TUZIGOOT

JOHN L. BLACKFORD Tuzigoot prehistoric pueblo by the Verde. TUZIGOT

History first dawned over the Tuzigoot Pueblo in 1583, when Don Antonio de Espejo, weary from touring the Rio Grande villages, the Zuni and Hopi pueblos, entered the Verde Valley to investigate reports of rich mines worked by the natives. Espejo's small band, led by Hopi guides, found the fertile valley only sparsely peopled by a friendly folk who lived in small "rancherias", as he called the hut groups, surrounded by fields in which they raised their food supplies and cotton. As the party left the green valley to climb the steep mountain to the west on which the mysterious mines were located, the explorers passed the last of many ruined villages of clustered stone rooms clinging to isolated hill tops above the east bank of the river. This village had been larger than the rest, and the rubble of its ruined walls did not yet hide completely the crude masonry. Nestled in the bend of the river, the location still seemed to control the valley below. Today, this ruined village, unearthed from its centuries of debris, its unroofed walls looking down upon the refuse-covered hill side in which the inhabitants laid their dead to rest, is fully revealed. Nearby in a spacious museum are gathered for display the harvest of the excavation, the many thousands of stone, bone and clay implements and utensils used by these pueblo dwellers. This is Tuzigoot National Monument.

Don Antonio found his mines. Halfway up the mountainside above the valley a great vein of copper ore lay exposed. Here and there were the pits and short tunnels the Indians had made to pick out the bright green malachite and vivid blue azurite to make their paints. But the Spaniard was interested only in gold and silver, and of these no traces were visible. So, the party returned, past the ruined pueblos and down the river for 20 miles, before starting the long trek north to the Hopi villages. Almost 300 years passed before the next white men set eyes upon the site of Tuzigoot.

When the vanguard of modern civilization began to settle the Verde Valley in the 1880's,

By JOHN L. COTTER

a threat to the ancient pueblos materialized which was more damaging than six centuries of decay. With characteristic curiosity and not too-lucid vision of buried treasure, some of the settlers began to dig into the ruins. During the next 50 years, all cliff dwellings and pueblos in the vicinity suffered the scourge of the destructive pot-hunter, whose misguided efforts destroyed countless treasures of scientific interest which were cast aside as worthless or carried away and lost. Montezuma Castle was stripped to the walls and floors, and gaping holes undermined masonry and gutted the burial places of the hill-top pueblos. Only Tuzigoot remained relatively secure. Here the deeply-buried core was too much of a challenge to the desultory pothunter, and deep refuse on the east slope of the hill protected the burials. When, in the 20's the land came into the possession of the United Verde Copper Co., amateur exploration was wisely discouraged. The time might soon be ripe for archeologists to tackle the enormous job of plucking the ancient pueblo secrets from the rubble.

This opportunity arrived in 1933 when Dean Byron S. Cummings of The Department of Archeology of The University of Arizona, with the cooperation of the Yavapai County Chamber of Commerce and permission of United Verde, later succeeded by Phelps Dodge Corporation, started excavation of the ruins now located near Clarkdale. Local Apaches were consulted on an appropriate Indian name for the pueblo, and TUZIGOOT "Crooked Water" (from the near-by winding lake, since the ancient name had vanished with the original inhabitants) was decided upon. Field work was carried on by graduate students Louis R. Caywood and Edward H. Spicer, assisted by Harry T. Getty and Gordon C. Baldwin, who left posts at the State Museum at Tucson to join the project. A force of 48 workers was furnished locally by the U. S. Civil Work Administration, and the task of stripping away hundreds of tons of earth and rock covering the existing walls began.

Prehistory thus disclosed by trowels and brushes at Tuzigoot pueblo, added to what has so far been revealed by other investigations in Central Arizona, tells an interesting story. First identified people in the Verde Valley were an unpretentious folk from the south who lived in pit dwellings similar to those of the ancient Salt River Valley people, suggesting the two groups may have been related. These pit dwellers of the 8th to 10th Centuries A.D. must have felt secure in their simple dwellings among the corn gardens, since no effort was made to provide defense.

How long this uncomplicated existence lasted in the Verde Valley is a disputed question. But evidence is clear that some time in the 10th or 11th Centuries A.D. the pit dwellers abandoned their unprotected homes. Presently, the tops of the hills began to be dotted with the first masonry cell rooms, stoutly defended by inaccessibility and the fact that each room was entered separately through the roof. Within the next 200 years every strategically located hill top was occupied, and the "Pueblo" culture was well advanced. Perhaps the early Yavapai, followed by the Apache prompted these safety measures, for these hunting peoples may well have eyed the stores of corn and beans in the permanent dwellings, which were tempting in times of hardship and failure in the hunt.

It seems certain that early growth of these pueblos was slow. But the Verde Valley, with its abundant water supply, its trade wares of green and blue paint stone and natural rock salt, was bound to lure barterers and occasional settlers. Some of the Anasazi people from the north, dry land farmers who made rich decorated pottery, were adding their culture traits, often choosing to remain where irrigation assured them of regular crops. Some of the latter contemporaries of the Hohokam in the south, the Salado people of the Salt River Valley, finding the alkali waters of their flooded fields choking crops, may have migrated north and settled in the Verde Valley. Even from off the Mogollon Rim to the east came a few settlers who preferred the mild valley climate to the cold winters and shorter summers of a mile high elevation. Slowly the Verde population grew through the 12th and 13th Centuries.

Then, in the year 1276, according to the tree ring calendar worked out by archeologists, a foreboding of disaster swept through the Southwest. Fields to the north and east that had sustained fine crops for the dry land farmers lay parched and stunted. The next year brought no relief, nor the next. This was the beginning of an incredible 23 years of drouth, indisputably recorded in the narrow rings of stunted trees that survived these terrible times. Village after village saw first the more adventurous, then conservative families set out for lands they heard were still green. More and more refugees began pouring into the Verde Valley. Here disaster had not struck, for the river, though reduced, still supplied sufficient water to save the crops. As the drouth wore on, room after room was added to complicate the pueblos, like human bee hives. Tuzigoot became a village of 90 or more families.

At the dawn of the 14th Century, the drouth lifted, the late comers became permanent residents, and the Verde Valley pueblos remained crowded and prosperous. The prosperity was not to last By 1400, the Pueblo people were filtering away from the Verde Valley in such numbers that room after room of the ancient, dingy villages fell into disrepair,