Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
15
Teddy's Tip
Do nothing to mar its grandeur . . . keep it for your children, your children's children,
all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.
—President Theodore Roosevelt, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1903
blue spruce and ponderosa. They help feed
and house a broad variety of animal life,
from tropical birds such as the elegant
trogon to hearty mammals such as prong-
horn antelopes, brown bears, and moun-
tain lions. But the desert's most notorious
creatures are those that crawl and creep:
scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlesnakes.
You should avoid these, but don't lose
sleep over them—generally, if you leave
them alone, they'll do the same to you.
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LOOKING BACK AT THE SOUTHWEST
IN THE BEGINNING
Archaeologists
say that humans first migrated to the
Southwest, moving southward from the
Bering Land Bridge, around 12,000 b.c.
Sites such as Sandia Cave and Folsom—
where weapon points were discovered that
clearly established that our prehistoric
ancestors hunted now-extinct mammals,
such as woolly mammoths—are interna-
tionally known. When large-prey animals
died off during the late Ice Age (about
8000 b.c.), people turned to hunting
smaller game and gathering wild food.
Stable farming settlements, evidenced
by the remains of domestically grown
maize, date from around 3000 b.c. As the
nomadic peoples became more sedentary,
they built permanent residences, known as
pit houses, and made pottery. Cultural
differences began to emerge in their choice
of architecture and decoration: The Mog-
ollon people, in the southwestern part of
modern New Mexico, created brown and
red pottery and built large community
lodges; the Anasazi (also called Ancestral
Puebloans), in the Four Corners region,
made gray pottery and smaller lodges for
extended families. In Arizona, the Sinagua
and Hohokam cultures farmed the land,
creating extensive irrigation systems.
By about a.d. 700, and perhaps a couple
of centuries earlier, the Ancestral Puebloans
had built villages throughout what is now
known as the Four Corners region (where
New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado
come together). Chaco Culture National
Historic Park and Aztec Ruins National
Monument in New Mexico; Mesa Verde
National Park in Colorado; and Betatakin,
Keet Seel, and Canyon de Chelly in Ari-
zona, among other sites, all exhibit an
architectural excellence and skill, and a sci-
entific sensitivity to nature, that marks this
as one of America's classic pre-Columbian
civilizations.
The sites include condominium-style
communities of stone and mud adobe
bricks, three and four stories high. The vil-
lages incorporated circular spiritual cham-
bers called kivas. The Anasazi also developed
the means to irrigate their fields of corn,
beans, and squash by controlling the flow
of water from area's rivers. From Chaco
Canyon, they built a complex system of
well-engineered roads leading in four direc-
tions to other towns or ceremonial centers.
Artifacts found during excavation, such as
seashells and macaw feathers, indicate that
they had a far-reaching trade network. The
incorporation of solar alignments into some
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