- Fire Stick Fragment and Hearth Board
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan (Wupatki Pueblo, A.D. 1130 – A.D. 1260) Description: This hearth board and wooden fire drill would have been been used together to create fire by friction such as that caused when using a bow drill. Dimensions: (hearth board) 9.1 cm long (3.58 in); (drill) 6.0 (L) x 1.8 (diameter) cm (2.36 x 0.71 in). Collection: On display at Wupatki National Monument (catalog cards - hearth, drill). - Terraced Rooms
Notice how people shaped their lives to this land. Sun, water, wind, and earth influenced decisions. Using the red sandstone outcrop as a backbone, and its naturally fractured blocks as bricks, masons laid stone rooms up and down the length of the formation. High walls on the north and west sides blunted prevailing winds. Terraced rooms to the south and east bathed in winter sun. Flat roofs served as water systems, collecting precipitation and directing it to storage pots. Wupatki Pueblo stood three stories high in places. Double walls were filled with a rubble core and were about 6 feet (2 meters) high; roofs were constructed with timbers, cross-laid with smaller beams or reeds, and finished with grass and mud. There were no exterior doorways at ground level. Built out in the open, Wupatki is far more typical of 12th century structures than a cliff dwelling. Cliff dwellings make up only a fraction of known southwestern archeological sites.
"...The family, the dwelling house and the field are inseparable, because the woman is the heart of these, and they rest with her... The man builds the house but the woman is the owner, because she repairs and preserves it." -A Hopi view of the community, presented to "the Washington Chiefs," 1894 - Storage and Food Processing
Numerous storage rooms within the pueblo attest to a constant preparedness for crop failure. People likely had some of last year's corn on hand at this year's harvest. Perhaps this room served for storage and food processing. Imagine corn stacked like cordwood, or gathered foods such as piñon nuts, rice grass seeds, and juniper berries secured in clay seed jars. Water jars undoubtedly sat here too. Hours spent at these grinding stones reduced corn and seeds to flour. - In Clay and Paint
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan/Kayenta Description: (left) Tusayan Black-on-white ladle handle; (right) Flagstaff Black-on-white figuring or handle fragment. Dimensions: (left) unknown; (right) Approx. 3 cm x 2 cm. Collection: Museum of Northern Arizona: Wupatki. - Awls
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan Description: Bone awls fashioned from animal long bones. Hundreds of similar awls, made largely from the leg bones of pronghorn antelope, were found in Wupatki Pueblo. Collection: On display at Wupatki National Monument. - Spindle and Whorl
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan/Kayenta Description: Pot sherds were often reworked into disks for stick-and-whorl spindles used to spin cotton thread. This one is a Black Mesa Black-on-white spindle whorl mounted on replica spindle made by Zorro Bradley c. 1956 for an exhibit. Collection: On display at Wupatki National Monument (catalog card). - Wupatki Pueblo and Surrounding Features
"For its time and place there was no other pueblo like Wupatki. It was in all probability the tallest, largest, and perhaps the richest and most influential pueblo in the area." -E. Brennan and C. Downum, from Report of Findings Prestabilization Documentation for Wupatki Pueblo
People gathered here during the 1100s and what began as family housing grew into this 100-room pueblo with a tower, community room, and ceremonial ballcourt. Located near the crossroads of east-west and north-south travel routes, the pueblo evolved to serve a community heavily engaged not only in farming but also in ceremony, trade, and crafts specialization. By 1190, as many as 2,000 people lived within a day's walk and Wupatki Pueblo was the largest building for at least 50 miles. Archaeologists are challenged to define a cultural identity for Wupatki Pueblo with its intriguing blend of Kayenta and Sinagua architectural styles and more than 100 pottery types. - Ballcourt
The reconstructed ballcourt was an unusual structure. Known ballcourts in the Southwest were not masonry. This court may have had multiple functions: a place where special ceremonies were held, where competitive games took place for socialization, or where children played a game of stick and ball, similar to hockey. After rains, it may have served as a reservoir. Some archaeologists think valuables changed hands through ritual events such as ball games. People living to the south (Hohokam tradition) had shells, salt, cotton, and a ballcourt in every town. People to the east in the Chaco region (Ancestral Puebloan tradition) has Mesoamerican macaws, copper, and turquoise to trade. A ballcourt at Wupatki could function as a link between distant regions. Trade valuables from both regions ended up here. Sandals trod far and wide, maintaining trade networks that helped meet mutual needs and improved the quality of life. When materials, innovations, and ideas came to communities, all knew what others had to offer. - Macaw Skull
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan (Wupatki Pueblo, A.D. 1130 – A.D. 1260) and Hohokam Description: Mesoamerican macaw skull found in Wupatki Pueblo. Perhaps traded through the Hohokam to Northern peoples, live macaws were kept by peoples throughout the Southwest. Collection: Museum of Northern Arizona: Wupatki. - Introduction to the Trail
Length: 1/2 mile (0.8 km) round trip. Time required: 45 minutes Terrain: Paved with some steps and inclines. Wheelchair accessible to overlook, beyond with assistance.
The farming settlement of Wupatki was unique. To appreciate why, we have to start by thinking big. From roughly 400 to 1700, culture in the Southwest was distinguished by farming, pottery, villages, seasonal moves, and large scale migrations. Major settlement systems were in place by 1100 in Chaco Canyon, the Phoenix Basin, and northern Mesoamerica. With favorable climates for agriculture and room to grow, the Southwest's farming population was reaching a peak. Until the mid-1100s, Wupatki remained a "frontier" between established groups, defined by archeologists as Sinagua, Cohonina, and Kayenta. Then, in one of the warmest, driest places on the Colorado Plateau, life flourished. This became a densely populated landscape supporting a complex society where people, goods, and ideas converged. - Kayenta Point
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan/Kayenta Description: Basally notched projectile point manufactured on chert in the Kayenta style. This point was found on a mesita west of Crack-in-Rock Road. Dimensions: 3.6L x 1.6W x 0.31T cm (1.42 x 0.63 x 0.12 in). Collection: On display at Wupatki National Monument (catalog card). - Leaving Wupatki
Villages like Wupatki were purposely settled and left for reasons we may never fully understand. After roughly 150 years here, maybe life ceased to be good. Perhaps the rumor of a better life in another village was worth investigating. Maybe, as some Hopi believe, the people stayed too long here and failed to lead moral and responsible lives. Ensuing social and environmental catastrophes were signals to resume migrations to find and settle the place where Hopi live to this day. By 1300, across the region people had moved into villages even larger than Wupatki. Those living here joined others at places like Homol'ovi along the Little Colorado River (near present day Winslow, Arizona) or at villages south of Walnut Canyon. According to clan histories, some went directly east to the Hopi Mesas. A few undoubtedly chose to stay behind. Today this village rests silent but not forgotten. Though it is no longer physically occupied, Hopi and Zuni people believe those who lived and died here remain as spiritual guardians. Descendants visit periodically to enrich their personal understanding of their clan histories. Wupatki is remembered and cared for, not abandoned.
"...for us life is shrouded in mystery and the world defies explanation...humans do not need to know everything there is to be known. The human past, we feel, is a universal past. No one can claim it, and no one can ever know it completely." -Rina Swentzell, Pueblo Santa Clara - Unexcavated Rooms
This section of the pueblo remains unexcavated. These rooms represent an opportunity to learn more about the past, but the knowledge comes at a cost. Excavation disturbs the site, and potentially, the people and artifacts buried there. Collected materials require elaborate conservation and storage methods; in the ground, this arid climate preserves artifacts almost indefinitely, free of charge. In the past, few people challenged the purposes of archaeological investigation, but today many voice concerns about disturbing sites. Should rooms be excavated, unearthing pots and other items? Possessions were intended, by those who buried or left them behind, to remain as placed, acted upon by time and the elements. Excavation represents a curiosity foreign to American Indian culture and often considered culturally offensive. Do objects from the past serve as legitimate educational tools, or is that notion unimportant or even wrong? - Burden Basket
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan/Sinagua Description: Large basket fragment, 2 rod and bundle construction. Dimensions: 21.5 cm (H) x 12.8 cm (basal diam.) Collection: Museum of Northern Arizona: Wupatki. - Roof Beams
The two beams at the rear of the room above have been in place for 800 years. Tree-ring dates obtained from various beams in the pueblo span from 1106 to 1220 but cluster around three periods: 1137, 1160, and 1190. This suggests specific periods of construction, or at least beam cutting. Many room walls also abut one another-evidence that a room was added on to one already in place. Perhaps the various building phases mark the arrival of clans, each bringing something different to the community, resulting in the "cultural brew" that makes Wupatki so unusual. Some archeologists see cultural traditions, such as Sinagua and Kayenta, not as "people" or genetic and ethnic groups, but rather as inhabited geographic regions experiencing a dynamic ebb-and-flow of populations. Migrations brought people together creating cultural dominance in some areas and shared cultural traits in others. Seen this way, specific traditions such as black-on-white pottery and T-shaped doorways could have been maintained over centuries by peoples of different linguistic and ethnic backgrounds.