Throughout the Southwest are many signs of prior civilizations who settled here, built homes, raised families, grew crops, hunted, developed governments and then disappeared. High up in the hills above Roosevelt Lake east of Phoenix is the Tonto National Monument, the cliffside homes of about 750 people who lived in this area between 500 and 1450 AD. You can see the dwellings from the road, seemingly a part of the cliffside itself, beckoning us in to learn more about these vanished people and their civilization.
We arrived about 3:00, luckily because the rangers leave at 4:00. It’s a steep climb up the hill and, as I’m huffing and puffing, I’m watching the sun cast shadows over the saguaros lining the hillside like sentinels guarding the ancient ruins. And, note the well-sited bench for those who need a bit of a rest as they climb this hill.
I’m thinking that the original inhabitants did this climb once, twice, maybe several times a day. Ah, but the view - today people pay hundreds of thousands to live on hilltops with views like this. Although they did not look over a lake but their fields.
As I climb and try to catch my breath, I’m thinking about what we learned in the VC. The early people began as farmers in the valley below us, close to the Salt River which was dammed in the 20th Century to form Lake Roosevelt. They grew corn, beans, squash and cotton using a system of irrigation canals. But it lasted only as long as they could use the Salt River. When the climate changed the region became more arid and tensions arose between these people and newcomers moving south to find more fertile soils.
Building a home in the cliffside became a good defensive measure and thus many people moved upwards. This is one. Not only are the walls original but these beams which held up the roof are also original. But, it’s a dry climate, they are out of the elements and, I guess, they weren’t desired by all the looters that have ascended to these dwellings over hundreds of years.
Then in the 1300’s catastrophic flooding destroyed their fields and lowland homes and villages. After struggling for some years, they moved on, leaving just their homes in the cliffs. Ah, we’ve gotten up to these home. Look how well preserved they look. Well, there has been lots of plundering but they still look pretty good for as old as they are. The first picture is BL (before looting in 1903) and the second one is AL (after looting - what we saw today now that it is protected by the National Park Service.)
It was originally a 2-story building but is now a one story building with rafters above it to show where the second story would have been. It’s so cool to look at what we call ruins and imagine women cooking and tending the fires, kids playing and men running up and down the hillside with food and water.
The rock alongside our trail up to the dwelling is such a composite. Note all the different little stones and pieces of stones all welded together inside this one larger rock. What kind of geology did this? Not easy to build in and with this kind of rock.
Back at the VC and its museum containing many relics from the dwelling we saw how the people lived here.
The last is a picture of woven cloth that still exists. Pretty strong stuff. They wove cloth for clothing, made and decorated pottery, fashioned simple tools for farming and survived and developed a civilization in pretty harsh conditions.
Just one more picture of their view from their cliffside dwelling. And it tells us that it is time to be heading home.
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