The ancient Hohokam and Sinagua built large pueblos as well as multistory cliff dwellings. The largest had over 100 rooms on five levels. Quite an engineering feat for stone age people. The ruins on three sites near Flagstaff partially tell the history of these cultures, but also leave many questions unanswered. At Montezuma Castle National Monument, for example, a massive cliff dwelling (above) was built next to a five-level pueblo on the valley floor. Why bother building into the cliff as difficult as this would be? And living in the cliffs wouldn’t have been any picnic either, constantly going up and down tall ladders and footholds cut into the rock. The biggest puzzle is why here, as in Mesa Verde to the north, by 1400 everyone seemingly walked away. The earliest Spanish explorers to the region over 100 years later described completely intact empty dwellings.

The southwestern climate has certainly helped preserve what the people left. At 7,000 feet (Flagstaff) it was very dry and in the low 60 degrees today; in the valley at 3,000 feet, where the cliff dwelling pictured is located, it was 78 degrees. Nice blue skies too.