Pottery from cremation burials, a mug, pitcher, and a ladle.
Most of the broken pottery found on the Citadel’s slopes is of the type made by the Anasazi, a prehistoric tribe which once lived to the north of here. Nalakihu’s pottery, however, was only one-third Anasazi, the other two-thirds being of the Sinagua and Prescott tribes. The latter lived to the south and west. Different people who were drawn to this region by the good farmlands created by the cinder cover that fell with the eruption of Sunset Crater in A.D. 1065, lived together as neighbors in this region, thus accounting for the different types of pottery in the ruins.
Black-on-white pitcher and bowl funeral offerings.
Clay pot lid, showing imprints of beans and corn husks.
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Almost all of the dwellings were occupied for only a short period. When the winds finally duned up the black cinders and blew them off into the arroyos and the springs dried up, the people had to move to a more productive location to grow their crops. We believe that the Anasazi moved north into the Tsegi Canyon country while the Sinagua moved south into the Verde Valley and east to Chavez Pass near Winslow by the middle 1200s.
Every litter bit hurts!