800 years ago Walnut Canyon, rugged volcanic terrain, northeast of current day Flagstaff, was the home of the Sinagua people (Spanish for “without water”).
They occupied this area for about 100 years, turning a relatively dry region into their homestead.
One room pithouses were built near their farm fields on the rim of the canyon where they developed dry-farming techniques to grow crops. In addition they hunted deer and small game.
Their homes, built by the women of the village, were located in the cliffs generally facing South and East to take advantage of the warm sun. The limestone of the cliffs eroded by wind and water created shallow caves.
By using wooden beams and clay found elsewhere in the canyon they cemented and re-inforced their structures creating walls, doorways and “smoke holes”.
Ok, history lesson on the area aside…all I could think of while walking around the cliff dwelling was how freaky I was about my kids getting too close to the top of a set of stairs.
I mean really, the cliff drop off was hundreds, no thousands of feet to the bottom of the canyon! Do you really think those tiny doorways were going to keep a toddler from wandering off? AAAAHHHH! How did those mothers not go insane with worry!!!????
Not to mention, in order to get water they had to haul it up from the stream at the bottom of the canyon. There weren’t any elevators or escalators. Women and children would have to hike to the bottom of the canyon, and carry the water up to the cliffs.
Yeah, and I was wining about the number of stairs we had to climb and how little air there is at high altitude. What a freakin’ baby am I!!!!
