Chronology of American Indian History

P

ca. 1100

Sinagua culture begins to flourish.
The Sinagua culture develops in the Verde Val-
ley of what is now central Arizona after a volcano
spreads ash over their lands. The ash improves the
fertility of the soil, allowing the Sinagua to harvest
large crops for the next 200 years. Located north
of the Hohokam (see entry for CA. 400 TO 1500)
and south of the Anasazi (see entry for CA. 750 TO
1400), the Sinagua culture adopts elements of these
traditions. Like the Anasazi, for instance, the Sina-
gua build cliff dwellings, some of which will survive
at Walnut Canyon National Monument, near pres-
ent-day Flagstaff.

ca. 1100 to 1200

The Anasazi construct cliff dwellings at
Mesa Verde.
In what is now southwestern Colorado, the Ana-
sazi (see entry for CA. 750 TO 1400) at Mesa Verde
construct adobe dwellings of 10 to several hundred
rooms in alcoves in canyon walls. The largest of
these cliff dwellings is Cliff Palace, which includes
220 rooms. To reach the buildings, inhabitants have
to make a difficult and steep climb using handholds
and footholds carved into the cliffs. Their inacces-

sibility suggests that the cliff dwellings are meant

to provide protection from the residents’ enemies as

well as from inclement weather.

“Strange and indescribable is

the impression on the traveler,

when, after a long and tiring ride

through the boundless, monoto-

nous piñon forest, he suddenly

halts on the brink of the preci-

pice, and in the opposite cliff

beholds the ruins of the Cliff

Palace, framed in the massive

vault of rock above and in a bed

of sunlit cedar and piñon trees

below. This ruin well deserves its

name, for with its round towers

and high walls rising out of the

heaps of stones deep in the mys-

terious twilight of the cavern, and

defying in their sheltered site the

ravages of time, it resembles at a

distance an enchanted castle.”

—Gustaf Nordenskiöld, the first

scientist to study Cliff Palace,

in 1891

ca. 1100 to 1200

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, the largest of the Anasazi’s cliff dwellings (Library of Congress, Neg. no. USZ62-116571)