Prehistoric Ruins

I grabbed frantically for a cedar branch as the rock I stood on slipped, threatening to send me nose-first down a steep slope. Waiting for my heart rate to slow, I heard Bernadette Heath shout, “Oh, wow!” Slithering and skidding down an incline of loose rocks to catch up with her, I rounded a rocky point, and all I could do was mimic her: “Oh, wow!” Before us, in this canyon on the Navajo Indian Reservation, sat an ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) dwelling, its beams, roofs and kiva so perfectly preserved it appeared to have traveled through 700 years of history completely untouched. Despite the sweltering summer heat, I broke out in goosebumps. The scene looked otherworldly, a village somehow caught out of its own time and transported into ours.

The Navajos have classified the site as a Restricted Ruin, and they are understandably protective and secretive about it. John Stein of the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department escorted Heath and me to the site only after we solemnly agreed not to reveal the ruin's name or its location. Stein had warned us we might have to be lowered by rope several hundred feet to get close to the ruin, so he brought along his partner, an experienced climber. My stomach churned when I saw the pile of ropes and hooks in the back of his truck. Even more disconcerting was the anticipatory smile on the face of climber and archaeologist Taft Blackhorse. I could tell this tall, athletic Navajo man actually looked forward to hanging Heath and me off a steep overhang. Stein and Blackhorse had led us along a maze of dirt roads and cow trails to where the ground abruptly ruptured into a deep canyon. Heath and I had brought our husbands, Bill and Richard, respectively, but that did not prove such a good idea. Our spouses too-cheerfully shouldered ropes and mountain-climbing paraphernalia and followed Blackhorse. They got into this rope-dangling business way too deeply.

We scrambled about halfway down the canyon wall and perched on a steep ledge, from which we spotted the pueblo. Neither Stein nor Blackhorse had ever seen these ruins, and they were as stunned as the rest of us.

I'd seen many ruins before, but these seemed different. Magnificent in its solitude, the empty pueblo stood as surreally perfect as a museum diorama behind glass.

The Puebloans wedged their buildings into a large south-facing sandstone cavern where the winter sun would shine directly in, providing heat; but now, in the summer, the recess remained in cool shade. Built with local stone, the ruins blended perfectly with the reddish canyon walls.

Wooden beams protruded about 3 feet from the roofs. We identified the rounded kiva, the sacred ceremonial building located in the deepest portion at the alcove's east end and commanding the highest position.

From above the ruins, we could see that all the roofs remained intact, with entrance hatchways in the center of most of them. Small oak branches surrounded one rooftop like a fence, and a narrow passage separated another set of rooms. At the front of the alcove, a rock retaining wall held back a community plaza. Few of the rooms had doorways or windows, but one room resembling a one-car garage had a large entrance on the east wall. The opening seemed engineered rather than the result of a collapsed wall.

Then came the problem: how to get us off the ledge and closer to the ruin. Gauging the drop, I wasn't sure I needed to be any closer, but Heath felt differently.

When the men discussed tying ropes to various rocks and trees to rappel us, my stomach tied in knots. I looked around to ask what Heath thought of swinging off cliffs and found her gone. I figured she had chickened out, then I heard a shout. She had found a ropeless way down. I was elated. Even traveling on the seat of my pants was better than dangling at a gung-ho climber's mercy, but the would-be rock climbers were glum. Grudgingly, they slid and stumbled down the steep precipice without their fancy gear.

At the bottom of the deep sandstone canyon, dark green cottonwood, oak, box elder and maple trees lined a sandy creek bed. Even then, in the dry season, a small stream trickled a short distance before disappearing underground. Now we knew the Puebloans had lived close to a dependable water source.

Water stains have made strange black designs on the variegated red canyon walls where rain has plunged for centuries. What a sight this must be during a thunderstorm with water pouring over the top, tumbling and thundering hundreds of feet.

The creek wound in deep snakelike loops, and it was in one of these bends that the ancient people built their home, far enough back under an overhang for protection from waterfalls and 60 feet or so above the floods of the canyon floor.

Sound echoed easily off the canyon walls, and a black raven rode the air currents overhead, noisily protesting our intrusion into his domain. Down in the canyon I got another perspective of the structures, and I realized the striking difference about these ruins. They weren't ruins at all. There was no debris. No tumbledown walls, no fallen beams. Just abandoned buildings apparently ready and waiting for someone who might step back in at any moment. Even Stein, an archaeologist who has explored many a prehistoric ruin, repeated his amazement at this site.

When Stein and Blackhorse settled down under a shady cottonwood, I asked why the cliff dwellings weren't disturbed by the local Navajos. “The Navajo children are told to stay out of the ruins. 'Your ancestors may be buried there. It is not yours, and you have no business being there,” Blackhorse explained.

When I'd first started researching these ancient dwellings, I asked a Navajo man if he knew who had discovered them and when. He paused for several seconds, then said, “What do you mean 'discovered'? They were never lost. We knew they were there all along.” The only history of this pueblo I found was a 1930s government report. A group from the U.S. Indian Service visited the site and found, penciled on the kiva wall, a name that looked like “W.E. Hilddinn,” followed by the year 1898. They also found the names S.E. Day Jr. and C.L. Day and the date December 16, 1900. The report stated that the kiva "is assumed to be the oldest part of the site. It is roughly circular with a banquette at the end opposite to the ventilator. It is perfectly preserved. A fireplace with a deflector lies near the center of the kiva. A painted geometrical design in white runs around the walls."

From two tree-ring borings on the roof beams, the group discovered they were cut in A.D. 1266 and 1276, dating the village to just before the great drought of 1276 to 1299. The only other reported findings were 273 pieces of pottery fragments. We discussed the old riddle: "Why did the residents build in these inaccessible spots, and how did they get up there?" Stein theorized that this particular site might have been a ceremonial center or perhaps a defensive granary. Maybe a few families lived here year-round, with the surrounding population gathering here in times of danger.

Blackhorse and Stein speculated where ladders would have connected to notches carved in the rock, allowing access to the highest room. My admiration for these pre-Columbian people increased as I understood the difficulty they had carrying building materials, food and water up the sheer, steep cliffs.

I didn't really want to enter the rooms, and neither did Heath. That surprised us, but an almost sacred sense about this site hinted that we shouldn't intrude, that we didn't belong. Besides, I couldn't shake the feeling that the residents might return and catch me snooping through their homes.

It was good I didn't have my heart set on examining the rooms, because Stein said they are off-limits to everyone. That was okay with me, though; this spot should be left alone. It's perfect as it is. Besides, wedging the toes of my hiking boots into those shallow notches to scale a perpendicular sandstone wall didn't sound like fun. Still set on using his ropes, Blackhorse suggested I try bungee jumping, but I didn't like that idea, either.

This ancestral site needs defending as much now as it did 700 years ago, only from a different assault. A lucrative antiquities black market and vandalism, coupled with reductions in agency funding and staffing, caused the tribal and federal governments and various law enforcement agencies to join forces to protect the site.

Before our trip, I had contacted Anna Marie Fender, then-superintendent of Canyon de Chelly National Monument, to learn how the Four Corners area protects its ruins. Fender, also a law enforcement officer, explained how an interagency cooperative effort of undercover agents and electronic surveillance keeps an eagle eye on precious archaeological assets. Their vigilance, together with stiff penalties - a second offense can result in fines of up to $250,000, five years' imprisonment and forfeiture of vehicles and equipment-have brought them success. Stein told me that lack of both funds and staff also plague this region, but electronic motion sensors alert police when anyone is in the area.

I knew we needed to climb out of the canyon before dark, but I hated to leave this peaceful place. Hiking out proved strenuous, and for the first time I wished Blackhorse were pulling me up with his rope. We reached a flat sandstone ledge, and I collapsed to let my screaming muscles rest. There, carved into the sandstone, was a date: 1812. Who chiseled it there? Spaniards? Explorers? Who knows. Another enigma in a place full of surprises.

I stared one last time into the serene canyon. The setting sun made the rock walls a darker red and shadowed the cavern-set village almost black. Heath and I both hoped that one day our grandchildren might have the chance to round a rocky point and say, "Oh, wow!" as they view "our" pueblo, untouched by time. AlH AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article is deliberately vague about the ruin's location because the public is not permitted to visit. We were escorted guests by special arrangement with the Navajo Nation.

ADDITIONAL READING: For more on Indian ruins, we suggest A.D. 1250: Ancient Peoples of the Southwest by Lawrence W. Cheek. Color photographs and knowledgeable text follow those who came before. To order, call toll-free (800) 543-5432 or go online to arizonahighways.com.

Janet Webb Farnsworth also wrote "Chasing Butterflies" in this issue. Queen Creek-based Bernadette Heath says her teenage children avoid her when she's working on an Indian ruins assignment, as they have other ideas about how to spend their vacations.

The Sheltered Life of the SONORAN DESERT TORTOISE This reptile enjoys itself one century at a time

THE DESERT TORTOISE IGNORED ME.

It appeared to have business farther down the cool caliche wash, and it had zero interest in the pale, bowlegged stranger tiptoeing 5 yards behind through the soft sand. I had been following it for 10 minutes on this temperate early morning. By the size of its carapace (average shells measure 12 inches in diameter), I could tell it was an adult. In the dry wash, first its thick tracks, then mine, crossed the fresh trail of a coyote or feral dog. Sunrise glinted from the cranes looming over a new power plant under construction in the distance. Long shadows shrunk beneath the creosote bushes that dominate the terrain.

Some time ago, I came to help with a field survey of desert tortoises in this valley between the Hualapai Mountains and Black Mountains of western Mohave County. This time there will be no tracking with transponders and receivers, no carapace measurements, no meticulous data collection.

I had missed the company of tortoises and had come back to say hello.

The difference between a tortoise and a turtle is fairly simple-a tortoise is a landdwelling turtle that goes near water only to drink or bathe. Varying only in their genetic makeup and habitat preference, two populations of desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii)-Mojave and Sonoran - reside in the area extending into Mexico from southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, southeastern California and western and south-central Arizona. The Colorado River roughly separates the two groups. Tortoises in Arizona belong to the Sonoran population.

Who has a harsh word for the tortoise? Mention the rattlesnake, the coyote or the turkey vulture, and seldom is heard more disparaging words. Rattlesnakes have their advocates, as they should, but there's no denying the attention one gets when it suns itself on the front porch. Coyotes will carry off the unwary house cat. The turkey vulture, important as it is to the ecosystem, repels due to its preference for the fresh delicacies arrayed on the asphalt buffet. Even the roadrunner can be criticized for its taste for quail eggs. The tortoise has no such detractors.

For those who believe in reincarnation, coming back next time as a tortoise presents a certain appeal. The lifestyle appears to have much to offer-self-contained abode, no hurry, no stress, warm climate, long winter naps, a lifespan that can reach 100 years.

With only a thimble's worth of rain in a given year and temperatures in excess of 120 degrees, the tortoise's landscape is not idyllic, however. Creosote bushes and white bursages obscure a delicate and balanced system within which the animal's daily and seasonal rhythms occur. Those who study such things estimate that the tortoise spends 95 percent of its life underground. It hiber-nates from November to March deep in its burrow in a dry wash bank or at the base of some brush as its body temperature drops and metabolism slows. Even during their active season, tortoises will emerge only to forage on grasses and wildflowers for food and moisture.

The home range for adult tortoises, which can cover as much as 40 acres, will overlap those of other tortoises and will always be