Ruins of Tuzigoot

This is an ancient pueblo of the Sinagua people, who lived here between AD 1000 and AD 1400.


A panorama courtesy of the Autostitch app.







OCR on an informational sign:

For thousands of years, the Verde Valley has been a
human melting pot. Hunters and gatherers came first, searching for wild game and grasses. Traders followed, digging salt and minerals, and then settlers farming the fertile bottomlands.
A tribe of southern Sinagua built their masonry homes on this ridge about AD 1000 and established a thriving agricultural community. Inexplicably, they left in the early
1400s, more than a hundred years before the first Europeans rode into the valley.
A circular 1/4-mile trail winds up and through the remains of the Tuzigoot pueblo.


In a typical late-pueblo room, storage cists were frequently set in a corner of the room and clay vessels for storage were submerged in the floors. When Sinagua children died, they were buried in lined crypts beneath the floors of the dwellings. It was hoped their spirits would be incorporated into succeeding generations.



- Posted at great expense from my iPhone