Wupatki - early pueblo dwellers

This view of the Wupatki Pueblo ruins is from near the park Visitor Center. People have utilized the region along the Little Colorado River for 2,000 years and perhaps longer. However, the largest populations are assumed to have been associated with the numerous pueblos and citadels of the Sinagua and other Ancestral Puebloan cultures that flourished in the region between about 1100 and 1250 AD. More than 100 different forms of pottery found in the Wupatki area suggest that the people survived on trades as much as limited irrigation and dry land agriculture the land would support (NPS, 2006). Oral history of the Hopi, Zuni, and other modern pueblo cultures of the Southwest support a cultural link to these ancient peoples that built stone-masonry dwellings along cliff tops and in valleys throughout the region. The Hopi people refer to the early pueblo dwellers as the Hisatsinom (People of long ago) (Dongoske and others, 1997).