Cliff Dwellers Might Have
SANTE FE, N.M. The pre
historic Indian cliff dwellers of the
American Southwest might not
have been as peaceable as has gen
erally been thought since their
ruins were discovered a century
ago.
Anthropologist Jonathan Haas,
director of programs and research
at the School of American
Research here, talks enthusiasti
cally about what he calls “a very
new, different way of looking at
things in the Southwest.”
For the past four years, Haas has
been exploring the mesas, valleys,
and canyons around the Navajo
National Monument in northeast
ern Arizona, testing his theories of
conflict among the Kayenta Ana
sazi Indians 700 to 800 years ago.
Tsegi Canyon Settlements
This past summer, Haas and his
research team, with support from
the National Geographic Society,
found two previously unknown
settlements in the Tsegi Canyon
system, in the heart of an area that
has been intensively surveyed over
the past 75 years.
One of the sites, accessible only
by way of a naturally concealed
crack in the precipitous sandstone
of a 900-foot butte, was a
200-room pueblo, one of the
largest ever found in the region and
once home to a sizable Kayenta
population atop the mesa.
The other new find was a
30-room pueblo, unvisited for
more than seven centuries, m a
canyon rock shelter that could be
reached only by an expedition,
member who is a skilled climber/
Both locations, Haas concludes,
must have been selected for only
one reason; defense
ble attackers.
Neither, he thinks, could have
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been chosen for the reasons custo
marily attributed to the Anasazi:
nearby arable land, readily avail
able water, and protection from the
weather.
Access to both required a
rugged climb. Water and food
sources were a considerable dis
tance away. The pueblo
offered scant protection from the
often harsh elements: the rock
shelter pueblo was built on a rela
tively steep slant, its narrow ledge
of front yard disappearing over a
140-foot cliff.
The combined discoveries
helped “blow the whole hypothesis
of people moving up to the head
waters of the canyon,” Haas says.
“No one has ever thought to look
on top of that butte for a site.”
Great Place To Live?
Some Anasazf Indians had
dwelt in relative comfort in cliff
houses for centuries. But, in sup
port of his argument that this
year’s find and other late-settled
Kayenta cliff dwellings were built
for defense, Haas asks, “If they
were such great places to live, why
didn’t anybody live there before
1250?”
Traditional wisdom has held
that drought and other environ
mental pressures forced the Ana
sazi up the canyons, closer to
dwindling water sources, in the
late 13th century. By the beginning
of the 14th century they were gone.
Haas takes exception to the con
ventional wisdom. “What happens
when the entire region is in poor
condition?” he asks. “It’s at that
point that warfare breaks out. And
it’s- a raiding-type warfare.”
To get away from the raiders
and establish solid defensive posi
tions, the Kayenta sought sites
such as the inaccessible mesa and
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Built For Warfare Defense,
rock shelter for their pueblos, Haas
thinks. His major conclusion:
“Warfare is a last resort for human
populations.”
Ancestors of the Kaycnta Ana
sazi roamed the Southwest 10,000
years ago. By about 5000 8.C.,
nomadic bands were formed. Not
until about A.D. 500 did a distinc
tive Kayenta culture start to
emerge. Starting about 700, the
Kayenta lived in pueblos.
/ wi the Long House Valley of
Arizona, where Haas has done
much of his research, small vil
lages appeared between A.D. 1000
and 1150. ,
By 1250, apparently as a result
of erosion, drought, and a sinking
water table, villages on open sites
were abandoned by the hundreds.
The Kayenta started building hard
to-reach shelters on the buttes
above the valley. Once small vil
lages consolidated in five distinct
clusters. Pueblos of 75 to 400
rooms emerged.
Significantly, Haas notes, all
five clusters were on high hilltops.
All were strategically positioned to
see each other. When a hill
blocked the line of vision between
two of the clusters, residents cut a
notch in the hill. “The main thing
you can infer from that pattern is
that they were communicating
with each other,” Haas says.
And one reason to communicate
may have been warfare. Investiga
tion of a nearby burial site dis
closed only five males among 42
remains. This led Haas to think
that most of the men in the settle
ment were away fighting battles.
“It was tantalizing evidence,” he
says, “but not convincing.”
Searching for conclusive evi
dence, he used topographic maps
Warfare Incentive
discovered 30-room Anasazl Indian cliff dwelling in
northeastern Arizona is nearly inaccessible beneath a
hard-to-find rock shelter. A difficult climb up a
140-foot cliff led to its discovery. Anthropologists
believe it was built solely for defense.
and a computer to pinpoint defen
sive site locations above the reg
ion’s canyons. Through the com
puter he then located the sites that
were linked visually.
It all came together. Long
House Valley, Klethla Valley, and
Kayenta Valley had visually
linked pueblos in defensive posi
tions, and one pristine site had a
six-foot stone wall. Only Tsegi
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Canyon, with its cliff dwellings,
remained a question mark.
Haas considers this year’s find
ings “all new stuff’ that will shake
a large limb on the tree of conven
tional anthropology. “People are
beginning to look at patterns that
have been staring them in the face
for a long time, and recognize
those patterns for what they are,”
he says.
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