Changes to Come

Dozens of pithouses may lie buried under Sunset Crater's lava and cinders. Excavated pithouses revealed few artifacts, and even building timbers had been removed, suggesting that people had ample warning of the impending eruption. The changed environment forced new adaptations, including migration from the area. Those who stayed nearby had to adapt their traditional agricultural technology to lower elevations and cinder-covered land. The eruption has a modern-day equivalent in the 1943 eruption of Parícutin in Mexico, which provides eyewitness accounts and analogies. The Sunset eruption began in a curtain-of-fire eruption like one in Hawaii, then the cinder cone grew and lava flowed from the base of the cone, as at Parícutin. Pithouses were early dwellings of Indigenous farming groups who lived in the area from about the year 500 until 1300, and archeologists attribute this architectural style to the Sinagua culture.

Doney Park, Arizona · United States