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TUZIGOOT,
a ridge-top Sinagua village above the Verde Valley, originally
two stories; by the late 1300s, it had a population of over
two hundred |
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MONTEZUMA
CASTLE, a five-story, twenty-room cliff dwelling about one
hundred feet above the valley, dating from the early twelfth
century |
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In the prehistoric
Southwest, the ancient puebloans lived in lands differing considerably
in topography, climate and resources. Unlike the inhabitants of
Mesa Verde, Chaco or Salmon Ruins (Ornament 29/2, 2005; 29/1,
2005; 28/2, 2004), the southern Sinagua inhabited more verdant
lands, with good access to water, fertile bottomlands, game and
trade materials, such as red argilite, salt and cotton, as well
as more unusual items like turtle shells, used for rattles. Living
in a finger-shaped mountain-belt extension of the Mogollon culture
area, situated between the Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloans to the
north and the Hohokam to the south, the Sinagua are less well-studied
than these other cultures but were influenced by both, as well
as perhaps the Mogollon.
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TUZIGOOT VISITOR’S
CENTER. These displays were done by a local woman in the 1930s
but the wood/glass cases were made by high school woodshop students
in nearby Clarkdale, Arizona, with WPA excavating the site. (These
exhibits may be redone.) PATTERNED COTTON CLOTH FRAGMENT, possibly
a portion of an apron. CERAMIC WHORLS, including three made from
pottery shards, painting of woman spinning and spindle/whorl/thread
attached to unspun, locally grown cotton (Pima cotton), which
was also traded by the inhabitants to northern Arizona. CONUS
SHELL TINKLER and sketch of apron with similar tinklers at bottom
edge. Photographs by Robert K. Liu/Ornament.
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Within about
fifteen miles of each other, Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot are quite
different habitats. The former is set in a cliff recess, about one hundred
feet above the valley floor, through which runs a creek. Built of soft
limestone, it has remained one of the best-preserved pueblos, with intact
roofing reeds and hand imprints on the mud plaster over the limestone
blocks of its some twenty rooms, set five-stories high. Tuzigoot, running
along a ridge some one hundred twenty feet above the lush Verde Valley
and its river, was a large two-story pueblo built of limestone and sandstone
blocks, housing up to two hundred fifty people in the late 1300s.
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| SHELL
PENDANTS OF QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, A FROG, AND A GEOMETRIC DESIGN,
all wonderfully animated despite their simplicity; the frog (actually
a toad) is a much used and important symbol in prehistoric Southwest
jewelry. Both Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot produced beautiful
examples of Sinagua frog pendants of turquoise mosaic overlay
on shell, but because these were associated with burials, the
artifacts as well as others covered by the NAGPRA Act (the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) have been removed
from exhibition. In older publications such as Indian Jewelry
of the Prehistoric Southwest ( J.D. Jacka and N.S. Hammack 1975,
University of Arizona Press), one can see color photographs of
these pendants strung on bead necklaces.
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Even though
Montezuma Castle receives up to two thousand visitors daily, it has
relatively few archaeological displays in its Visitor’s Center,
unlike the large room of display cases at Tuzigoot, which sees only
between one hundred fifty to three hundred viewers daily, due to its
distance from Highway 17, the area’s main road. In addition, since
the passing of the NAGPRA Act in 1990, many artifacts associated with
burials have been removed from exhibition at both locations. Unfortunately
for readers of Ornament, these items, now stored at the Western Archeological
and Conservation Center in Tucson (WACC), include all the mosaic overlay
pendants made by the Sinagua. (In the near future, we will publish an
article on these fine examples of ancient puebloan ornaments, from non-burial
contexts.)
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| ARGILITE,
or red claystone, found near Prescott and Jerome, Arizona, was
a prized material for jewelry and trade. RAW TURQUOISE and finished
tabs, possibly traded into this area from the north. When used
for mosaic overlay, the turquoise had to be processed into tesserae,
like the argilite examples shown. BONE HAIR ORNAMENT and sketch
of how these were worn, by women and men. |
The WPA excavated Tuzigoot,
but its informative displays were made by a local woman in the 1930s.
All the crafts associated with personal adornment, i.e., clothing and
ornaments, are well-covered, as illustrated here. Both Montezuma Castle
and Tuzigoot were fortunate to have preserved pieces of cloth/clothing,
but it is the extant displays of jewelry that are truly striking. One
marvels at how well they worked shell and stone, given their basic but
serviceable toolkit. Especially impressive is their ability to reduce
animals and objects to the most basic forms, yet retain striking animation,
wit and charm. The simple act of inscribing a circle around a perforation
to make an eye, or a scribed line to delineate legs or body motion tells
of their considerable visual sophistication. E. Wesley Jernigan (1978)
has aptly described the jewelry skills of these and other prehistoric
Southwesterners.
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ARGILITE TESSERAE
or thin, square pieces of this red claystone, possibly found in
pot shown. These have been broken off from a scored, larger, flat
piece. Using probably a cactus spine and a hand-twirled drill,
these are perforated and strung on a cord, which is drawn across
a piece of sandstone to abrade them into round disk beads, smallest
of which are approximately 1.5 millimeters in diameter, equaling
the smallest of Middle East or Indus Valley disk beads. Not all
of the finished beads are argilite, as some are black, perhaps
lignite or jet, most likely traded from the north
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I was astounded at the adjoining
displays of how red argilite was worked from tesserae into disk beads
of the most minute size, an awe-inspiring feat, even though the question
of what was used as a drillbit is still not settled. Hopefully more
research will be done on these remarkable peoples. Photographs Robert
K. Liu/Ornament.
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