Walnut Canyon Cliff Dwellers at Work
Petroglyph cut on the walls of Walnut Canyon, below the “Island”
A study of the tree rings reveals that a 23-year drouth prevailed in the Southwest from 1276 to 1299 A.D. It appears that the Walnut Canyon cliff dwellers were gone before that time, and perhaps they were displaced by an earlier drouth of less duration.
It is doubtful that the cliff dwellers perished, but rather that their blood flows in the veins of some of the living Pueblo Indians. The Hopis are said to have legends which indicate their ancestors once lived in cliff caves. Hopi Indian visitors sometimes comment on the cliff dwellings being the homes of their ancestors, and there is some evidence to support this. Hopi Indians are of the same basic type which inhabited Walnut Canyon. Studies made on the cliff dwellers’ physical remains reveal they were a short, stocky people much like the Hopi of today.
ARTS, CRAFTS, AND ORNAMENTS
In addition to pottery making, the Indians did some weaving and basket making. They were acquainted with cotton textiles, and since cotton would not mature at this elevation, they must have traded for raw cotton or the finished products. We do not know the full details of what style clothes these people wore, but we are sure they liked shell beads, pendants, armlets, paint of several colors, and jet buttons.
Turquoise was possessed by some. The nearest known sources are several miles distant, where it was mined from solid rock with stone and wooden tools.
Some shells were imported from points as distant as the Gulf of Lower California over trade routes that have been well defined.