Tusayan Ruin Trail

Tusayan Ruin is the remnant of a small village occupied in the late 1100s by about 30 people for 25 to 30 years. Its architecture was typical of the period and reflected local materials, with limestone blocks held together with mud. Archeologists excavated the site in 1930 and gave it the Spanish geographic name Tusayan. The visible debris now suggests a single-story pueblo with 3 or 4 main living rooms rather than a second story. Tree-ring patterns in charred wood fragments from kiva roofs, correlated with regional growth data, yielded an approximate construction date of A.D. 1185. The site includes a large kiva, a ceremonial room derived from ancestral Pueblo pithouses and used for storage, ceremonies, rites, and festivals, with public portions usually held in the plaza, and a smaller kiva that burned during the pueblo's occupation and was replaced nearby because local Kaibab Limestone prevented deep underground construction. In the distance, Humphreys Peak, the highest point in Arizona, rises among the San Francisco Peaks, a geologically young volcanic range active as recently as 1000 years ago; the Hopi, believed to be modern spiritual descendents of the ancestral Pueblo people of this area, hold these peaks to be the dwelling place of the Kachinas, their ancestral spirits.

Arizona · United States