Around 800 years ago, Wupatki Pueblo at Wupatki National Monument served as a meeting place for different cultures from the surrounding area. Located just north of Flagstaff, Arizona, Wupatki Pueblo was one of the largest, tallest and perhaps the wealthiest of its day. Today, the partially restored pueblo still stands, with its warm red stone [...]

Had it not been for some interesting twists of fate, Arizona and New Mexico might have ended up with totally different borders. Or been named something totally different. Or ended up not as two states, but as one! Would the combined state have been called Mexizona? Arixico? Or would Arizona, who at the time appeared [...]

The Grand Canyon has had many admirers over the years. We aren’t the first to be in awe of its natural beauty. The oldest human artifacts in the park are nearly 12,000 years old and date to the Paleo-Indian period. Ancient people have continually occupied the park since that time, and there are more than [...]

Sitting in the center of the Verde River Valley is a hill, atop which the Sinagua people built a multi-room pueblo called Tuzigoot. From a roof, the view of the surrounding mountains is truly amazing and it is easy to see why these ancient people chose the site to call home. From almost any spot [...]

Casa Grande means “great house” and Casa Grande Ruins National Monument preserves an ancient Hohokam farming community. It was the first cultural and prehistoric site to be protected by the United States government.

Speculation is that Casa Grande may have been used as an astronomical observatory, which might help explain the unusual size of the [...]

The Hohokam Indians first settled a long stretch of the Verde River in central Arizona and were later followed by the Sinagua Indians. The Sinagua are credited with the introduction of stone houses, either in cliff openings, or in freestanding pueblos — it is their dwellings you can see still standing today. Three of their [...]

It is a unique feeling to think that the last person to see a metate (grinding slab) and mano (hand-held rock grinder) still sitting in the metate, was possibly the Native American woman who last used it more than 700 years ago. If you haven’t experienced the thrill of this kind of discovery, then you [...]

The Cameron Trading Post has been providing visitors, travelers and explorers to the desert southwest with needed supplies for nearly a century. In the early days, that meant trading almost exclusively with the Navajo and Hopi Native American Indians for wool, blankets, livestock and dry goods.

Today, the Cameron Trading Post is well worth a long [...]

Hike to the Sears-Kay Ruins

On a windswept ridge, high above a dry streambed, a small band of Hohokam Indians built a community, now known as the Sears-Kay Ruin. Around 1050 AD, these ancient people erected five buildings — with 40 rooms — in which they ate, slept, had children and watched the horizon for almost [...]