2 June – Trip day 63
After our visit to the Montezuma Castle National Monument, we drove over to see the Tuzigoot National Monument.
Tuzigoot is the collection of ruins on a hill top. The history of this place was, they surmise, that it was used as a way station on the migration, but also a mining village that had access to valuable resources and minerals for dyes and other items.
Like many other sites in the Southwest, there were several iterations of expansions until its abandonment.
One of the structures was reconstructed how it might have been. A common theme among the architecture was that the logs had to be imported from some tens of miles away from the mountains. Of course, it is also important to remember that this was done by hand, as the Natives did not have horses or the technology of the wheel.
Jarek, Arya, and Evan standing at the top with the valley behind them.
Alan and kids at the structure.
Overall, this was a pretty simple site. They did have a nice museum in the visitor center, but it was not baby/child proofed – a number of the ollas (large pottery pieces) were quite accessible to little hands.
Thanks for reading!
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