Ancestral Puebloan Thread

[east or bust]

^Tonto National Monument?


Lived in PHX a year and 8 months and never made it over due to wildfires and COVID…


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[jackattack]

Cedar Mesa

[teletripper]

Nine mile canyon is always cool to check out.

[SirHeady]

Bump, anyone get 'Snazi recently? Have some pics of some cool ruins I recently had the privilege of visiting in Cedar Mesa and some sick Glyphs from San Rafael Swell.

How do y'all view the Fremont? Northern Periphery Anasazi or different culture?

My theory is that they are an offshoot from Basketmaker/Pubelo I Ancestral Puebloans who moved North from SW Colorado /Chaco (maybe for political reasons). Similar rock art and lived in Pithouses like the Basketmakers.

[Danno]

Cool thread. 30 years ago, a friend was a park ranger at MV, her housing was near Far View. I stayed with her for a week, got some private after hours tours, saw a mountain lion, just one of my life's special memories. I've also visited a lot of the places pictured in here, and in my professional life have worked with anthropologists and historians on issues relating to Indians in the southwest. But admittedly, I've never geeked out on the mysteries too much.

[Adski]

Lurker’s report: ancient people of the southwest are incredibly fascinating. My old neighbor was a professor of arch at USU. listening to him describe just a morsel of info was like time travel. He made ancient people come alive. I’ve seen many of the places shown here and will add the Wilcox Ranch. Tough access, tough finding the sites and glyphs. The Fremont who lived here were incredibly adept at moving. The research that indicates a miles-long ground based pattern that resembles a DNA molecule-shaped chain visible from aerial photos is one of my favorite head scratchers of the canyon.

[gravitylover]

Back in the late 80s and early 90s I visited all sorts of sites around the southwest. When I went to NAU there were a couple of Navajo and Hopi guys in our crew and they would take us out to some crazy cliff dwellings and shit where we'd eat shrooms or peyote and stay out overnight on full moons. Good memories

[Danno]

Navajo and Hopi, the tribal entities, can't stand each other. Good to hear that Navajo and Hopi as individuals got along.

[Meathelmet]

What's great about the PR is someone can delve into prehistoric Puebloan culture in this thread and then a few minutes later consult with experts on whether they should eat spoiled food in the "Would you eat it?" thread. It's what keeps me coming back.

This, Thank You PR and OP.

And a question: can you actually pic stuff (pottery etc) from the sites or are those somehow "verboten" to even touch?
Seems insane that one can just rummage around with that kind of artefacts??
Unless they are in such and abundance that it is somehow ok, that is?

[raisingarizona13]

This, Thank You PR and OP.

And a question: can you actually pic stuff (pottery etc) from the sites or are those somehow "verboten" to even touch?
Seems insane that one can just rummage around with that kind of artefacts??
Unless they are in such and abundance that it is somehow ok, that is?

The stuff is everywhere down around here. A lot of the pottery sherd piles are basically trash piles, or that's what I've been told. The pueblo people around here threw a lot of their discard right out in front of their homes/villages.

The oils from our skin damage painted rock art so I wouldn't touch any of that. Generally it's ok to poke around, just don't take anything.

[MakersTeleMark]

A few weeks ago I spent a sunset drinking a beer and exploring this area. I really struggled to fit it in to my conception of indians in the american southwest. It was a cool mind fuck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Intaglios

[raisingarizona13]

Leading up to my SUP trip on Lake Powell last year I did some reading on the Anasazi. IIRC nearly every context alluded to a dark era, where they moved to the cliff dwellings that they’re famous for.

What caused that transition seems to be heavily debated - some say drought/famine, others say nomadic tribes foreign to the region moved in and the era was somewhat war torn, with hints of cannibalism.

Whatever story is true, the cliff dwellings are fascinating - the intricacy, different sizes, but most of all the remoteness.

Did you mean "move away from the cliff dwellings"? That's how I've understood it. The culture flourished for several hundreds of years during a wet period. The sedentary lifestyle that came with argriculture and creating an abundance of goods helped the people put more focus on religious gatherings, sports events and art, pottery being a main form of their art and useful for storing their wealth.

Drought eventually came back and things then probably got ugly. I believe the Apache moved into the area around this time but I can't remember what the leading theories were now to be honest. Someone mentioned the Dine and how they found the empty ruins but I don't think it was much of a mystery. The Hopi were still around and had plenty of stories about their ancestors and the some Apache broke off and became the Dine. Again, I don't know shit really, I'm pulling this out of my arsenal right now and trying to remember things I learned from local archeologist while working for Pink Jeep. I took people on tours to local ruins but I only new enough to BS my way through a couple of hours with them.

From my phone I read someone mentioned ghosts and the spirit world but I can't find it now. I spend more time in the field working and camping in places that these people once lived, hunted, farmed and quarried stones for making points and other sharp tools then I actually spend at home. Now, I don't believe in ghosts like the traditional, flying sheet that goes BOO sort of sense but I will swear to my grave that there is something out there that's beyond our understanding. These places will talk to certain people. If you ask any of my Dine or Hopi friends they have deep beliefs about the spirit world and to them it's not a bunch of hocus pocus. I've got some stories about that but I'm headed out to go walk the dog and in an area that's covered in pit house sites, small dwellings and artifacts up the ying yang. I'll come back later to post up about the strange, paranormal experiences later tonight.

[raisingarizona13]

Back in the late 80s and early 90s I visited all sorts of sites around the southwest. When I went to NAU there were a couple of Navajo and Hopi guys in our crew and they would take us out to some crazy cliff dwellings and shit where we'd eat shrooms or peyote and stay out overnight on full moons. Good memories

They weren't traditional in any sense then. Traditional Natives don't mess with those places and generally won't talk with outsiders about the spirit world in fear that it brings bad things to them.

When I worked at a long term care unit I thought it was interesting when there was an eclipse the elderly and any traditional Dine wouldn't go outside and all of their windows had to be completely blocked off.

[Danno]

This, Thank You PR and OP.

And a question: can you actually pic stuff (pottery etc) from the sites or are those somehow "verboten" to even touch?
Seems insane that one can just rummage around with that kind of artefacts??
Unless they are in such and abundance that it is somehow ok, that is?

I don't believe it is ok to rummage around through stuff on the sites, even if it's just trash of the ancient puebloans.

[gravitylover]

Navajo and Hopi, the tribal entities, can't stand each other. Good to hear that Navajo and Hopi as individuals got along.

They weren't traditional in any sense then. Traditional Natives don't mess with those places and generally won't talk with outsiders about the spirit world in fear that it brings bad things to them.

When I worked at a long term care unit I thought it was interesting when there was an eclipse the elderly and any traditional Dine wouldn't go outside and all of their windows had to be completely blocked off.

College kids not "grown ups" with a chip on their shoulders. If memory serves there wasn't much mixing actually but we were friends with both groups. I don't remember either being wary of going into some places, we just wandered in and out of these really cool spots. There were also some cliffside ruins out by Strawberry AZ that we went to a few times. They were valley floor ruins, not cliff dwellings and was a great place to watch weird shit in the sky.

This, Thank You PR and OP.

And a question: can you actually pic stuff (pottery etc) from the sites or are those somehow "verboten" to even touch?
Seems insane that one can just rummage around with that kind of artefacts??
Unless they are in such and abundance that it is somehow ok, that is?

You're not supposed to remove anything and really shouldn't move them around either but most of these sites are so remote there's no way to monitor and enforce the rules.

[Mudfoot]

Nine mile canyon is always cool to check out.

I've spent decades enjoying climbing around the AZ, NM. and CO ruins. It only seems "ancient" until you realize the Egyptians were building the pyrimids almost 4,000 years before these guys were drawing pictures on rock walls.

[John_B]

A few weeks ago I spent a sunset drinking a beer and exploring this area. I really struggled to fit it in to my conception of indians in the american southwest. It was a cool mind fuck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Intaglios

Thanks for that MTM. Maybe I'd heard of those at some point but it was real cool reading about them.

[SirHeady]

actually the desert archaic produced some of the most enigmatic rock art in the prehistoric southwest contemporaneously with the ancient egyptians.

Anasazi also knew about heliocentric universe and plate tectonics (source: Book of the Hopi) , which the Egyptians did not

[SirHeady]

Did you mean "move away from the cliff dwellings"? That's how I've understood it. The culture flourished for several hundreds of years during a wet period. The sedentary lifestyle that came with argriculture and creating an abundance of goods helped the people put more focus on religious gatherings, sports events and art, pottery being a main form of their art and useful for storing their wealth.

Drought eventually came back and things then probably got ugly. I believe the Apache moved into the area around this time but I can't remember what the leading theories were now to be honest. Someone mentioned the Dine and how they found the empty ruins but I don't think it was much of a mystery. The Hopi were still around and had plenty of stories about their ancestors and the some Apache broke off and became the Dine. Again, I don't know shit really, I'm pulling this out of my arsenal right now and trying to remember things I learned from local archeologist while working for Pink Jeep. I took people on tours to local ruins but I only new enough to BS my way through a couple of hours with them.

From my phone I read someone mentioned ghosts and the spirit world but I can't find it now. I spend more time in the field working and camping in places that these people once lived, hunted, farmed and quarried stones for making points and other sharp tools then I actually spend at home. Now, I don't believe in ghosts like the traditional, flying sheet that goes BOO sort of sense but I will swear to my grave that there is something out there that's beyond our understanding. These places will talk to certain people. If you ask any of my Dine or Hopi friends they have deep beliefs about the spirit world and to them it's not a bunch of hocus pocus. I've got some stories about that but I'm headed out to go walk the dog and in an area that's covered in pit house sites, small dwellings and artifacts up the ying yang. I'll come back later to post up about the strange, paranormal experiences later tonight.

per my reading (Craig Childs, David Roberts and some more scholarly/ dry texts)

the “dark period “punctuated by evidence of cannabalism and inter village warfare was brought on by Chaco / and or maybe Aztecs/ or proto Aztecs from Northern Mexico.

Chaco for all intents and purposes was a political center that subjugated the villages to the north. They were more sophisticated than your standard Kayenta or Mesa Verde branch Anasazi and may have been controlled/ influenced by the Aztecs who may have used them as a vassal on a far northern periphery.

The apache and Diné were not yet in the 4 corners region as they migrated from Canada in roughly the 14th or 15th centuryz
. However, I do think the Navajo co-opted alot of traits from the Puebloans/ anasazi when you dive into their culture

[ghosthop]

One of my more memorable fungi experiences started in a kiva south of Moab. I got really stuck on the idea of how much the effort had been to transport the rocks that formed the structure. And tried to grok why animal blood had been mixed into the mortar. Any culture that has the time to build remote structures with intention has a perspective worth exploring.

The baby is starting to become much more observant and was interested in the rock art at the Natural History Museum at the U. Any recommendations for easy day trips from SLC or the best things to see between here and Moab? We have a stock AWD vehicle, he is good for about a 5 mile hike but still doesn’t tolerate heat and sun well.

[muted reborn]

There is a ton to see in that zone even if you can only do short hikes. What exactly is you car and what tire do you run? Not that you can't see a bunch in something simple like Civic, just curious so I don't send you to a sandy road hellscape.

This bone and other dinosaur bones like rib cages are a 2-5 minute hike from a parking lot anyone can drive to if it's not muddy, in that area. I can share a buncha petrolglyph locations too if interested. Nothing super secret but I have done them with kids/infants

[SirHeady]

One of my more memorable fungi experiences started in a kiva south of Moab. I got really stuck on the idea of how much the effort had been to transport the rocks that formed the structure. And tried to grok why animal blood had been mixed into the mortar. Any culture that has the time to build remote structures with intention has a perspective worth exploring.

The baby is starting to become much more observant and was interested in the rock art at the Natural History Museum at the U. Any recommendations for easy day trips from SLC or the best things to see between here and Moab? We have a stock AWD vehicle, he is good for about a 5 mile hike but still doesn’t tolerate heat and sun well.

Not Anasazi per se but Fremont whose presence was widespread throughout Utah and Western Colorado- their rock art and archaeological sites are evocative of basketmaker to pueblo I periods.

My theory is that the “basketmakers”
were pretty widespread throughout the 4 corners area and some eventually migrated north over centuries eventually becoming “The Fremont”.

Within 3 hrs of SLC you can hit up

- Buckhorn Wash Petroglyphs at The Swell

- Dinosaur National Monument

- Theres a apparently a pretty interesting panel outside of Vernal

- 9 mile canyon

- Cañon Pintado (outside of Rangely CO)

- Fremont Indian State Park

[fastfred]

Can't get enough of it. It's mind blowing.

[Meadow Skipper]

^ Gila

One more from the Gila.

[Percy Rideout]

Not Anasazi per se but Fremont whose presence was widespread throughout Utah and Western Colorado- their rock art and archaeological sites are evocative of basketmaker to pueblo I periods.

My theory is that the “basketmakers”
were pretty widespread throughout the 4 corners area and some eventually migrated north over centuries eventually becoming “The Fremont”.

Within 3 hrs of SLC you can hit up

- Buckhorn Wash Petroglyphs at The Swell

- Dinosaur National Monument

- Theres a apparently a pretty interesting panel outside of Vernal

- 9 mile canyon

- Cañon Pintado (outside of Rangely CO)

- Fremont Indian State Park

The glyphs on the Deso/Grey section of the Green are the giant panels you see in Ancient Aliens. Pretty cool when you are the only rafting group camped there for the night, and have a giant 10'x5' panel to yourselves for the evening.