Home / Keyword Architecture 284
- Cobble Mano or Smoothing Stone
Description: Sandstone cobble mano or smoothing stone; if the latter, this tool may have been used for plastering work. Dimensions: 14.2 x 8 x 5 cm. Collection: On display at the Tuzigoot National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card). - A Possible Kiva
This room, on the southeastern corner of the pueblo, is one of the largest in the village, yet no household tools or utensils were found inside. This suggests it was a special space, perhaps a ceremonial room known as a kiva. However, a kiva would have a single bench on the north side of the room. There is no record of this, but early excavations may have missed such a feature. In a village this size, one or two kivas would have been expected. They may have been used for the private aspects of ritual, while the larger, open community room served public ceremonies. Today, rectangular clan kivas persist in Hopi villages, while larger, round community kivas endure in the eastern Pueblos. Kivas are an integral part of Puebloan society and remain a cultural trait that can be traced from past to present.
Compare the possible kiva to the room to the left. Note the size difference? The inset shows the interior hearth (firepit) and deflector. - 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. - View from the Inside
View from the inside of the "ready-made" room. - A Ready-made Room
You may enter this room. The rock outcrop around you provided an almost ready-made room, initially used for household trash. Roughly 5 feet (1.5 meters) of debris accumulated here before the first floor was laid and the space used as a living room. Can you tell where a second story room began? This room provides a special opportunity to experience the pueblo in an intimate way. Generally, you should not enter rooms unless invited. Everyone has a responsibility to know the "ground rules" when visiting an archeological site. - Plaza
The open plaza area may have been the hub of village life and work. Ethnographic evidence suggests most activities were gender specific, and everyone contributed. Children learned by watching, listening, then doing. Surely there were no idle hands. Women worked clay into necessary utensils. They mortared the pueblo, knowing clay as they did. As the herbalists, gatherers, and protectors of stored crops and seeds, women were vital to the community. Men hunted and farmed. The entire growing season may have been spent away from home tending fields. Winter brought with it time to weave. Fine cotton textiles and abundant tools suggest weaving was an important, highly developed skill at Wupatki. "...the man cultivates the field, but he renders its harvests into the woman's keeping." -A Hopi view of the community, 1894 "No woman ever sat at the Hopi looms. The men were expert weavers; they wove diligently all winter long in the various kivas. Hopi woven items were known far and wide, and people of other tribes came to barter for them." -Helen Sekaquaptewa, from "Me and Mine" - Burials at Wupatki
People were often buried in rooms such as this; consequently, graves and beliefs were inadvertently violated when this site was excavated. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Ace of 1990 (NAGPRA), asserts that the present day American Indian tribes affiliated with archaeological sites have rights and beliefs to be protected. This Act helps ensure that decisions about these places reflect the values and wishes of those who were here before. As tribes exert more control over their heritage, diverse opinions about appropriate treatment of archaeological sites emerge. As an example, most Puebloan groups believe if human creations were made to last forever and not let to die, "the world would get filled up, and the purpose of living would disappear." This philosophy challenges National Park Service mandates to preserve and perpetuate the physical remains of the past.
Look for a doorway filled in with stones. Why would the occupants close off a doorway? - Ballcourt Interpretative Panel
This depiction of a ball game is based on descriptions of games played by the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mexico and speculations on the Hohokam games in southern Arizona.
Ballcourts were common in southern Arizona from A.D. 750 to 1200, but relatively rare here in the northern part of the state. This suggests that the people of Wupatki intermingled within their southern Arizona neighbors – the Hohokam – who may have borrowed and modified the ballcourt idea from earlier contact with the Indian cultures of Mexico. Located along major natural drainages and travel routes, ballcourts may have provided opportunities for social exchange between villages. They were often within a one-day walk of a neighboring village. There is continued speculation about the uses of the ballcourts. Because of the work involved in building a ballcourt and the numbers that have been found (over 200 in Arizona), ball games may have been an important part of life for the people of Wupatki and their southern neighbors. The Hohokam balls – found at archaeological sites containing ballcourts – were made of carefully shaped rock and perhaps covered with pin pitch or other material. One form of the game might have involved moving the ball toward a goal using a curved stick.
The Wupatki ballcourt is 78 feet wide, 102 feet long, and had a 6-foot-high wall. Excavated and stabilized in 1965, a large part of the interior wall has been reconstructed. - Nearby Homes
The extent of this community is not obvious, but hundreds of small family dwellings surround us forming a cluster. Another cluster exists on the uplands to the west (where you may visit Citadel and Lomaki Pueblos). We don't know if the Wupatki and Citadel communities were autonomous, cooperatives, or competitors. From this point, you can see two other nearby homes. These sites are not open to visitation.
"We found... all the prominent points occupied by the ruins of stone houses of considerable size... They are evidently the remains of a large town, as they occurred at intervals for an extent of eight or nine miles and the ground was thickly strewed with pottery in all directions." -Journal entry, Sitgreaves Expedition, October 8, 1851 - Room 73, 1930s vs. 2011
Other people have come and gone since the original occupants. During the late 1800s, Basque sheepherders stayed here briefly, enlarging this doorway and occupying the room beyond. Local prospector Ben Doney pothunted Wupatki, amassing an impressive collection of artifacts. Concern over looting at Wupatki led to its protection as a national monument in 1924. Later expansion of the monument included some land historically used since the mid-1800s by Navajo naat' áanii (headman) Peshlakai Etsidi and his descendants. These Diné families grazed sheep here, moving seasonally between numerous camps, leaving behind more than 60 residential sites. Their history is intertwined with that of the monument. They remain intimately tied to the Wupatki landscape.
Rooms on this end of the pueblo were excavated and reconstructed to serve as an office and museum. The National Park Service now has a policy of stabilizing buildings in their existing state. The 1930s reconstructions were removed in 1950. - 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? - Air Circulation System
In this room, someone designed an innovative air circulation system to allow for an indoor fire. A stone-lined ventilator trench is connected to an opening in the base of the cliff wall. The upright stone slab at the end of the ventilator trench deflected incoming air so that the draft would pass directly across the firepit. Smoke would exit through a roof opening. Note how preservation efforts have changed this building: original floor surface, as with this room, are much lower - dirt placed in the rooms after excavation protects floor features and keeps walls from collapsing. Throughout the dwelling you'll see a variety of modern drains that keep water from standing in rooms. In some cases the architecture has been altered. For example, the square and round holes on this front wall were placed for drainage, and the large masonry column built in the back corner supports the upper wall. - Wupatki Pueblo 1930s vs. 2011
Compare the images above. The rooms now visible were buried beneath rubble cleared during excavation beginning in 1933.
When occupied, this mud and stone building would have required periodic maintenance. Once people departed, natural forces prevailed - mortar eroded, roofs collapsed, walls tumbled. What you see today is an excavated building, heavily stabilized to postpone deterioration. The modern iron beam and plate visible here support the upper walls. The low walls exhibit Portland cement, used from the 1930s to 60s, and new stabilization mortars that more closely duplicate original materials. Although walls stand in their original location, virtually all the mortar you see is modern. Stabilization has compromised the historical architecture, but helps an excavated building withstand natural and human-induced erosion.
You are one of hundreds of thousands of visitors - please, do not lean, sit, or walk on any walls. - Sunset Crater and Wupatki
The black cinders blanketing the ground remain from the eruption of nearby Sunset Crater volcano some time between 1040 and 1100. The settlement of Wupatki followed but it's uncertain if there was a direct cause and effect. People may have been drawn by the eruption and stayed. Or, perhaps those displaced by the eruption moved to this lower elevation. However, as many as three generations may have passed before anyone decided to live here. We do know that ash from the eruption, in a thin uniform layer, retained precious soil moisture providing a window of improved farming potential in this semi-arid landscape. - Living and Storage Rooms
A curious place to build a farming community...summers are hot, dry and windy. Yet 800 years ago, agricultural plots would have dotted the landscape, carefully placed in scant pockets of soil. A farmer's faith was tested regularly as rainfall came at the wrong time or not at all, and dry winds parched the soil and crops. Each field was at the mercy of where rain fell; no surface irrigation was possible. One field might produce while another withered, so the planting effort was extensive. Then, as now, water was limited. Across the area, a few seeps and springs existed; catchments held water for a time, and the Little Colorado River provided a seasonal water source. Still the abundance of storage pots suggests water had to be acquired and managed to be available when needed. Perhaps, as Hopi believe, people derived strength from this challenging land.