreds of miles from the one location where the red rock can be found 189

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nevertheless made regular pilgrimages to the quarries in Minnesota to gather the blood-­colored stone for the manufacture of pipes, which were, themselves, vital for the proper conduct of many of their ceremonies (figure 26.1). It was believed that tobacco smoke wafting up from the pipe bowl crafted from the red stone took prayers directly to the spirits. You sometimes may also hear Minnesota pipestone being called “Catlinite” to the understandable dismay of many Native People, having been named for the painter George Catlin (see the entry on the Knife River Indian Villages National Historical Park), who in 1836 was one of the first non-­Natives to record Figure 26.1.  A gorgeous slab of the red pipe- the beautiful stone’s existence and the first stone.  N. BARBER/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE to produce a painted image of the Native quarries (figure 26.2). Native People have known about, revered, and quarried the stone for millennia, so naming it in honor of a non-­Native who became aware of it only in the nineteenth century is problematic at best and disrespectful to Native People at worst. It must further anger

Figure 26.2.  George Catlin’s 1836 painting of the pipestone quarry.

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Native People knowing that, as Catlin reported in his memoirs first published in 1841 (2018, pp. 490–492), he was asked by many, many of them to please stay away from the pipestone quarries as it was sacred ground to them and they feared that white people would take them over and use the stone for their own purposes. Catlin went anyway, bringing attention to the singular location of the blood-­red stone. Soon the settlers came in droves, not so much for the stone, but for the rich farmland of southwestern Minnesota. Recognizing that the Native People were powerless to stanch the flow of non-­ Natives into their homelands, more than twenty years after Catlin visited the quarries a great Native leader, Pa-­la-­ne-­a-pa-­pe (Struck-­by-­the-­Ree), made certain that the 1858 treaty his people signed with the US government guaranteed that Indians would forever have “free and unrestricted use of the Red Pipe Stone Quarry,” which will be “open and free to the Indians to visit and procure stone for Pipes so long as they so desire.” Today in the hands of the federal government, at least this part of the treaty is fully enforced. Native and only Native People have had the right to extract the “Blood of the People,” and they continue to do so in more than fifty individual quarry pits clustered within the monument. By designating the quarries together as a national monument, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ensured additional protection for the pipestone resource and also provided the opportunity for non-­ Natives to observe and appreciate the Native practice of obtaining the stone needed for the production of their sacred pipes. Site and History: There are different stories told by Native Peoples concerning the origin of the stone they revere and have used to make pipes for more than three thousand years. Perhaps the most moving version has graciously been shared with non-­Natives by the late Wilmer Mesteth, who was an Oglala Sioux spiritual leader: When we were children they used to tell us stories of the Channupa-­aykay and how it was formed you know. They call it On-­aka, the story of the ancient ones. They said it rained for many days. It rained for many days on end non-­stop and pretty soon the people became afraid. . . . And pretty soon people started drowning. . . . And there’s this one young girl. She saw this high hill and so she went up there . . . And a lot her people had already drowned. So she ran up there, and she was all alone. She went to this high hill, and there was nowhere to go. . . . So she began to pray. And here, all of a sudden, the rain stopped. So she was standing there, and all she could see around was water. She felt something. So she looked up and here from above there was this giant, giant bird. The Wam-­be-­le-­tacha, Spotted Eagle. . . . And then it opened its wings like that and here a man emerged from there. And he was a handsome man. And he told her not to be afraid that he came to rescue her. And that all her people were killed in the flood. They all drowned and she was the only one left. . . . So she became saddened by this. But he said, he told her, not to be discouraged. He said the reason he came to rescue her [was] because he wanted to marry her. And through their marriage together they’re

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going to begin the human, the humans are going to start again anew . . . And they eventually became all the tribes of the earth. And when the waters receded, in the story they said the water drained, drained down the drainage and came to one place. And here it was all the blood of the people that drowned formed in that area. And that’s what became the Channupa-­aykay. It was the blood of the people. The blood was red into the stone. (Transcription as it appears in Catton and Krahe 2016, pp. 13–14)

Understand, therefore, that the pipestone is not simply a beautiful type of rock useful for carving into pipes. It is the spirit and blood of ancestors made manifest in stone. Obtaining it is, as modern quarrier Travis Erickson (Sisseton-­Wahpeton) phrases it, a “spiritual journey” (as he states in the documentary Pipestone: An Unbroken Legacy). That makes the stone sacred and the search for it an act of worship. Visit Pipestone National Monument as you would the Vatican, the Wailing Wall, or the Dome of the Rock. It is a place where history, legacy, prayer, spirituality, and worship converge. There is an on-­site visitor center, in which the Pipestone Indian Shrine Association (https://www​.authenticpipestone​.com) is located. There, you can purchase, among other things, objects carved in pipestone by Native artists, and you can watch those artists carve pipes and discuss their spiritual significance. The .75-mile Circle Trail originates at the visitor center, passes by many of the open quarry pits where Native People continue to quarry for the beautiful blood-­red pipestone (figure 26.3), and takes you past the quite-­lovely Winnewissa Falls. Another trail, South Quarry, skirts the edge of more of the quarry pits. The search for pure seams of the blood-­stone is an arduous and ongoing process. The pipestone is locked in a stratigraphic embrace. It is horizontally bracketed

Figure 26.3.  Native quarriers continue to this day to extract the sacred red pipestone for the production of their ceremonial pipes.   N. BARBER/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

raw material procurement site    193

by geological layers with at least four distinct levels of very hard quartzite superimposed on top of the pipestone. These layers have to be carefully removed to access the prized blood-­red stone. Whether or not you can visit the monument, be sure to watch the absolutely wonderful aforementioned video, Pipestone: An Unbroken Legacy, available on the National Park Service’s Pipestone National Monument Web page: https:// www​.nps​.gov/pipe/learn/photosmultimedia/multimedia-­presentations​.htm. In it, Native People discuss the spiritual importance of the stone that is the blood of their people. Also, if you can’t visit the site in person, the National Park Service offers a digital tour on the monument’s website: https://www​ .nps​ .gov/articles/000/ digital-­circle-­trail-­tour​.htm. All of the pipestone within the boundaries of the monument is the property of the Native quarriers, who have to apply for permits to conduct the backbreaking work of extracting the “Blood of the People,” using only hand tools, from the embrace of the geological beds above and below. Permits are granted only to members of federally recognized tribes.

Pecos National Historical Park

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 1 Peach Drive Pecos, NM 87552 Particulars: National Historical Park Established: 1965 President: Lyndon Baines Johnson Administered by: National Park Service Size: 6,671 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The first Europeans to encounter the vibrant Native community located at the place now called Pecos National Historical Park were men in the command of the sixteenth-­century Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. If you recall your American History course in high school you might remember him simply as “Coronado.” He visited the village called Cicuye by its residents as early as AD 1540 in an attempt to gather intelligence concerning the powerful Native Peoples who clearly were going to be either allies or enemies in the Spanish plan to explore, exploit, and settle the region. Spanish colonists, including missionaries, moved to the region in the seventeenth century and built a Catholic church there in an effort to convert the people of Cicuye. One of the earliest depictions of the church building was produced by the artist John Mix Stanley in 1846–1847 as part of a military reconnaissance conducted under the leadership of William Emory (figure 27.1) 195

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Figure 27.1.  1848 image of the church the Spanish built at Cicuye Pueblo, produced by John Mix Stanley for William Emory’s military reconnaissance expedition from Missouri to California in 1846–1847.

Excavation, investigation, and cleanup of the aboveground structures at Pecos, including the church and adjacent Native village, didn’t began in earnest until the early twentieth century. Well-­known archaeologists Alfred Kidder and Jesse Nussbaum investigated the church complex as well as the extensive remains of Cicuye village as early as 1915 and began their analysis and reconstruction of part of the site over the next several years. The state of Arizona acquired the property in 1935 and maintained it as a state monument for thirty years. It became a national monument in 1965 as a result of its recognized great national historical significance and was expanded and re-­designated as a national historical park by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1965. The site you can visit today has been extensively renovated using technologically appropriate building material matching what was used when the church was first built. The original adobe walls of the church building (its adobe bricks are composed of soil mixed with sand and water that was then set into rectangular forms) have been “encapsulated.” This means that those crumbling, centuries-­old original walls have simply been enclosed in new adobe bricks, using what is essentially the same method by which the Native People maintained their buildings. The current appearance is both beautiful and authentic in terms of appearance and method. Site and History: The Native village memorialized in Pecos National Historical Park dates from AD 1100. It is a large, multistory, freestanding pueblo building. From humble beginnings, Cicuye grew into a large community of more than two thousand people

Villages after European Contact, American Southwest    197

housed in what by 1450 had become a five-­story apartment house. Practicing maize agriculture and located at a cultural confluence where other Pueblo People as well as people to the east, especially the Native People of the Great Plains, interacted, Cicuye became a powerful social, economic, political, and military force in the region. It was, in essence, a large village/small city that people in the surrounding region knew about and recognized as a force to be reckoned with. That likely was great for the people who lived at Cicuye. With power came security and wealth. However, that wealth and fame elicited interest on the part of the Spanish invaders. That’s what inspired Coronado’s visit in 1540. Unfortunately for the residents of Cicuye, Coronado was a brutal military leader and left a trail of violence and destruction throughout the Southwest. While Spanish soldiers were killing Indians, Pope Paul III in Rome had other ideas. As early as 1535, he decreed that the Indians “are truly men and they are not only capable of understanding the catholic faith but, according to our information, desire exceedingly to receive it,” though there is no actual evidence to support that claim (Hanke 1937, p. 72). That’s my nice way of saying that this assertion almost certainly was not true. Nevertheless, in a world where numbers meant wealth and power, it certainly served the Church’s purposes to covert non-­believers, creating a large population committed as well as beholden to the Church. Certainly, individual priests believed they were doing “God’s work” and saving souls, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the Church as an institution was making money and expanding its power base at the same time.

Figure 27.2.  The remnants of the front of the church at Pecos Pueblo. That’s my then-2-year-old daughter Molly in the foreground.  KEN FEDER

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With this in mind, it isn’t surprising that because the Spanish invaders of what became New Mexico were Catholics, the Catholic Church took a strong interest in the large population of potential converts at places such as Cicuye. This explains why in 1619 the Church in Rome supported the construction of a large church building immediately adjacent to the village as a base of operations (figure 27.2). They employed the same strategy of building churches adjacent to existing Native communities about a hundred miles to the south at three villages, Abo, Gran Quivira, and Quarai. Those three villages today encompass Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, the focus of the next entry in this book. Though the strategy made sense form the Spanish perspective, the conversion process did not go as they had planned and hoped. Native resistance to those conversions and the rejection of domination by the Spanish invaders culminated in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, where Native People rose up and conducted a successful military campaign in which they killed hundreds of Spanish soldiers and were able to push more than two thousand Spanish settlers out of their territory. They were able to keep them out, if only for about a dozen years. You can see a material example of Native resistance to being subjugated, proselytized, converted, and included within the Spanish colonial empire at Pecos where, following the Pueblo Revolt and once back in control of their village and their lives, the residents of Cicuye built their own sacred building, a traditional place of worship, a kiva, right in front of the Catholic Church where missionaries had previously attempted to eliminate the Native People’s

Figure 27.3.  The resistance kiva built by the Hopi inhabitants of Cicuye after throwing off the yoke of the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.  KEN FEDER

Villages after European Contact, American Southwest    199

traditional religious practices (figure 27.3). As already mentioned, kivas usually were round, roofed adobe structures with a bench around the building’s interior circumference (see figures 11.5 and 11.6 for a reconstructed kiva at Aztec National Monument). Kivas were, in essence, Native churches and continue to be a significant part of Native religious ceremonialism throughout the Southwest as they have been for more than two thousand years. The residents of Cicuye were sending a message by building that kiva, a message of resistance and persistence that comes across loudly and clearly to visitors more than three hundred years later. At Pecos you will encounter more than simply pleasing architecture. You will experience a story of cultures colliding as well as of resistance and renewal. Passing through the visitor center, you can take a leisurely walk on the grounds of the reconstructed church and enter the main, and very impressive, building. Follow the short trail north from the parking lot. Along the way, to your right, you’ll see the remains of the original village (figure 27.4). Follow the pathway as it curves to the right (east) when you get about halfway from the parking lot to the church. That path takes you past the “resistance” kiva and curves around to the left and then into the church building itself. Follow another short trail to the north of the church to see an additional set of village rooms and another kiva that you can climb down into (figure 27.5). The Spanish invasion of the American Southwest, their efforts to subdue and convert the Native People, and the Indigenous overthrow of the invaders are

Figure 27.4.  Remains of the Cicuye Pueblo.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 27.5.  The reconstructed kiva at Cicuye with the author peeking out.  KEN FEDER

stories rarely covered in standard high school history classes, at least outside of the Southwest. But at Pecos you can see the archaeological evidence of these vital elements of American history in the remnants of what was once a thriving and powerful community.

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument

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State: New Mexico Address for GPS: 105 S. Ripley Street Mountainair, NM 87036-0517 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1909 President: Theodore Roosevelt Administered by: National Park Service Size: 1,075 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Of course, Native People and Anglos have long known of and described the abandoned churches of Abó, Quarai, and Gran Quivira located in central New Mexico. For example, in 1853 Major James H. Carlton (of the 1st US Dragoons) encountered the remains of Gran Quivira and described the site in this way: We found the ruins of Gran Quivira to consist of the remains of a large church, with a monastery attached to it; a smaller church or chapel; and the ruins of a town extending 900 feet in a direction east and west and 300 feet north and south. (as cited in Prince 1915, p. 356)

Though now abandoned and largely in ruins, significant elements of these church buildings are more or less intact. For example, though the roof is gone, sections of the walls at Quarai are still more than forty feet high. Gran Quivira, 201

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the largest of the three missions, along with its surroundings, was designated as a national monument in 1909, a standing reminder of the Spanish invasion, colonization, and attempted conversion to Catholicism of the Native People in the Southwest. Abó and Quarai initially were New Mexico State monuments and in 1980 were combined with Gran Quivira into a single national monument containing three separate and noncontiguous units administered by the National Park Service. There is a joint visitor center for the three separate units of the monument in Mountainair, New Mexico. Each of the churches has its own small visitor center as well. Site and History: Much as was the case for Pecos National Historical Park, these three seventeenth-­ century church buildings (Abó 1622; Quarai 1626; Gran Quivira beginning in 1629) were built as part of the Spanish strategy for converting the Native People of the Southwest to Catholicism, and also of controlling the local territory. It was a clever strategy. Find robust, existing communities of Native People, move in, build a large church building and monastery in each of them using local people for construction so they feel invested. This provided the Church with an available community of souls to save and workers to, well, exploit for the economic gain of the Church. The Native People received some benefits as well, including access to materials—like metals—that weren’t previously available and, though on the surface they appeared to have converted to Catholicism, there is a long tradition of “syncretism” among Native People. In the Americas this syncretism involved not total replacement of traditional beliefs but Native reinterpretation and incorporation of Catholicism into their existing, traditional religion. So, while the priests might be pleased that the Indians now appeared to revere the saints, largely in secret, those saints were viewed by Native People merely as new manifestations of their existing spirit beings. Abó. The Spanish arrived in Abó in 1581 and found a vibrant community of Native People. Employing the strategy discussed above, they built a church there in 1622. They expanded and renovated the existing structure in 1640 and then again in 1658. You will see the remnants of the 1658 version of that church when you visit the site. Here’s John Mix Stanley’s rendering of the remnants of the church building based on his visit in 1846/1847 (figure 28.1). Reflecting the fact that the Spanish missionaries were aware of the difficulty posed by converting a people firm in their religious beliefs, they appropriated the Native practice and themselves built a kiva—a round temple/church/ceremonial structure of the Native People—as part of the church. This appears to have been done in an effort to convince the residents that the religion the priests had brought from Spain could be incorporated into at least some of their existing practices. The church was an active hub of conversion until 1673 when it was abandoned, largely as a result of raids from

Figure 28.1.  1846/1847 drawing by John Mix Stanley of the seventeenth-century Catholic church built by Spanish missionaries at Abó Pueblo in New Mexico.

Figure 28.2.  View of the church at Abó Pueblo as it looks today.  KEN FEDER

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another group of Native People, the Apache. You can walk around and marvel at the beauty of the ruins of the church (figure 28.2). Quarai. The Spanish presence at Quarai began in 1626, with the church building constructed between 1627 and 1632. Once again, the Spanish chose this location for a mission because of the presence of an already existing Native community (figure 28.3). The remains of the church building are quite impressive and you can walk right in. The building, like Catholic church buildings all over Europe at the time, has a cruciform ground plan; from the air, in other words from a “God’s-­ eye view,” the building is in the shape of a cross. The church was abandoned in 1678 as a result of Apache raids but also because of drought and resulting famine and possibly disease. Just a side note: During my visit, an owl living in an opening at the top of one of the walls had recently seen her chicks hatch. I saw pieces of the shell on the ground and, though I didn’t see the chicks, I clearly made out the mother in her hiding place. Gran Quivira. Gran Quivira (figure 28.4) is the largest of the churches in the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument and was attached to the largest of the Native communities in central New Mexico in the seventeenth century; a 226-room pueblo with an estimated population of about three thousand. That community was established in about AD 1275 and was continuously occupied until about 1672. The account of the Spanish explorer Don Antonio de

Figure 28.3.  View of the seventeenth-century church at Quarai as it looks today.  KEN FEDER

Villages after European Contact, American Southwest    205

Figure 28.4.  Excavated rooms of the Gran Quivira Pueblo in the foreground, with remains of the seventeenth-century church at Gran Quivira in the background.  MARIE MITCHELL/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

Espejo—you’ve seen his name before as he wrote about a number of significant sites in the Southwest during his late-sixteenth-­century expedition—suggests that the community was first seen by the Spanish in 1583. Conquistador—and big-­time sadist—Don Juan de Oñate also mentions encountering a Native community that almost certainly was Gran Quivira in the area in 1598. He called it San Buenaventura de Las Humanas. In his 1583 expedition, he passed by “inscription rock” at El Morro and carved his signature in the stone. In a horrific example of Oñate’s treatment of Native People, in retaliation for the people of Acoma Pueblo killing thirteen Spaniards, Oñate launched a military campaign against them, killing about a thousand people, imprisoning another five hundred, and then had the right feet of twenty-­five Acoma men above the age of twenty-­five cut off. Even the folks back home in Spain thought that was a little much, and he was convicted of the crime of “excessive force.” Anyway, missionaries arrived at Gran Quivira in 1626, and the church building was begun in 1627. The Native community and the Spanish mission were abandoned in 1672 for the same reasons listed for Abó and Quarai: Apache raids, drought, famine, and disease. The church structure left behind is impressive— about 109 feet long by 29 feet wide—and certainly worth a visit (figure 28.5).

Directions

All directions are from the visitor center in Mountainair. Abó: Ruins are nine miles (fifteen minutes) west on US Highway 60 and .5 mile north on NM Route 513.

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Figure 28.5.  Hiking trail (in white) at Gran Quivira, taking the visitor right up to the first church built there in the seventeenth century and through the original pueblo and into Second Church.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Quarai: Ruins are eight miles (fifteen minutes) north on NM Route 55 and 1 mile west. Gran Quivira: Ruins are twenty-­six miles (thirty minutes) south on NM Route 55.

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

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State: North Dakota Address for GPS: 564 County Road 37 Stanton, ND 58571 Particulars: National Historical Site Established: 1974 President: Gerald R. Ford Administered by: National Park Service Size: 1,758 acres First Encounter and Preservation: Though they were not the first non-­Natives to visit the Hidatsa and Mandan Native communities known as the Five Villages, located along the Knife River in North Dakota, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are certainly the best known. They arrived there in the winter of 1804 as part of their federally mandated investigation known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, the purpose of which was to explore the lands contained within the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Upon arriving at the Knife River communities, Lewis and Clark were particularly anxious to hire someone as a translator for their interactions with the Shoshone People they knew they would encounter farther west. Luckily, they met a multilingual person at Knife River who happened to be fluent in the Shoshone language because she actually was Shoshone. She would become, arguably the most famous Native American woman in all of history, at least among white people. 207

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We know her as Sacagawea (or Sakakawea; there are lots of different spellings), Shoshone for “Bird Woman” (Schultz 2017). In 2000 the US Mint released a one-­ dollar coin with an image intended to represent Sacagawea. Sacagawea was only sixteen years old and married to a white Québécois trapper, Touissant Charbonneau, when Lewis and Clark arrived. It should be mentioned that her marriage was not a romantic tale of love on the Great Plains. Sacagawea had been captured by the Hidatsa during a local war when she was only twelve years old, held captive in one of their villages, and then sold to Charbonneau to serve as a wife (even though he already had one). Oh, and just before she left to accompany the expedition, Sacagawea gave birth to a son, who she carried during a journey that extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Hers is a remarkable story of strength, resilience, and intelligence, and her contribution to the Corps of Discovery Expedition is incalculable Twenty years after their expedition and inspired by the stories told and artifacts collected by Lewis and Clark, the Pennsylvanian George Catlin, who I talked about in reference to the Pipestone National Monument, memorialized the lives and cultures of Native People in a series of more than six hundred paintings between 1830 and 1836. During his 1832 travels, he visited the location where Lewis and Clark first encountered Sacagawea and briefly lived among the Hidatsa and Mandan in their still thriving, bustling, and cosmopolitan communities. While there,

Figure 29.1.  George Catlin’s 1832 painting of the one of the thriving Native communities along the Knife River.

Villages before European Contact, American plains and northwest    209

he produced a marvelous painting of one of those communities, Hidatsa Village (figure 29.1). For a nice sample of some of Catlin’s artwork, take a look at Susanna Reich’s (2008) book Painting the Wild Frontier. The Five Villages along the Knife River were abandoned in the 1840s when the Hidatsa and Mandan People moved and joined with an affiliated people, the Arikara, in a series of villages near Fort Berthold on the Missouri River in western North Dakota. However, the remains of the Five Villages were never lost or forgotten, and the footprint left by the large number of substantial earth lodges that were the Native People’s homes was and continues to be clear, obvious, and impressive, leading to their designation in 1974 as a national historical site celebrating the lives and cultures of the people who lived there. Site and History: The Five Villages on the Knife River, located in close proximity to one another, were a big deal. They were a major trading center for Native People living in the Northern Plains. Significant resources and wealth in the form of corn, furs, copper, and later guns passed through the hands of the citizens of the Five Villages (Sullivan and Vrooman 1995). Each village consisted of at least several dozen and as many as one hundred large earth lodges. The individual villages ranged in population from a few hundred to more than a thousand. The earth lodges were substantial, dome-­shaped, circular structures averaging about forty feet in diameter—more than twelve hundred square feet of floor space,

Figure 29.2.  The reconstructed earth lodge at Awatixa village along the Knife River.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

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about the size of my first house—though some were larger still, with massive logs used in framing and a thick, insulating exterior of earth on which live grass grew (figure 29.2). Extended families of ten or more people lived in each lodge. The earth lodges were controlled by the women of the family and lasted for about ten years, but they were not necessarily lived in year-­round as families moved seasonally, especially to winter villages with smaller lodges located closer to stands of trees for firewood and protection from the cold and incessant winter winds of the northern Plains. If you visit the site, you’ll be able to visit the remnants of three of the Five Villages: 1. Awatixa Xi’e, or Lower Hidatsa Village. Occupied between 1525 and 1785, Awatixa Xi’e consisted of about fifty earth lodges and had a population of between five hundred and six hundred people. It was abandoned following a devastating smallpox epidemic in 1837 and 1838 that resulted in the deaths of about half of the Knife River Native population. The epidemic was caused by contact with European carriers of a disease to which the Native People had not previously been exposed and, therefore, for which they possessed no immunity. In some Mandan villages beyond Knife River, smallpox claimed the lives of more than 90 percent of the Native People. 2. Awatixa (later called Sakakawea Village). Consisting of about sixty earth lodges and a population of more than six hundred people, this village was occupied beginning in about 1790 and abandoned in 1834 when the homes of its residents were burned down in an attack by the Sioux. 3. Hidatsa Village (Big Hidatsa Site) was occupied between 1600 and as late as 1845. Hidatsa Village was the largest of the Five Villages, with about a hundred earth lodges and a population of as many as twelve hundred people. This is the village George Catlin memorialized in his painting in 1832 (see figure 29.1). A short hike on the Village Trail (1.3 miles round trip) from the quite beautiful visitor center leads first to the remains of Awatixa Xi’e Village and then Awatixa Village, located hard fast against the Knife River. Next, a less-­than-­three-­mile drive north on Route 37 and then a right onto Route 18 brings you to a parking area where there is another short trail (the North Forest Trail) leading to Hidatsa Village, the largest of the Five Villages. Fire (in the case of Awatixa) and the general ravages of time have destroyed the actual earth lodges of the three readily accessible villages. You will, however, be able to see the circular depressions of the homes—their footprints—positioned very closely together in what are the obvious remains of each village. Also, there is the already mentioned, very impressive reconstructed example of an earth lodge adjacent to the visitor center (see figure 29.2; figure 29.3 shows the interior of the reconstructed lodge).

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Figure 29.3.  The interior of the reconstructed earth lodge as you can see it today.   NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

There is a quite fascinating, beautifully produced, and moving video describing the Five Villages shown at the visitor center. Conveniently, the video is also available online on the Knife River Indian Villages website, produced and maintained by the National Park Service: https://www​ .nps​ .gov/media/video/ view​.htm?id=D053A59D-98ED-­E924-90AF5C9C52364722. The video is called Maxidiwiac. It is a quite lovely, dramatized, first-­person account based on the life and experiences of a real person, Maxidiwiac (Buffalo-­Bird Woman), who was born in Awatixa Village and spent most of her life in the Hidatsa village on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation after the Five Villages were abandoned. There also is a very informative video on the Knife River website that presents a ranger-­led discussion of earth lodges and a tour of the on-­site reconstructed example. The lodge is quite beautiful, spacious, and airy, yet it has a very cozy feel at the same time. I imagine, however, it might be colder than I am used to indoors on a windy winter day. See https://www​.nps​.gov/knri/learn/photosmultimedia/ multimedia​.htm. It would be wrong to call Knife River a “vanished world.” The Hidatsa and Mandan have not vanished. They continue as a vibrant people possessed of a vibrant culture. The remnants of their villages along the Knife River provides us all with a sort of time machine by which we can travel back to explore and honor their history.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

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State: Montana Address for GPS: I-90 Frontage Road Crow Agency, MT 59022-0039 Particulars: National Monument Established: 1946 President: Harry S. Truman Administered by: National Park Service Size: 765 acres First Encounter and Preservation: The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument marks the location where a contingent of the US Army, part of the 7th Regiment of the US Cavalry, and a large grouping of mostly Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne warriors fought a significant battle in June of 1876. Spoiler alert: The Native warriors decimated the portion of 7th Cavalry they confronted, killing every one of the more than 250 soldiers and support staff (there was even an embedded reporter) led into battle by the charismatic and politically ambitious Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The battle represented an iconic confrontation between two cultures with enormous implications for them both. For many, the Battle of the Little Bighorn is the battle between the US Army and Native People in America. At least most non-­Natives would be hard-­pressed to name another battle fought between those two groups. It should come as no surprise that alongside other battlefields of other wars fought 213

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Figure 30.1.  One of the clusters of marble markers erected as memorials at the locations where members of the 7th Cavalry fell at the battle known by its Native participants as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and more commonly called the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  KEN FEDER

on American soil, including the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the Little Bighorn Battlefield has been designated a national monument, a place where history resonates and where the fallen deserve recognition. In a sense, the first effort to preserve the battlefield actually occurred just three days after the battle when another contingent of soldiers arrived. You can hardly imagine the ghastly scene that confronted them; more than 250 bodies of their comrades putrefying in the harsh sun of Montana in June. Ill-­equipped to deal with the overwhelming burial detail, they thinly covered the bodies with soil, leaving the dead soldiers where they lay, unintentionally preserving the locations where they fought and died, which later would allow a detailed forensic analysis of the progression of the battle. No bodies of Indians were found; families of fallen warriors collected the bodies of their loved ones and removed them for ceremonies elsewhere. The body of Custer and the other officers, where they could be identified, were disinterred and moved in 1877. They had been found clustered together at the place traditionally called “Custer’s Last Stand.” Custer’s remains were brought east and buried at the West Point Cemetery. A military cemetery was established near the battlefield and the remains of many of the other soldiers were reinterred there, but markers were placed where each of the bodies had been found and recovered, thus preserving the geography of at least the closing minutes of the battle (figure 30.1). In 1879, the battlefield was designated a US National Cemetery, and in 1946 the place was designated “Custer Battlefield National Monument.” The name was

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changed in 1991 to “Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument” as part of an effort to recognize that the story told by this place is not about Custer and not just about US soldiers, but also about the Native People who fought and died there, as they themselves have explicitly stated, for “the Lakota” and the “Cheyenne way of life.” The battle was a great defeat for the US military. It was a great victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne led by their military leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall. History demands that we recognize this and recognize them by name as well. Site and History: I’m going to assume that you did not buy this book to read my opinions about all those “reality”—really, surreality—ghost-­hunting shows on cable TV. So consider the following a bonus, an extra I am providing here as a public service for free. They’re all crap. The spirits of dead people do not walk around rattling chains or rattling anything else. They don’t push stuff over, open doors, moan, yell, or do anything else to try to scare the bejeezus out of you. Know why? They’re not real. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Seriously. There. I feel better getting that off of my chest. That fact notwithstanding, I do recognize that the Little Bighorn Battlefield is a haunted place. It is haunted, not in the supernatural sense, but in one far more central to genuine human emotion and experience. It is a place where more than a couple of thousand people met on a sunny day in late June 1876. On that day and in that place two armies and two cultures collided on a battlefield and, when the shooting was done, the bellowing horses quiet, and the agonized screams of the dying had ceased more than 250 men lay dead or dying in the hot sun. One army, fighting for their way of life, left the battlefield hoping to avoid the inevitable retribution that would be visited upon them. The other army, decimated and without even a single survivor, would lie in place until their comrades in arms arrived the following day to bury them where they fell and assess what had happened. The place where this occurred, where some brave men met their deaths and other brave men rode away victorious, is, indeed, haunted in the imaginations of military historians, Native American warriors, and likely every visitor drawn to the scene where this terrible battle took place. This is the location of the Battle of the Greasy Grass, as the Lakota call it, and likely known to you as the Little Bighorn Battlefield or Custer’s Last Stand. One cannot stand in the midst of that undulating plain of prairie where white marble markers, some even bearing the names of 7th Cavalry soldiers who fell at those spots (figure 30.2) during the battle, rise among the blades of grass and not be assaulted by the awful images and sounds your imagination can provide of the death that reigned that day. This place is, by my definition of the term anyway, “haunted.” It is also, and again however you define the term, “sacred.” This, perhaps for more than any other reason, led to the battlefield being designated a national monument and is reason enough for you to visit the place.

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Figure 30.2.  The markers erected at the locations where the bodies of two members of the 7th Cavalry were found the day after the battle on June 25, 1876. Here is Lt. Jas. G. Sturgis.  KEN FEDER

There isn’t time here to provide a detailed history lesson of what led to the battle. Suffice to say that, leading up to it, the US government had been attempting to confine the previously highly mobile Native People of the northern Great Plains to reservations where they could be confined and more easily controlled. Also suffice to say those Native People had no intention of being confined and controlled. The government further decided that any “Indians” who refused to keep to the reservations would be hunted down and forced onto reservation lands. The Battle of the Little Bighorn (“Little Bighorn” is the name of a nearby river) was a culmination of that effort. The army’s strategy had been to track down a known contingent of Lakota and Cheyenne off-­reservation People and “escort” them back at gunpoint and by threatening the lives of the warriors’ families. A mobile contingent of soldiers led by Custer was sent ahead

Figure 30.3.  The cluster of markers at Custer’s Last Stand where the bodies of Custer (in black) and those who died with him were found after the battle. It was, indeed, all of their “last stands.”  KEN FEDER

Figure 30.4.  The memorial marker erected by the National Park Service. The names of all of the US soldiers who died during the battle—the entire 7th Cavalry—with Custer on June 25, 1876.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 30.5 a & b.  Markers in memory of three of the Native American warriors who died during the Battle of the Greasy Grass: (a) A’Kavehe’Onahe (Limber Bones) and Hahpehe’Onahe (Closed Hand) and (b) Wasicu Sapa (Black White Man).  KEN FEDER

to locate the warriors, surround them, surveil them, and then wait for reinforcements. But Custer didn’t wait. Custer’s premature and ultimately disastrous attack was a result of a potent combination of bad intelligence (the army thought there were only about 800 poorly armed warriors in the group they were following; it turned out that there were as many as 2,500), bad luck (it seems likely that the Native People became aware of the presence of the cavalry and Custer feared that they might escape) and, it must be said, a politically ambitious, perhaps even foolhardy commanding officer, Custer, who had presidential ambitions. A reputation as a fierce and unrelenting “Indian killer” might have served him well in those ambitions. I hope I am explaining the battlefield well enough, but there is no way I can adequately convey the feeling engendered by walking across this terrible and amazing place. There is an on-­site museum and knowledgeable rangers to help you understand what happened on those two days in June 1876. Take the quarter-­mile paved trail flanked by white marble markers positioned where the bodies of soldiers were found after the battle. Some of those markers bear the names of the soldiers

war    219

who died in the marked spots. Make sure to see the cluster of markers, including Custer’s, located in a fenced area at the top of a hill, so-­called Custer’s Last Stand (figure 30.3). Adjacent to the Last Stand is a large stone memorial listing the names of all of the soldiers who died during the battle (figure 30.4). If you’re a fan of the original Twilight Zone, you’ll recognize that monument from the episode The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms; and no, there are no mysteriously added names on the monument. Also, please pay your respects as well at the markers memorializing a few of the Native warriors who fell that day and speak their names (figures 30.5 a and b): A’Kavehe’Onahe (Limber Bones), Hahpehe’Onahe (Closed Hand), and Wasicu Sapa (Black White Man). There also is a marker memorializing the horses killed in the battle. More recently a memorial for the Native warriors who fought in the Battle of the Greasy Grass has been added (figure 30.6). That last memorial includes accounts by those warriors recorded after the battle. Though fighting for their lives and way of life, Native participants honored the memory of their enemy: “It was a terrible battle . . . a hard battle because both sides were brave warriors” (Red Feather). You can also drive on a paved road to associated locations where other army contingents fought Native warriors as part of the battle. You can obtain audio tours for that drive at the shop in the museum. Artifacts from the battle were collected almost as soon as the battle was over, and a number of archaeological excavations of the place have been conducted under the direction of archaeologist Douglas Scott (Scott et al. 1989). In 1983

Figure 30.6.  Metal sculpture erected to honor the Native warriors who fought at the Battle of the Greasy Grass.  KEN FEDER

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Figure 30.7 a & b  Over the years, artifacts have been found on the surface or archaeologically recovered in excavation. Here are pictured a bullet from a Springfield rifle as well as a stone point.  NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

and then again in 1991, after a fire burned off much of the grass at the battlefield, objects related to the battle could still be found, including bullets and stone arrow or spear points (figure 30.7 a and b). The locations of these objects have enabled a forensic analysis of the battle, much in the way a criminal investigator might reconstruct the scene of a crime. Scott’s fascinating research has contributed significantly to our understanding of the battle. As stated earlier, the Battle of the Little Bighorn National Monument is a scared place and one that should be visited by every American to honor all of those who died on that terrible day in 1876. And remember, as terrible as that day was, it was the harbinger of an even more terrible fate for many of the Native People of North America.

A Brief Epilogue

I truly hope you have enjoyed our journey together across a wide swath of the United States, stopping along the way to visit thirty of our national parks, national historical parks, and national monuments. These places resonate with the history of the First Peoples of Turtle Island, the first inhabitants of the place we now call the United States. These are places of beauty, of history, of genius, and of imagination. They are, as Angeline Mitchell called them (as I cited her in the entry on Tonto National Monument), places created: “by people . . . who had known joy and grief, pleasure and pain same as our race of today knows them, and who had laughed, cried, sung, danced, married & died, mourned or rejoiced their lives away.” And, as the Affiliated Pueblo Committee so mindfully phrased it regarding Bandelier National Monument, but it applies to every single one of the places celebrated in this guide: “Spiritually, our ancestors still live here at Bandelier. You see reminders of their presence here—their homes, their kivas, and their petroglyphs. As you walk in their footsteps, value the earth beneath you and show everything the same respect we do when we re-­visit this sacred place.” Value and respect. Those are the watchwords of this book. Thank you for reading. Ken Feder

221

A Dictionary of Terms

A word of clarification: Of course, the names we today assign different Native groups or cultures are based on variables that might make sense to archaeologists in the present—the particulars of pottery styles, shapes of spear points or arrowheads, distinctive architectural patterns, or regional food preferences—but there’s no real way of knowing whether the people themselves would have viewed those differences as significant or essential. Would they have perceived something alien or foreign about the styles, patterns, or preferences of their neighbors? Would they have viewed the degree of difference sufficient to consider those people as “other”? We really can’t say definitively. Further, related to “rock art,” we have no idea what the Native artists called what we today perceive and name as distinctive art styles or even if they thought of their art as conforming to a particular style distinct from that of the people who lived on the other side of the mountain or across the river. The different names we apply are modern constructs reflecting our attempt to distinguish what appear to us to be significantly different styles or behaviors signifying the existence of significantly different cultures or peoples. We hope we achieve a degree of accuracy, but we simply can’t know for sure. In truth, archaeologists are always defining and labeling “types”—of spear points, ceramic styles, and rock art—as it enables us, to an extent, to isolate and demarcate particular time periods and to recognize what we believe to have been different peoples with distinctive ways of life. Think about hairstyles, clothing, even automobiles in the modern world. When you watch a movie the look of a car, the kind of clothing worn by women, or the type of suits and hats worn by men in many cases tell the time period of the story told in the movie. If a character in a movie desperately searches for a telephone booth to call a friend or the police, we know the movie takes place during an “ancient” time period when there were no cell phones. Different styles or technologies may similarly inform us about the Native People of North America. The rock art styles and cultures defined and named by archaeologists and that we will encounter in the parks and monuments highlighted in this guide are among the terms defined here. Here we go. 223

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Adena: Adena is the name applied to a burial mound–building people of the American Midwest. The Adena homeland was located across a broad swath of West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The Adena had an extensive trading network, buried their elite in sometimes massive, conical burial mounds, and had a subsistence system based largely on hunting and gathering. They existed from about 1000 BC to 200 BC. Adobe: Spanish term for a construction technique employing sun-­dried bricks made of mud. Adobe was commonly employed in the building of great houses in the Southwest. Anasazi: Though you may still see this term used, it has largely been retired, replaced by Ancestral Puebloan. “Anasazi” is a word in the Navajo language generally interpreted as meaning “ancient enemies.” In other words, the Navajo People called builders of the cliff dwellings and great houses whose remnants are found in the Four Corners region “Anasazi,” recognizing that those responsible were people other than the Navajo, which is accurate. Needless to say, the living descendants of the actual builders—among them, the modern Hopi and Zuni People—object to using another people’s rather negative, even pejorative term for the places their ancestors built and where their spirits still live, so we now use the more appropriate and accurate term “Ancestral Puebloan.” Ancestral Puebloan: Formerly called Anasazi, the Ancestral Puebloan People were centered in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. They were responsible for the construction of the cliff dwellings and great houses found there in abundance dating from a little before one thousand years ago up to the time of European intrusion, about five hundred years ago. Anthropomorphs: Rock art images of two-­legged, upright creatures that look like human beings to varying degrees. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers: Branch of the army from 1838 to 1863. Consisting exclusively of West Point graduates, the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers was, essentially, an advance guard for the US government, investigating “new” territories (not new to the Native People already living there of course, but new to the white settlers) in the West. It was tasked with finding the best routes for stagecoach and wagon roads as well as railroads. One of the jobs of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, and other military reconnaissance expeditions in the 1800s, was to record everything members saw during their travels that might be of interest to the federal government. Not surprisingly, this included the Native People they encountered along the way, including evidence of their long-­standing presence in the form of the “ruins” of their houses. Lacking cameras or cell phones to photo-­document what they saw, the government conscripted artists for their expeditions. In their role as visual documentarians, men such as Richard Kern and John Mix Stanley produced often quite marvelous drawings and paintings—of varying accuracy and fidelity—of the remains of structures that you can still see in many of our

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national parks and monuments. In many cases, their art represents the oldest images non-­Natives saw of these wonderful places. Ball court: Oval architectural features demarcated by low walls, usually with openings at the high and low points of the oval. About two hundred of these features have been found in the Southwest and, while their use or function is unproven, the common assumption is that they were gathering places where a ceremonial ball game was played, similar to the known ball courts and game from Mesoamerica (see figure 8.4). Barrier canyon: A distinctive pictograph style characterized by elongate anthropomorphs, often without arms or legs and with large, round, open eyes. Usually thought to date from between four thousand and fifteen hundred years ago, some dating suggests the oldest examples may be considerably older than that, originating perhaps as much as seven thousand years ago. Burial mound: A mound of earth, usually conical in shape, with a circular footprint and as much as nearly seventy feet in height. These mounds were the burial places of important people, who often were interred with finely crafted grave goods including pottery, ceramic smoking pipes, silver, copper, or stone ear spools, and other jewelry. Burial mounds dating from more than two thousand to five hundred years ago are common in the American Midwest and are affiliated with the Adena and Hopewell cultures. Cliff dwelling: Buildings constructed by Native Americans living in the Southwest in natural niches eroded in cliffs. Those niches or shallow caves may be located anywhere along the cliff face, from the base to the top. The stunning locations and remarkable settings of cliff dwellings provided a measure of defensibility and protection from the elements—especially the blazing sun of the Southwest—and it also saved arable land for cultivation. Effigy mound: Large-­scale earth constructions in the shape of animals including bears, birds, and snakes, among others. Concentrated in the Midwest and Upper Midwest, they generally date from more than a thousand years ago. Four Corners: The only place in the United States where the borders of four states—Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico—meet at right angles and at a common point. Yes, there is an official marker at that point and yes, you can sit on it and your butt will be in four states simultaneously. Go for it. Not to denigrate that uplifting and enlightening opportunity, it is more important, at least in terms of this book, that the general region around that geographical point is home to an amazing history and culture, specifically those of the Ancestral Puebloan People as well as their descendants, the modern Hopi and Zuni, along with a separate group, the Navajo. Fremont: A distinctive petroglyph style found especially in Utah characterized by lots of images of bighorn sheep and trapezoidal anthropomorphs with broad shoulders tapering down to a very narrow waist. Some Fremont anthropomorphs are just trapezoidal torsos, lacking arms and legs. They are believed to date from the period between two thousand and seven hundred years ago.

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Great house: Term applied to often quite large, multistory (as many as four levels), freestanding adobe pueblos built by the Native People of the American Southwest. Great houses are the equivalent of apartment buildings. Hohokam: One of the named cultural and archaeological groups of the American Southwest. Located primarily in central Arizona, the Hohokam subsisted on a diet dominated by corn, beans, and squash, and they built large adobe great houses. The Hohokam are distinguished by their skill in, as the saying goes, “making the desert bloom,” through their development and application of a brilliantly engineered irrigation technology as seen in the archaeological remnants of their water-­control features. They existed from AD 0 to AD 1450. Hopewell: Though in part overlapping in time, Hopewell is viewed largely as an elaboration and culmination of the Adena pattern, with a shift in subsistence to agriculture including locally domesticated crops, such as sunflowers. Put simply, Hopewell was sort of Adena-­plus with a burial mound tradition, a socially stratified society, and a far-­ranging trading network that brought desired raw materials into the Hopewell homeland from as far away as Wyoming to the west and Florida to the south. Apparent social stratification or inequality is reflected in the fine goods that only some people were deemed worthy of as reflected, for example, in their burials. Kiva: Generally, though not exclusively, round masonry structures found in the Southwest. Kivas were places of worship and ceremony. Mogollon: One of the named cultural and archaeological groups of the American Southwest. The Mogollon were located in southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Like the other named archaeological cultures in the Southwest, Mogollon sites exhibit a dietary reliance on corn, beans, and squash, and they build adobe buildings. The Mogollon are distinguished by a unique style of ceramics in which a brown paste was used as well as by some of the details of their architecture. The Mogollon existed from AD 200 to AD 1450. Mound builders: Beginning more than five thousand years ago, various Native People in the Midwest, Mid-­south, and Southeast of North America constructed monuments of earth, sometimes on a gigantic scale. Such features included conical burials mounds, truncated pyramids or temple mounds that served as platforms for temples or elite residences, enclosures of assorted geometric shapes, and effigies, large earth sculptures often in the shape of bears, birds, or snakes. Petroglyph: Art produced by scratching, engraving, carving, or pecking images onto an exposure of bedrock. Sometimes the surface of the rock had been darkened by weathering and a thin patina—a desert varnish— covered the surface, obscuring the lighter color of the inner rock. Artists etched through that dark patina, creating images by exposing the lighter rock beneath. Pictograph: Art produced by painting an image onto a rock surface. Paint often was produced by grinding various minerals, for example, red or yellow ochre or

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black manganese, to create the actual color and then adding a binder like animal grease, egg albumen, or even saliva to make the paint. Platform mound (temple mound): Sometimes monumentally scaled earth mounds, often shaped like truncated pyramids with flat tops on which a temple or residence (likely of a ruler or priest) was constructed. Beginning about one thousand years ago, the platform or temple mound builders were concentrated in the Mississippi River Valley and its major tributaries, but their communities were widespread north to south, from Wisconsin to Oklahoma, and ranged as far to the southeast as the west coast of Florida. Early sixteenth-­century Spanish explorers (such as Hernando de Soto beginning in 1539) encountered and described platform mound–building people when they traveled through the American southeast. Rock art: Art rendered, either by painting (pictograph) or etching/scratching/ pecking (petroglyph) an image onto a surface of rock, usually on a cliff or bedrock exposure. Some researchers are opposed to the term and maintain that calling something “art” diminishes or somehow misrepresents its significance or meaning. I disagree. In many traditions, art can be and often is sacred, and its creation is a form of worship or communion with the spirit world. Art can tell a story, reflect a historical event, entertain, or even perplex the viewer, and much more. Art is, therefore, inherently deeply meaningful and the term applies nicely here. Though perhaps most widely known in the American Southwest, rock art is found throughout the United States. Sinagua: One of the named cultural and archaeological groups of the American Southwest. The Sinagua were centered in central and northern Arizona, growing significantly in population after the eruption of the volcano whose ash produced fertile farmland and that left behind Sunset Crater south of Flagstaff (and which is now its own national monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument). The Sinagua built enormous great houses. “Sinagua” is a Spanish term that literally means “without water,” a reference to the dryness of their homelands. The Sinagua existed from AD 600 to AD 1450. Temple mound (platform mound): Sometimes monumentally scaled earth mounds, often shaped like truncated pyramids with flat tops on which a temple or residence (likely of a ruler or priest) was constructed. Beginning about one thousand years ago, the platform or temple mound builders were concentrated in the Mississippi River Valley and its major tributaries, but their communities were widespread north to south, from Wisconsin to Oklahoma, and ranged as far east as West Virginia and as far to the southeast as the west coast of Florida. Early sixteenth-­century Spanish explorers (such as Hernando de Soto beginning in 1539) encountered and described platform mound–building people when they traveled through the American southeast.

References

Ash, S. R. “Ferns from the Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic) in the Fort Wingate Area, New Mexico.” Geological Society Professional Paper 613-D:D1—D50. 1969. https://pubs​ .usgs​.gov/pp/0613d/report​.pdf. Atwater, C. Description of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States. New York: Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, 1820. Bandelier, A.  F. Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880–1885, Part II. Cambridge, MA: Archaeological Institute of America, 1892. https://play​.google​.com/books/reader?id=451FAQA AMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1s. Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Brown, Stanley C., ed. A Frontier Teacher in Tonto Basin: The 1880 Diary of Angeline Mitchell. Prescott, AZ: Rim Country Museum Press, 2014. Catlin, George. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 2018. Catton, Theodore, and Diane L. Krahe. The Blood of the People: Historic Resource Study Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2016. http://www​.npshistory​.com/publications/pipe/hrs​.pdf. Chapin, F. H. The Land of the Cliff Dwellers. Boston: W. B. Clarke and Company, 1892. Colavito, J. The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a “Lost White Race.” Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020. Connolly, R. P. Transcribed Autobiography of Jacob Walter Containing Earliest Historic Account of the Poverty Point Site. 2014. https://www​.academia​.edu/5595114/Transcribed_Autobiography_of_Jacob_Walter_Containing_Earliest_Historic_Account_of_the_Poverty_ Point_Site?auto=download. Deloria, Vine Jr. Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. New York: Scribner, 1995. Downum, Christian W., Ellen Brennan, and James P. Holmland. An Architectural Study of Wupatki Pueblo (NA 405). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University Press, 1999. Feder, Kenneth L. Ancient America: Fifty Archaeological Sites to See for Yourself. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 229

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Feder, Kenneth L. Archaeological Oddities. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Fewkes, J. W. Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park: Cliff Palace. Bureau of American Ethnology 51. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1911. Ford, J., and C. Webb. Poverty Point: A Late Archaic Site in Louisiana. Anthropological Papers 46. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1956. George, R.  J. et al. “Archaeogenomic Evidence from the Southwestern United States Points to a Pre-­Hispanic Scarlet Macaw Breeding Colony.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (2018): 8740–45. http://www​.pnas​.org/content/115/35/8740. Hagdorn, Hermann. Roosevelt in the Badlands. Oyster Bay, NY: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1921. Hanke, L. “Pope Paul III and the American Indians.” Harvard Theological Review 30 (1937): 65–102. Harrell, D. “‘We Contacted Smithsonian’: The Wetherills at Mesa Verde.” New Mexico Historical Review 62, no. 3 (1987). Hoffman, W. J. “Miscellaneous Ethnographic Observations on Indians Inhabiting Nevada, California, and Arizona.” In Tenth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey, edited by F.  V. Hayden, 461–80. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1878. James, S. R., and P. J. Pilles Jr. “Late Nineteenth Century Archaeology in the Verde Valley, Arizona: The Research of Palmer, Mearns, Hoffman and Other Early Investigators.” Journal of Arizona Archaeology 3, no. 1 and 2 (2015):1–20. Jonas, Tom. “Southwest Explorations.” 2014. http://southwestexplorations​.com/wupatki. Kennett, Douglas J. et al. “Archaeogenomic Evidence Reveals Prehistoric Matrilineal Dynasty.” Nature Communications 8, no. 14115 (2017). http://dx​ .doi​ .org/10.1038/ ncomms14115. Kopper, P. The Smithsonian Book of North American Indians before the Coming of the Europeans. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1986. Lepper, B. Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio’s Ancient American Indian Cultures. Wilmington, OH: Orange Frazer Press, 2005. Lister, Robert H., and Florence C. Lister. Aztec Ruins National Monument: Administrative History of an Archeological Preserve. Santa Fe, NM: National Park Service, 1990. https:// www​.nps​.gov/parkhistory/online_books/azru/index​.htm. Lundwall, H. J., ed. Pioneering in Territorial Silver City: H. B. Ailman’s Recollection of Silver City and the Southwest 1871–1892. Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Mallery, G. Picture Writing of the American Indians. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1894. https://archive​.org/details/PictureWritingOfTheAmericanI93Pages3822GarrickMallery. McNitt, F. Richard Wetherill: Anasazi. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1966. Mearns, E. A. “Ancient Dwellings of the Rio Verde Valley.” Popular Science Monthly XXXVII (October 1890): 745–63. Meltzer, David. First Peoples in a New World: Populating Ice Age America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Neff, T. et al. An Assessment of the National Significance of Cultural Resources for the Walnut Canyon Special Resource Study. 2011. https://www​.nps​.gov/waca/learn/management/ upload/waca_srs_mna​.pdf.

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Newberry, J. S. “Geological Report.” In Report of the Exploring Expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Junction of the Grand and Green Rivers of the Great Colorado of the West in 1859, edited by Capt. J.  N. Macomb. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1876. O’Bright, J. Y. The Perpetual March: An Administrative History of Effigy Mounds National Monument. National Park Service, 1989. https://www​.nps​.gov/parkhistory/online_books/ efmo/adhi/adhi​.htm. Orr, E. The Reminiscences of a Pioneer Boy. Washington, PA: Eastern National, 1971. Pederson, J., and Melissa S. Chapot et al. “Age of Barrier Canyon–style Rock Art Constrained by Cross-­cutting Relations and Luminescence Dating Techniques.” Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 36 (2014): 12986–91. Prince, L.  B. Spanish Mission Churches of New Mexico. Cedar Rapids: Torch Press, 1915. https://archive​.org/details/spanishmissionc00pringoog/page/n302/mode/2up/search/ Carlton. Protas, J. A Past Preserved in Stone: A History of Montezuma Castle National Monument. Tucson, AZ: Western National Parks Association, 2002. Prudden, T. M. “The prehistoric ruins of the San Juan watershed in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.” American Anthropologist 5, no. 2 (1903): 224–88. Raff, Jennifer. Origins: A Genetic History of the Americas. New York: Twelve Books, 2022. Reich, Susanna. Painting the Wild Frontier: The Art and Adventures of George Catlin. New York: Clarion Books, 2008. Russell, P. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument: An Administrative History. Professional Papers Southwest Region 48. Santa Fe, NM: Southwest Cultural Resources Center, 1992. Schultz, James Willard. Bird Woman (Sacajawea): The Guide of Lewis and Clark: Her Own Story Now First Given to the World. Los Angeles: Enhances Media, 2017. Scott, Douglas D., R. A. Fox, M. A. Connor, and Dick Harmon. Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Shimer, H., and F. H. Shimer. “The Lithological Section of Walnut Canyon, Arizona, with Relation to the Cliff-­Dwellings of This and Other Regions of Northwestern Arizona.” American Anthropologist 12 (1910): 237–49. Simpson, J. H. Navajo Expedition. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. Sitgreaves, L. Report of an Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers. Washington, DC: Robert Armstrong, 1853. https://archive​ .org/details/reportofexpedit00unit/page/n8/ mode/2up. Spence, Mark David. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of National Parks. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Sproul, D. K. A Bridge between Cultures: An Administrative History of Rainbow Bridge National Monument. US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Intermontane Region, 2001. Squire, E., and E. Davis. Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Volume 1 of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. New York: AMS Press, 1848. Stanford, Dennis, and Bruce Bradley. Across Atlantic Ice. Oakland: University of California Press, 2013. Steeves, Paulette. The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

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Index

NM= National Monument NHP=National Historical Park NP=National Park Page references relating to figures are italicized. 7th Cavalry, 213, 214, 216, 219 A’Kavehe’Onahe (Limber Bones), 218, 219 Aberle, Dr. Sophie, 126 Abó (Salinas Pueblo Missions NM), 198, 201–202, 203, 205 Acowitz, 72–73 Adena, 185 adobe, 26, 33, 42–43, 56, 61, 63, 98, 107–108, 120, 196, 199 Agate House (Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP), 119, 120 Ailman, Henry B., 105–106 Alamo (Wetherill homestead), 72 Albuquerque, New Mexico, 125–126, 171 Alcove Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon (Canyonlands NP), 145 Alcove House Trail (Bandelier NM), 93–94, 95 American Antiquities Act of 1906, 5–6, 8, 25, 29, 42, 92, 118, 134–135 American Museum of Natural History (New York), 86, 98 Anasazi (see Ancestral Puebloan) Ancestral Puebloans, 19, 75 Animas River, New Mexico, 85

Antelope House (Canyon de Chelly NM), 22, 23 anthropomorphs (rock art), 110, 131, 138, 143, 145, 146, 147, 155, 156, 159, 161 Araucarioxylon arizonicum, 118 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), 7 Arikara People, 189, 209 Arizona, xviii, 8–9, 18, 20, 26, 30, 33, 41, 48, 51–52, 59–60, 107, 117–118, 136, 196 Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, 17, 18, 60, 98, 117 Awatixa (Knife River Indian Villages NHP; Skakawea Village), 209, 210–211 Awatixa Xi’e (Knife River Indian Villages NHP; Lower Hidatsa Village), 210 Aztec (empire, Mexico), 30, 182 Aztec Ruins NM, 85, 86–90, 101, 104, 129, 199 Balcony House (Mesa Verde NP), 75, 78, 79, 80, 93 ball court, 61, 62 Bandelier NM, 91, 95, 106, 221 Bandelier, Adolph F.A., 42, 43, 91, 106 Barrier Canon (art style), 143–145 233

234    Index

Battle of the Greasy Grass (Battle of the Little Bighorn NM), 214, 215, 218, 219 Battle of the Little Bighorn, 213, 214, 216, 220 Battle of the Little Bighorn NM, 213–220 Bayou Maçon, 178 beans, 27, 49, 56, 167, 184 bear effigy mound, 175 Bear Mound Group (Effigy Mounds NM), 174 Bears Ears NM, 120, 133–140 Beaver Creek, 30–31, 32 Bering Land Bridge, 12 Beringia, 12 Betatakin (Navajo NM), 35–39 Big Five NPs, Utah (Bryce, Zion, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands), 141, 152 bighorn sheep (rock art), 23, 136, 154–156, 162, 163 bird (effigy mound), 176 Bird Woman (Sacagawea), 208 bison (petroglyph), 136, 156 Bluff, Utah, 137, 138–139 Boca Negra trails (Petroglyph NM), 126, 127–129 Box Canyon (Wupatki NM), 63 burial mounds, xiii; at Mound City (Hopewell Culture NHP), 184, 187 Bureau of American Ethnology, 33 Bureau of Land Management, 7 Butch Cassidy, 143 Butler Wash, 136, 138, 139 Butler Wash Ruins (Bears Ears NM), 136 Cajon (Hovenweep NM), 112 Canyon de Chelly NM, xviii, 17–24, 55, 59, 97 Canyon del Muerto (Canyon de Chelly NM; Dead Man’s Canyon), 17 Canyonlands NP, 141–149 Canyons of the Ancients NM Visitor Center and Museum, 68 Canyons of the Ancients NM, 65–69, 89, 104 Capitol Reef NP, 151–156

Carlton, Major James H., 201 Carson, Colonel Kit, 19 Casa Blanca (Canyon de Chelly NM; White House), 19 Casa Chiquita (Chaco Canyon NHP), 101 Casa Grande NM, 25, 26–28 Casa Rinconada (Chaco Canyon NHP), 101, 102 Catholicism, 202 Catlin, George, 190, 191, 208, 210 Catlinite, 190 cavates, 92, 93 Cedar Tree Tower (Mesa Verde NP), 82 Chaco Canyon NHP, 19, 50, 59, 68, 72, 75, 89, 97–104, 129 Channupa-aykay, 189, 191–192 Chapin Mesa (Mesa Verde NP), 76–77, 78, 80 Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum (Mesa Verde NP), 75 Chapin, Frederick, 73–74 Chettro Kettle (Chetro Ketl; Chaco Canyon NHP), 98 Cheyenne (People), 189, 213, 215–216 Chief Gall, 215 Chimney Rock NM, 89–104 Chinle, Arizona, 20 churches: Abó (Salinas NM), 202, 203, 204; Cicuye (Pecos NHP), 195, 196–197, 198–199; Gran Quivira (Salinas NM), 201, 206; Quarai (Salinas NM), 204–205 Cicuye (Pecos NHP), 195, 196, 197, 198–200 Circle Trail (Pipestone NM), 192 Citadel (Wupatki NM), 63 Civil Works Administration (CWA), 48 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 92, 118, 166 Clark, William, 207 Cliff Base Trail (Petroglyph NM; Boca Negra Canyon), 128–129 Cliff Dweller Creek (Gila Cliff Dwellings NM), 107–108 cliff dwellings, xiii, xviii, 6, 11, 30; at Bandelier NM, 91–92, 93, 95;

Index    235

at Canyon de Chelly NM, 17, 18, 20–21, 23; at Gila Cliff Dwellings NM, 105, 106–109; at Mesa Verde NP, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77–79, 80, 81, 83; at Montezuma Castle NM, 30–31; at Navajo NM (Betatakin), 36–39; at Navajo NM (Inscription House) 36; at Navajo NM (Keet Seel), 36–37; at Tonto NM, 41–42, 43–45; at Walnut Canyon NM, 53, 54–57, 58 Cliff Palace (Mesa Verde NP), 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79 Cliff Palace Loop (Mesa Verde NP), 76, 78, 80 Clifton, Henry, 30–31 Cochiti Pueblo, 92 Coconino (geological formation), 55 Colorado, 65, 68, 72–75, 161, 171–172 Colorado State Federation of Women’s Clubs, 74 Colton, Harold S., 60 Colton, Mary Russell-Ferrell, 60 Coolidge, President Calvin, 60 copper, 47, 186, 209 Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 125, 195, 197 Corps of Discovery, 207–208 Cortez, Colorado, 68, 75 coyote (petroglyph), 130, 131 Crab Nebula supernova of AD 1054 pictograph, 103 Crater Lake NP, 4 Crazy Horse, 215 Cub Creek Road rock art (Dinosaur NP), 159, 160, 161 curse (for stealing petrified wood), 124 Custer, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong, 213–214, 215, 216–217, 218 Custer’s Last Stand, 214–216, 219 Cutthroat Castle (Hovenweep NM), 112 The Delight Makers (Adolph Bandelier), 92 Deloria, Vine, 12 Deluge Shelter pictographs (Dinosaur NP), 160, 162, 163

dendrochronology, 37, 108 Description of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States (Caleb Atwater), 181 Devil’s Tower NM, 8, 9 Dinosaur NM, 157–163 Dinosaur Quarry (Dinosaur NM), 157, 158 Dispossessing Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of NPs (Mark David Spence), 17 Dominguez Pueblo (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 65, 68 earth lodge (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 167, 168 earth lodges (Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site), 209, 210, 211 effigy mounds, xiii, 171–173, 174–175 Effigy Mounds NM, 171–176 effigy pipes, 186, 187 El Morro NM, 8, 126, 143, 205 Emory, William, 25, 26, 195 Erickson, Travis (Sisseton-Wahpeton), 192 Escalante Pueblo (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 65, 68, 69 Espejo, Don Antonio de, 29, 47, 205 Far View sites (Mesa Verde NP), 76, 82 Far View Terrace (Mesa Verde NP), 78 Fewkes, Jesse Walter, 112 Final Report of Investigations of the Indians of the SW United States (Adolph Bandelier), 43, 106 Fire Temple (Mesa Verde NP), 78 First Peoples in a New World (David Meltzer), 12 First Ruin (Canyon de Chelly), 20, 21 Fish and Wildlife Service, 7 Five Villages, the, 207, 209–211 Fort Berthold, 209–211 Fort Verde, Arizona, 47 Fremont (rock art style), 39, 155, 156, 159, 161 Frijoles Canyon, New Mexico, 92, 94 Fruita Campground (Capitol Reef NP), 154

236    Index

Fruita (town; Capitol Reef NP), 152 Fruita Schoolhouse (Capitol Reef NP), 152, 153 Funeral Mound (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 168, 169 Gifford House (Capitol Reef NP; blueberry pie!), 154 Gila Cliff Dwellings NM, 55, 105–110 Gila River, 105, 107–108 Goodman Point (Hovenweep NM), 112 Gran Quivira (Salinas Pueblo Missions NM), 198, 202, 204, 205–206 Grand Canyon, xv, 5, 9, 55, 134 Great Bear Mound Group (Effigy Mounds NM), 174 Great Circle Mound, 187 great houses: at Aztec NM, 85, 86–88; at Bandelier NM, 94; at Bears Ears NM, 136, 137, 138; at Canyon de Chelly NM, 18, 23; at Canyon of the Ancients NM (Escalante Pueblo), 69; at Canyon of the Ancients NM (Lowery Pueblo), 67; at Casa Grande NM, 26–28; at Chaco Canyon NHP, 97, 98–102; at Hovenweep NM, 115, 116; at Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP, 120, 122; at Tuzigoot NM, 49, 51; at Wupatki NM, 59, 60–62, 64 Great Gallery pictographs, Horseshoe Canyon (Canyonlands NP), 143, 145–148 Great Kiva (Aztec Ruins NM), 89–90 Great Temple Mound (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 168–169 Hackberry and Horseshoe Trail (Hovenweep NM), 112 Hahpehe’Onahe (Closed Hand), 218, 219 Hans Flat Ranger Station (Canyonlands NP), 148 Hardy, Harris, 19 Harper’s Corner Scenic Drive, 161

Harrison, President Benjamin, 26 Harrison, President William Henry, 182 Hewett, Edgar Lee, 6, 92 Hickman, Joseph, 152 Hidatsa People, 208, 209, 211 Hidatsa Village (Knife River Villages NHP), 207, 209–211 High Banks Works (Hopewell Culture NHP), 183 High Gallery pictographs, Horseshoe Canyon (Canyonlands NP), 144, 145 Hill, Alfred, 172 Hillers, John K., 53, 54 Hoffman, Dr. W.J., 30 Hohokam, 27, 61, 63, 108 Holly (Hovenweep NM), 112 Hopeton Earthworks (Hopewell Culture NHP), 183 Hopewell (culture), 183 Hopewell Culture NHP, 174, 181–187 Hopewell Mound Group, 183–184 Hopewell, Mordecai, 184 Hopi People, 19, 27, 35, 49, 59–60, 85, 87, 89, 97, 126, 134, 198 horse, 13–14 horseback riders (petroglyph), 135 Horseshoe Canyon (Canyonlands NP), 141, 142, 143, 144–148 Horseshoe Trail (Hovenweep NM), 112 Hovenweep Castle (Hovenweep NM), 114, 115, 116 Hovenweep House (Hovenweep NM), 114, 116 Hovenweep NM, 111–116 Hungo Pavie (Hungo Pavi; Chaco Canyon NHP), 98, 99, 101–104 Huntington, William D., 111 The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere (Paulette Stevens), 12 Inscription House (Navajo NM), 35–36 Iowa, 6, 171–173, 175 Island Trail (Walnut Canyon NM), 54, 55–57 Johnson, President Lyndon, 143, 196 Joliette and Marquette, 172

Index    237

Kaibab (geological formation), 55 Keet Seel (Navajo NM), 35–38 Kern, Richard, 18, 19, 60, 98 Kidder, Alfred, 196 Kin Kletso (Chaco Canyon NHP), 101, 102, 103 kiva, 67, 221; at Abo (Salinas NM) 202; at Aztec NM, 89–90; at Bandelier NM, 93; at Chaco Canyon NHP, 101, 102; at Cicuye (Pecos NHP), 198, 199, 200; at Escalante (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 69; at Lowery (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 68 Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, 207–211 Lacey, John F., 6, 92 Lakota (Sioux) People, 189, 213, 215–216 Lamar Mounds (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 165–166 Lesser Temple Mound (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 168, 169 Lewis, Meriwether, 207 Lewis, Theodore, 172 Little Bighorn River, 216 Little Bighorn Battlefield NM, 213–220 Little Colorado River, 59 Little Ruin Canyon (Hovenweep NM), 112 lizard (petroglyphs), 160 Lomaki (Wupatki NM), 63 Long House (Bandelier NM), 92, 93, Long House (Mesa Verde NP), 75, 80, 81 Long House Loop Rd (Mesa Verde NP), 82 Long Walk, 19 Lost Continent of Atlantis, 182 Louisiana, 177–178 Louisiana Purchase, 207 Lower Butler Wash petroglyph panel (Bears Ears NM), 138, 139 Lower Cliff Dwelling (Tonto, NM), 43, 44, 45–46

Lower Hidatsa Village (Awatixa Xi’e; Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site Site), 210 Lower Scorpion Campground (Gila Cliff Dwellings NM), 108 Lowery Pueblo (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 67–68, 89, 104 Lundwell, Helen J., 105 macaw (petroglyph), 128 Macaw trail (Boca Negra Canyon Petroglyph NM), 128 macaws, use of feathers, 49, 50, 51 maize (corn) Mallery, Garrick, 126 Mandan People, 207–211 Marching Bear Group (Effigy Mounds NM), 175 Mason, Charlie, 72, 74 Massacre Cave (Canyon de Chelly NM), 17, 22, 24 Maxidiwiac (Buffalo-Bird Woman), 211 McClurg, Virginia, 74 McKee Springs petroglyphs (Dinosaur NP), 160, 161–162, 163 Mearns, Edgar, 47 Mesa Point trail (Boca Negra Canyon Petroglyph NM), 128–129 Mesa Top Loop (Mesa Verde NP), 76–77, 78 Mesa Verde NP, xi, 35–36, 55, 71–83, 93, 98, 101 Mesteth, Wilmer (Oglala Sioux), 191 Mexican Hat, Utah, 138 Miamisburg Mound, 187 Minnesota, xviii, 173, 189–191 Mitchell, Angeline (Angie), 41–43, 46, 221 Mogollon, 27, 108 Montana, xviii, 4, 214 Montezuma (Aztec ruler), 30 Montezuma Castle NM, 29–34 Montezuma Well, 30–31, 33 Montoya, José, 92 Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis), 181 Mormons, 111, 134, 153 Morris, Earl Halstead, 86

238    Index

Mound A (Poverty Point NM), 177, 178, 179–180 Mound B (Poverty Point NM), 180 The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a “Lost White Race” (Jason Colavito), 183s Mound City Group (Hopewell Culture NHP), 182, 183, 184, 186 Mount Olympus NM 9 mountain lion (petroglyph), 123, 127, 130, 131 Mt. Rainier NP, 4 Muir, John, 4, 5 Mummy Cave (Canyon de Chelly NM), 22 Museum of Northern Arizona, 60 Nalakihu (Wupatki NM), 63 National monuments (law establishing), 6–8 National Park Service, 152, 193, 202, 211 National Register of Historic Places, 48 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 172 Navajo Nation, xviii, 19, 35–36, 134 Navajo NM, 35–40 New Fire House (Mesa Verde NP), 77, 78 New Mexico, 8, 19, 51, 60, 72, 74–75, 85, 89, 92, 97, 105, 126, 198, 201–204 Newberry, Dr. John S., 85–86 Newspaper Rock (Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP), 119, 120, 121 Newspaper Rock (Tse’ Hone; Rock that Tells a Story; Bears Ears NM), 135, 136 Nordenskiold (Mesa Verde NP), 81, 82 North Dakota, 207, 209 Nussbaum, Jesse, 196 O’Odham, 27 Oak Tree House (Mesa Verde NP), 78 Obama, President Barack, 134–135 Ocmulgee Mounds NHP, 165–169 Ocmulgee River, 167 Ohio, 174, 176, 181–183, 187 Olmsted, Frederick Law Jr., 26 orchards, public (Capitol Reef NP), 152

Origins: A Genetic History of the Americas (Jennifer Raff), 12 Orr, Ellison, 172 Pa-la-ne-a-pa-pe (Struck-by-the-Ree), 191 Painted Desert Inn, 118, 119, 123 Painted Hand Pueblo (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 65, 66, 67 Painting the Wild Frontier (Susanna Reich), 209 Palmer, Edward, 30 Peabody, Lucy, 74 Peck’s Lake, 47, 48, 40 Pecos NHP, 195–200, 202 Pectol, Ephraim, 152 Peñasca Blanca (Chaco Canyon NHP), 98 Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP, 117–124, 131, 136 petrified wood, 117, 118, 119–120, 124 Petroglyph NM, 125–131 petroglyphs: at Bears Ears NM, 136, 137, 139; at Capitol Reef NM, 154–156 at Chaco Canyon NHP, 101; at Dinosaur NM, 160–162; at Mesa Verde NP, 82; at Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP, 121–123; at Petroglyph NM, 125–126, 127–130 Petroglyph Point trail (Mesa Verde NP), 82, 83 pictographs: at Canyon de Chelly, 23–24; at Canyon of the Ancients (Painted Hand Pueblo), 66; at Canyonlands NP (Horseshoe Canyon), 144–148; at Capitol Reef NP, 162; at Chaco Canyon NHP, 103; at Gila Cliff Dwellings NM, 110 Piedras Marcadas trail (Petroglyph NM), 126, 129, 131 Pike, Zebulon, 172 pipestone, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193 Pipestone Indian Shrine Association, 192 Pipestone NM, 187, 189–193, 208

Index    239

Pipestone: An Unbroken Legacy (video), 192–193 Pool Creek petroglyphs (Dinosaur NP), 160, 161, 163 Pope Paul III, 197 Poverty Point NM, 177–180 Powell, John Wesley, 53 Procession petroglyph panel (Bears Ears NM), 139 Prudden, T. Mitchell,112 Pueblo Alto Complex (Chaco Canyon NHP), 103 Pueblo Bonito (Chaco Canyon NHP), 98, 100, 101–102, 103–104 Pueblo del Arroyo (Chaco Canyon NHP), 98, 101, 104 Pueblo Indians, 85 Pueblo Loop Trail (Bandelier NM), 93–94, 95 Pueblo Revolt, 1680, 198 Puerco Pueblo (Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP), 119, 122–123 Quarai (Salinas Pueblo Missions NM), 198, 201–202, 204, 205–206 Red Feather, 219 resistance kiva (Pecos NHP), 198, 199 Rim Rock House (Hovenweep NM), 113, 114 Rim Trail (Walnut Canyon NM), 54 Rinconada trail (Petroglyph NM), 127, 130, 131 Rio Verde (Peck’s Lake), 47 Ripple Rock Nature Center (Capitol Reef NP), 152 River House Ruin (Bears Ears NM), 138 Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano, 48, 152, 191 Roosevelt, President Theodore (Teddy), 4, 74, 118 Sacagawea (Bird Woman), 208 Sakakawea. See Sacagawea Salado People, 42, 45 Salado River, 42

Salinas Pueblo Missions NM, 198, 201–206 San Felipe Pueblo, 91 San Ildefonso Pueblo, 91 San Juan River, 137–139 Sand Canyon Pueblo (Canyons of the Ancients NM), 67 Sandal Trail (Navajo NM), 37, 39 Sands, Lieutenant G.H., 106 Santa Clara Pueblo, 91 Santo Domingo Pueblo, 91 Scenic Drive (Capitol Reef NP), 152, 154 Scott, Douglas, 219 Seip Mound (Hopewell Culture NHP), 183 Sequoia NP, 4 Serpent Mound, Ohio, 173–174, 176, 187 Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescot, Arizona, 42 Silver City, New Mexico, 105–106 Simpson, Lieutenant James H., 19, 59, 98 Sinagua, 27, 31, 51, 56, 108 Sitgreaves, Brevet Captain Lorenzo, 18, 59–60, 117, 118 Skakawea Village (Awatixa; Knife River Indian Villages NHP), 210 Sliding House (Canyon de Chelly), 22 Smithsonian Institution, 53, 60, 73, 98, 112, 166, 182 snake (petroglyph), 130 South Quarry trail (Pipestone NM), 192 South Rim Drive (Canyon de Chelly), 20, 21, 22 Spider Rock (Canyon de Chelly), 22 Spruce Tree House (Mesa Verde NP), 73 Square Tower (Hovenweep NM), 114, 115, 116 Square Tower Group (Hovenweep NM), 112 Square Tower House (Mesa Verde NP), 73, 77, 78, 83 squash, 27, 49, 56, 167, 184, Stanley, John Mix, 25, 26, 195, 196, 202, 203, Stegner, Wallace, xvii, 3–4 Step House (Mesa Verde NP), 80, 82 Stevenson, James, 53

240    Index

Stronghold House (Hovenweep NM), 114, 116 Sturgis, Lt. Jas G., 216 Supernova pictograph (Chaco Canyon NHP), 101, 103 Swelter Shelter (Dinosaur NP), 159, 160, 163 Talus House 92–93 temple mounds: at Ocmulgee NHP, 168, 169; at Poverty Point NM, 177–178, 179–180 Tonto Basin, 41–42 Tonto NM, 41–46 Toroweap (geological formation), 55 Tower Point ruin (Hovenweep NM), 114, 116 Trail to the Past (Gila Cliff Dwellings NM), 108, 110 Truman, Harry S., 172 Trump, President Donald, 135 Tsankawi Ancestral Puebloan Village (Bandelier NM), 95 Tsin Kletzin (Chaco Canyon NHP), 101 Turner, Dr. Michelle, 87 Turtle Island (as a Native name for North America), 12–13, 221 Tuzigoot NM, 47–52, 56 Twin Towers (Hovenweep NM), 113–114, 116 Tyuonyi Pueblo (Bandelier NM), 92–93, 94 Udall, Stewart, Department of the Interior, Secretary, 143 Una Vida (Chaco Canyon NHP), 98, 101, 104 Unit House (Hovenweep NM), 114 University of Arizona, 48 Upper Cliff Dwelling, (Tonto NM), 43, 45, 46 U.S. Forest Service, 7, 134 U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey, 30 Utah, 134, 136–137, 138–139, 140–141, 143, 148, 152, 159, 171 Ute, 72, 74, 134

Ute Mountain Tribe, 134 Ute Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservations, 134 Verde Valley, 30 Vernal, Utah, 161 Village Site (Ocmulgee Mounds NHP), 165, 167 Vizcarra, José Antonio, 97 Walnut Canyon NM, 53–58 Walnut Creek, 55–56 Walter, Jacob, 177–178 Wasicu Sapa (Black White Man), 218, 219 Wayne’s Wonderland (Capitol Reef NP), 152 Weje-gi (Wijiji; Chaco Canyon NHP), 98 Western Apache, 41 Wetherill Family, 35, 71 Wetherill Mesa (Mesa Verde NP), 80–81, 82 Wetherill, B.K., 35, 73 Wetherill, Richard, 35, 72, 74, 98 Whipple, Lt. Amiel, 118 White House Pueblo (Canyon de Chelly), 18, 19–20, 21, 22 Wijiji (Chaco Canyon NHP), 98 Wilson, President Woodrow, 26 Wind Cave NP, 4 Winnewissa Falls (Pipestone NM), 192 Wolfman petroglyph panel (Bears Ears NM), 137, 138–139 Works Project Administration (WPA), 48 World Heritage Sites (UNESCO), 75 World’s Columbian Exposition (of 1893), 73 Wukoki (Wupatki NM), 63–64 Wupatki NM, 59–64 Yavapai, 41 Yellowstone NP, xviii, 4 Yosemite NP, 4–5 Zuni People, 19, 27, 49, 59 Zuni Pueblo, 91 Zuni Tribe, 134

About the Author

Kenneth L. Feder is professor emeritus (anthropology) at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut. His primary research interests include the archaeology of the Native Peoples of New England and the analysis of public perceptions about the human past. Feder is the author of several books, including: Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2020, tenth edition); The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory (Oxford University Press, 2020, eighth edition); Ancient America: Fifty Archaeological Sites to See for Yourself (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); and Archaeological Oddities: A Field Guide to Forty Claims of Lost Civilizations, Ancient Visitors, and Other Strange Sites in North America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). He has served as a talking head on numerous television documentaries about the human past. On the topic of human antiquity, one producer described Feder as “a beacon of sanity in a sea of madness,” which actually is a very scary thought.

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