A Trap for Runoff / Trampa de agua

About 400 years ago, the people who lived on this ridge in the dry country around Las Humanas had no nearby stream for drinking, cooking, and building, so they built more than thirty shallow pits on the slope to catch runoff from sporadic rains. The basin here held water for a few weeks and supplemented the wells and roof-fed cisterns of Las Humanas. Pottery fragments found here show that over the centuries people used many styles and shapes of vessels to haul and store water, including very large containers now called canteens that were well suited for dipping water from these shallow basins.

Deer Canyon, New Mexico · United States