 The Gila Cliff Dwellings |
The Gila
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| The Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is surrounded by the Gila National Forest and lies at the edge of the Gila Wilderness, the nation's first designated wilderness area. This designation protects the area from the intrusion of roads or other evidence of human presence. | ||
The Cliff Dwellings park offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of Indians who lived there from the 1280's through the early 1300's. The surroundings probably look today very much like they did when the cliff dwellings were inhabited.
The earliest ruin that has been found within the monument is a pithouse of a type that was made from about AD 100 to 400. People of this period, referred to by archaeologists as the Mogollon, grew corn and beans and hunted and gathered wild plant food. They made plain brown pottery and undoubtedly were skilled in crafts such as nets, snares, baskets and wooden tools.
The term "cliff dwellers" refers to Pueblo people who built their homes in natural caves. But Pueblo people also built in the open. Examples of both types of settlements were occupied - at least for awhile - simultaneously.
It was sometime after AD 1000 that the cliff dwellings were built, along with other pueblos situated on terraces overlooking the West Fork of the Gila River.
Seven natural caves occur high in the southeast-facing cliff of a side canyon and five of the caves contain the ruins of cliff dwellings - a total of about 40 rooms. Walls of the dwellings were constructed of stone from the formation exposed to the cliff.
All the timbers in the dwellings are the originals except for the ladders and handrailings installed by the park service. Probably not more than 10 to 15 families lived in the cliff dwellings at any one time, and the rooms were used for only one generation or less
The inhabitants were farmers; their fields were on the mesa tops and along the river. They raised squash, corn, beans and probably amaranth and tobacco. They supplemented these with animals that they hunted or snared and with wild berries and nuts gathered from the nearbt canyons and forest.
They were excellent weavers and skilled potters, producing handsome brown bowls with black interiors and black-on-white vessels.
They were slight of build, yet muscular. They had dark hair and eyes and brown skin. They wore clothing and sandals made of cotton, yucca cord, agave leaves and bark. They probably used few objects of adornment.
The cliff dwellers had abandoned their homes by the early 1300's. Why they left and where they went are not known. (But we have our theories)
adapted from a National Park Service brochure by
GilaNet
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