The Ancient Ones

Fallen Roof Ruin

One of the things that draws people to Grand Gulch is the superb hiking. Another – and in my opinion, greater draw – is the thousands of ruins, paintings and pottery artifacts left behind by the first people to inhabit these canyons. 

Black and White Potsherd

Cultural scientists have given them many names over the years: Moki, Anasazi and now, Ancestral Puebloans (based on building evidence linking them to today’s pueblo tribes in Arizona and New Mexico.) Whatever you call them, it’s hard not to admire their tenacity and artisanship as exemplified by the structures and rock art they left behind. They may be thought of as a primitive culture, but their technological skills and knowledge of the natural environment were far from primitive. 

Pictographs in Collins Canyon

Wandering down the Gulch and it’s many tributary canyons, one finds ruin after ruin – with rock art panels around almost every bend. As I travel deeper and deeper into these drainages, I stop often and spend at least a little time photographing and contemplating what it must have been like to live here a thousand years ago. The answer I've come up with is this: Not easy! The landscape and climate were basically the same as now; high semi-desert with cold winters, short growing seasons and not a lot of rain. But for a time, the folks living here actually thrived and multiplied and built wonderfully complex and artful structures to live and conduct their ceremonies in. 

The Citadel

Fishmouth Cave

Monarch Cave

Mano and metate for grinding corn

Eight hundred-year-old remains of a willow and mud roof

Some time around the late 13th century – about the time our ancestors in Europe were emerging from the Dark Ages – droughts in this region intensified, land became overused and fighting between tribes and neighbors for ever diminishing resources escalated. Within fifty years or so, the people slowly left their homes and barren farmlands and migrated south and east; or so it is thought, since no one really knows for sure. One thing I do know is that besides being very successful dryland farmers, they were also accomplished builders and artists as these images I hope, show.