Side Roads

Anasazi Country by Air

by Jim Elder

Pilot Adriel Heisey
prepares to explore
Anasazi country in
his ultralight.

This past summer we went to Camp Jeep to enjoy the fellowship with Jeep owners and to try out the new Grand Cherokee (reported on in the November issue of Jeep Sporting Destinations).

While there, we met video producer Charlie West and Outdoor Life Network television host David Sparks. Charlie is a true adventurer and a history buff with a special interest in Native American history. And we wanted to try out the new Jeep.

Adriel Heisey was at Camp Jeep, representing the National Geographic and sharing his photographic vision and experience with the Camp Jeepers. For 11 years, Adriel was the chief pilot for the Navajo Nation, flying medical and administrative missions in the Four Corners country. In 1991, he began building his own airplane, a "not quite ultralight" kit.

With this "low and slow" versatile craft, he was able to combine his photography and his flying, and he completed assignments for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History, and Arizona Highways. Heisey knows the Anasazi country as few men do -- from the air, but close up. Charley West immediately enlisted Adriel in our destination project. In hours Adriel could scout the areas it would take weeks to cover, even in four-wheel-drive vehicles. And he could rig his plane with video cameras to enrich the Outdoor Life Network television program.

There are well-known Anasazi sites, visited by thousands each year --Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep National Monument, Navajo National Monument, and the Anasazi Heritage Center. They are all worth visiting, but we wanted back roads, discrete four-wheeling and hiking to sites not on the tour-bus routes. Adriel suggested Butler Wash, only a few miles west of Bluff, Utah, but 800 years away.

In Bluff, we met Jim and Luanne Hook, our hosts at the Recapture Lodge. They came to Bluff 10 years ago to run a llama tour operation. The country captured them, they stayed, bought the lodge and Jim became a student of the Anasazi. The Hooks willingly share what they have learned, stock maps and books in the lodge lobby, and will even loan you a pair of binoculars if you forgot to pack them. Jim Hook agreed with Adriel's choice of Butler Wash as a rich Jeep Destination.

Good maps, a GPS and local information are essential to explorations in Butler Wash. The backroads and trails are perfect for Grand Cherokee and Cherokee adventures. We found sites few people see, began to unravel some of the mysteries, and came away with an appreciation and respect for the Ancient Ones.

For more information, visit these Web sites:

http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/
swa/anasazi

www.swcolo.org/Tourism/
Archaeology/
AnasaziHeritageCenter

www.swcolo.org/Tourism/
Archaeology/ANASAZI

www2.educ.ksu.edu/projects/
hovenweep/hovenhome

www.personal.psu.edu/
faculty/g/h/ghb1/
southwest/anasazi

www.so-utah.com

Copyright (c) 1998 Jim Elder. All rights reserved.

Searching for the Anasazi

by Jim Elder

"Experts and amateurs sought answers to two basic questions: What happened to the Ancient Ones and where did they go?".

	Anasazi ruins in Butler Wash.

In December of 1888 two Colorado ranchers rode onto Mesa Verde looking for stray cattle. They discovered what we now call Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling complex in the United States. This was once the home of the Anasazi, a people whose lives and deaths are still shrouded in mystery.

"Anasazi" is the term most often used for these early Americans. It means the "old enemies," so named by the later-arriving Navajo. These were the ancestors of the Puebloan people, primarily the Hopi and Zuni, who prefer to call them the Ancient Ones.

At its peak, the Anasazi culture and civilization were highly developed, with specialists in agriculture, architecture, art, religion, crafts, and even trade and communication.

	The Four Corners area of the Southwest features numerous ancient Indian sites, along with a wide variety of recreational opportunities.

Artifacts found in the Four Corners country (where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet) prove trade with cultures as far south as central Mexico, and vice versa. The mystery of the towers -- a chain of high points reaching from Utah to Chihuahua in Mexico, were at first ruled out as signal sites because no evidence of carbon -- signal fires -- was found. Recently, however, polished copper mirrors were discovered which were probably used to send messages over hundreds of miles by flashing codes with reflected sunlight.

As word spread of the Mesa Verde discovery, archaeological attention shifted from earlier sites south of the Four Corners. Cliff, cave and mesa habitation sites, commonly referred to as cliff dwellings, were found -- and sometimes carelessly excavated by amateurs -- over a wide area of the Southwest.

The experts at first thought these ruins, which seem to have been abandoned by A.D. 1300, must have been the work of Aztecs. The architecture and the level of civilization represented by the buildings and the artifacts found were too advanced to fit the accepted definitions of North American "Indian" achievement. By 1927, however, it was accepted that these dwelling sites were not the work of Aztec peoples. Accurate dating technology ruled out the Navajo, who did not occupy the area until the 1500s, only a few decades before the Spanish invasions and explorations.

It is this 200-year gap that fascinated and frustrated scientists, and led to the lost tribes myth. Experts and amateurs sought answers to two basic questions: What happened to the Ancient Ones and where did they go?

The "what happened" was first thought to be conquest by Ute and Paiute warriors. That theory fell apart, despite some evidence of raiding parties and warfare. Disease and epidemic were later imports, brought by the Spanish, along with persecution and slavery, but the victims were not in the Four Corners area.

Drought, a threat to any agricultural society, was another possible explanation, and periods of drought were confirmed by geologic records. But the Southwest was and is a land of marginal rainfall, subject to minor and major drought cycles since the Ice Age. Archeology and geology combined to show that the Ancient Ones usually adapted to climate changes, by minor relocation or changes in farming methods. In short, there was no one standout answer to the mystery of why the Anasazi "disappeared" in A.D. 1300.

Then the experts tried a new trail, an obvious one in hindsight. They began to ask the present-day Pueblo people. Studies of the arts, crafts, religions and oral history of the Hopi and Zuni revealed strong ties to the Anasazi. Petroglyphs and pictographs dating from what was considered the Anasazi times -- estimated to be 100 B.C. to A.D. 1300 -- contained themes and symbols found in later Puebloan tradition.

Continuity was discovered in basketmaking and pottery. And the architecture -- most notably the kiva, a ceremonial or council chamber -- was solid stone evidence of close ties between the Ancient Ones and the present Puebloan clans.

Today scientists and hobbyists generally agree that the Anasazi never actually disappeared. So where did they go? Logic and science now suggest they never went. Dating the ruins indicates that the more complex and populated dwelling sites were abandoned due to a combination of drought and a need for defense. When times were good, defense was not a priority. In bad times, most likely drought, raids and warfare sapped the resources of the people. The results were simply a decrease in numbers, migration and dispersion.

Present-day Puebloan people have traditionally kept private the most basic elements of their spiritual inheritance. Certain subjects, even certain places, are off limits. Experience with Athapaskan (Navajo), Spanish and Anglo invaders has taught them caution. But their proud claim to be the descendants of the Ancient Ones is proving to be the best answer to the mystery of the Anasazi. For the Hopi and Zuni, it never was a mystery.

Copyright © 1998 Jim Elder. All rights reserved.