Cut-away model of Montezuma Castle.
The Sinagua of the Verde generally lived in small pueblos until about 1250, at which time the center of the valley appears to have undergone a “real estate boom.” The buildings increased in size, and many of them were converted into forts with defensive walls, parapets, peepholes, and sealed doorways. Since the pueblos on the north and east fringes of the valley were abandoned in the 1200’s, it is believed that the Sinagua of that area probably were the ones who moved in to increase the population and size of the central villages.
This move to the center of the valley was probably caused by nearly a century of almost continuous drought which began about 1200 and culminated in an especially severe drought from 1276 to 1299.
Many of the Sinagua in the modern Flagstaff region to the north began to leave their dry-farming area in the early 1200’s. They also seem to have migrated into the Verde Valley. Since they had depended on rainfall for their crops, it is quite possible that the drought affected their entire area, forcing them to move down from the Flagstaff area as well as from the northern and eastern parts of the valley. The occupants of the central region of the valley were able to survive because of the spring-fed streams upon which they depended for their irrigation and water supply.
Such a move undoubtedly disturbed the balance of the people and the available food in the now overcrowded central area. Considerable friction must have arisen. The combination of too many people and not enough farmland may have eventually caused intervillage strife over water rights, with general population decline caused by soil exhaustion and the reduction of other resources.
Montezuma Castle was built up to its present size at this time, reaching its maximum in the 1300’s. Consolidation was also in progress at Montezuma Well. Between 1300 and 1400, only 3 farm outlooks along that half of the irrigation ditch nearest the Well were occupied. In this way the area of settlement was contracted or reduced by abandonment of outlying sites. The concentration of population around the Well implies conflict of some sort; and, it was at this time that the large, definitely defensive pueblo on the rim was constructed. By 1400, or shortly thereafter, the Sinagua abandoned the Well.
Shortly after 1400, in fact, Montezuma Castle and the entire Verde Valley were abandoned by the Sinagua. There is no direct evidence to supply us with the reason for this complete exodus—a combination of circumstances is the probable answer.
A possible major factor causing the Sinagua to abandon the area may have been the Yavapai Indians whom the Spanish later encountered in the Verde Valley. The Yavapai could have been descendents of those Hohokam who had stayed in the valley and lived with the Sinagua between 1100 and 1400. (Like the Hohokam, the Yavapai cremated their dead, built pole-and-brush houses, and farmed small plots along the stream bottomlands.) If they were descendents of the Hohokam, the Yavapai might have been the victors in the intervillage strife that apparently occurred during the 1300’s and forced the Sinagua to leave the valley.
Whatever the real reason, when the Sinagua left, they moved northeast and it is thought they eventually joined the ancestors of the modern Hopi Indians. Before the exodus, the Sinagua had obtained a black-on-yellow pottery from the Hopi country, so they knew the Hopi through their trade contacts. Oral traditions also indicate the possibility of such a move. The modern Hopi have legends of a people coming up from the south to join them. They say that these people were great warriors and that they had no priests or ceremonies. Since the Sinagua had no underground ceremonial chamber, or kiva, such as that of the Hopi, and since we lack evidence of ceremonialism among the Sinagua, these legends could well apply to them.
