Brutal heat in summer, hard frosts in winter, strong shrivelling winds
of spring, and always erratic rainfall combine here to make a desert, a
place of extremes. The world’s arid lands are of many kinds; here is the
Upper Sonoran Desert, with its giant cactus and remarkably varied plant
life. Here are found many creatures which have adapted in behavior or
body features to arid conditions. Man too has evolved in the desert in
many ways, over at least ten thousand years, from roving bands of
primitive hunters to the massive urban developments of today.
Nearly seven hundred years ago farming Indians now called the Salado
(sa-LAH-doe) fitted their lives to this desert. They lived in cool,
thick-walled apartment-like villages, grew irrigated crops of corn,
squash, beans, cotton and amaranth (pigweed), made handsome pottery and
wove elaborate cotton textiles. Though capable farmers, the Salado were
also hunters and gatherers, well aware of the uses to be made of the
desert’s wild resources.
As you walk the winding half-mile trail to the Lower Ruin you will see
many desert plants used by the Salado so long ago, some of the birds,
and perhaps other wild creatures of the desert which are active during
the day.
Take time to breathe the fragrant dry air of the desert, look about you,
enjoy just being, listen to the silence. Don’t feel bound to reading
this little book; this is simply a guide to some of what you will see.
We hope that you will see—and feel—much more.
1 BABY SAGUARO. This little white-spined cactus, an infant less than ten
years old now, will grow up in a hundred years or so to look like the
towering giants scattered over these hills. Young saguaros (sah-WAR-ohs)
are delicate and need a “nurse tree” like this mesquite to shelter them
from the sun.
2 HEDGEHOG CACTUS. The first cactus to bloom each spring; the large
magenta blossoms of this many-headed plant must have been a welcome
sight to the Salado, for they signalled relief to come from the
monotonous winter diet of dried foods.
3 BARREL CACTUS. Though the barrel cactus is fabled as a source of
emergency water in the desert, it is not at all reliable. The amount of
unpleasant-tasting liquid in it varies with the amount and recency of
rainfall.
Not much use was made of the barrel cactus; its fruit is unpalatable,
but several finger rings made of its hooked red spines were found in the
cliff dwelling. Recent desert Indians sometimes made cooking pots of the
barrel: they cut off its top and removed some of the pulp from the
stump, then put food in the cavity and dropped in hot stones to cook it.
4 TESAJO (tess-AH-hoe). Tiny edible tomato-red fruits, ready in November
and December, give this little member of the cholla (CHOY-ya) cactus
group its other name: Christmas cactus.
5 YUCCA (YUH-ca). This very useful plant provides many things. Leaf
fibers make strong thread for mats, string, rope, sandals, nets and
snares; the buds, flowers, fruit, stalks and seeds are edible. The root
contains saponin, useful as a medicine or as soap or an excellent
shampoo. Sharp leaf tips make good awls.
[Illustration: _Yucca_]
[Illustration: _A prehistoric sandal woven of loosely spun yucca fiber._]
[Illustration: _Mesquite leaves and beans_]
6 MESQUITE. Pods and beans of the mesquite (mes-KEET), nutritious and
sweet, are still an important part of the desert Indian’s diet. Pods are
ground into flour and pressed to make little loaves of staple bread.
Fermented, the same flour makes an intoxicating drink. The sweet sap of
the tree can be used to make candy, black dye, or even glue for broken
pottery.
Mesquite has invaded vast areas during the past century, areas once
desert grasslands. Cattle, grazing this land since the 1870s, have eaten
away the grasses, encouraging growth of woody species like mesquite. The
sweet mesquite pods are a favorite cattle food, and the beans pass
unharmed through the digestive tract to be deposited far and wide. A
natural cycle of drought and erosion coupled with heavy grazing has
destroyed much of the desert grassland and converted it to mesquite.
With loss of the grasses, erosion has accelerated, springs have dried
up, and formerly sandy and smooth canyon floors (once suitable for
small-scale farming) have eroded to boulder-strewn wastes. In less than
a century we have made drastic changes in the desert, changes whose
consequences we are only beginning to see.
7 SOTOL. Mats, sandals, coarse ropes and other household items can be
made of the fibers in the narrow leaves of this plant. Young flower
stalks of sotol (SO-tall) are edible when roasted; many deep stone-lined
roasting pits are found throughout this area.
[Illustration: _Sotol leaf and fruiting stem._]
8 LICHENS (LIE-kens). The green and orange blotches resembling paint on
this boulder are lichens, plants consisting of an alga and a fungus
living together. As the plants grow, their secretions begin dissolving
solid rock into fragments, the first step in the long natural process of
soil formation. It has been estimated that in the desert it takes 1,000
years to develop one inch of topsoil.
9 OCOTILLO (oh-ko-TEE-yo). This thorny member of the candlewood family
(NOT a cactus!) has handsome orange-red flowers at the ends of each
branch in spring. Orioles[1], hummingbirds and bumblebees love ocotillo
nectar. Like the palo verde, the ocotillo drops its leaves to conserve
moisture while its green bark carries on a minimum of food manufacture.
Within a few days of a good rain it sprouts a whole new set of leaves,
only to shed them again as soon as the soil dries. The plant may develop
and shed a half dozen sets of leaves in a single growing season.
10 SAGUARO SKELETON. The Salado built roofs and fashioned tools from the
wooden ribs of saguaro skeletons, such as those in various states of
decomposition up the draw above you. Skeletons also supplied wood for
household fires in an area with few other fuel sources.
11 CANE CHOLLA. Flower buds of many types of cholla are edible; Pima
Indians, modern desert farmers living near Phoenix, steam them as
vegetables. The curve-bill thrasher builds its untidy nest in this
cholla.
12 JOJOBA (ho-HO-ba). Moisture is retained in these large leaves by a
thick wax coating. The jojoba’s large oily nuts, slightly resembling a
peanut in size and shape, can be eaten raw or parched; early settlers
used them as a coffee substitute, giving the shrub the name
“coffeeberry.” The plant is an important browse for white-tail and mule
deer.
[Illustration: _Jojoba leaves and fruit_]
13 SAGUARO. These magnificent giants are indicator plants of the Sonoran
Desert. Saguaros produce a beautiful white blossom which has been
designated the Arizona State Flower. Its bright red fruit is edible.
Saguaros grow as high as 50 feet and more, and may live as long as 200
years. After a good rain, large saguaros may weigh several tons. Their
roots are shallow—not more than three feet deep—which allows rapid
absorption of ground-surface moisture. The pleated skin expands,
accordion-like, as the inner pulp swells with absorbed water.
The Gila woodpecker is responsible for many of the holes you see
riddling mature saguaros; the bird will excavate a half-dozen or more
potential nests every year. Other birds use the woodpecker holes,
particularly the elf owl, a six-inch midget which can live only where
the saguaro and the woodpecker provide it with a home.
[Illustration: _Saguaro blossoms._]
[Illustration: _The Annex._]
14 THE ANNEX. Look above you, at the base of the cliff; do you see a
five-foot manmade wall? Once there was a Salado village in the shallow
recess above; it was contemporary with the Lower Ruin just around the
corner and probably housed its population overflow. There were about a
dozen rooms in the Annex, traceable from tiny fragments of walls and
plaster room outlines. Because the recess is so shallow and offers
little shelter, the Annex was destroyed by weather long ago. What you
see from the trail here is all there is to see.
15 TEDDYBEAR CHOLLA. Imagine the misery this cactus gave the
scantily-clad Salados as they moved about gathering wild food and
hunting deer and other creatures. The teddybear’s joints break off very
easily and stick to a victim at the slightest contact, even seeming to
jump at a victim, hence its other name, “jumping cactus.” Cholla spines
penetrate deeply and are very painful to remove; remember—people who
stay on the trail stay out of the way of the cholla. The noisy cactus
wren somehow makes use of the teddybear as a nesting site, and the
woodrat drags cholla joints home with which to barricade his burrow.
16 CEMENTED ROCK. This rock broke away from the cliff above and rolled
here. The diagram explains the geology; broken, faulted Dripping Spring
Formation rocks, here mostly quartzites, were overlain by a layer of
limestone; water percolating through the limestone dissolved materials
which then seeped down through the fragmented rocks and, drying,
cemented the broken bits together, as in the boulder here.
[Illustration: _Sketch of Geological Cross-section._
Showing: Mescal Limestone, Dripping Springs Quartzite, The Lower Ruin,
Mudstone, “Cemented Rock”, Recent Talus]
[Illustration: _Overhanging roof of natural cave preserved the ruin._]
17 FORMATION OF THE CAVE. Under the shattered quartzite was a layer of
soft mudstone. Rain and seepage dissolved the mudstone, removing support
below the quartzite, which then fell away from the cliff. Gradually this
natural erosion enlarged the cave you see today. When the Salado came
seeking a protected place to live they found a natural cave some 50 feet
deep, 40 feet high, and 85 feet long, littered with all the building
stone they needed.
18 BASEMENT ROOMS. Outside and below the cave were 3 or 4 “basement”
rooms, probably houses identical to those in the cave and the Annex. The
cave village itself contained about 20 rooms originally, the exact
number uncertain because rooms toward the front of the dwelling have
weathered away. With the Annex, basement rooms and cave village counted
together, there were about 40 rooms (houses) in this immediate area.
While population estimates are difficult to make with accuracy, probably
between 40 and 60 people lived here long ago.
[Illustration: _Fragmentary walls of the “basement” rooms._]
19 THE ORIGINAL ENTRY. Above you is a V-shaped notch which was probably
the only original entrance to the village. A ladder from the roof of a
basement room led to the passage above, where projecting rocks are
polished from long use as handholds and footrests. When the Indians
wanted to close the village door, they simply pulled up the ladder.
[Illustration: _The notch which was the original entry._]
Salado children who scrambled in and out of this entryway knew the
dangers of these loose rocky slopes, but our children are much less
aware of the slope’s hazards. For your children’s safety, please keep
them with you. Leaving the trail or running on it invites injury.
As you go up the modern stairs, note the retaining wall; it is probably
closely similar to the original wall. The village once extended out as
far as the retaining wall, rooms dividing what is now open space at the
front of the cave, but the original rooms and wall have eroded away.
20 THE ANCIENT SCENE. Think back 700 years and imagine this view then;
no power lines, no roads, no lake, no smog. This spectacular view of the
Salt River Valley provided a fine defensive outlook. We do not know
who—or what—drove the Salado to the high places, but this village and
others like it seem to have been built for defense. Little evidence of
warfare has been found.
[Illustration: _Once four or five rooms were here in the front of the
cave; erosion has destroyed all but the wall stubs you see on the
right._]
Because the ruin is easily visible from the valley it was quickly
discovered, probably by ranchers in the 1870s. The first written record
of the Tonto ruins appeared in 1883, by which time they were well known.
The cliff dwelling overlooks the valley where Salado farms were
tilled—1,000 feet below the village here, and 2 to 5 miles away. Ancient
irrigation canals which watered Salado corn could still be seen until
Roosevelt Lake flooded the valley after 1911. To walk 5 miles or more to
tend a crop was not unusual for a Pueblo farmer. Well into this century
Hopi Indians, distant modern relatives of the ancient Salado, ran as far
as 20 miles to their cornfields.
21 TWO-STORY ROOM. The west wall of this two-story room is one of the
few that reached to the cave ceiling. The 3 beams mark the ceiling of
the room’s first floor, and 2 beam sockets higher up indicate the second
floor ceiling. Most rooms had a 3-foot-high parapet wall around the
roof, providing a safe place in the open air for work or play.
The small hole in the second floor wall overlooks the original entryway,
reminding us that this was probably a fortified village built during
troubled times.
[Illustration: _Two-story room (note sealed doorway in first floor)_]
22 THE ENTRY HALL. If you stood here long ago, you might see a man
bringing home harvested corn, or game of some sort. Women might be
lugging heavy water jars up from the spring in the canyon. Small
children would play about your feet while their older sisters and
brothers solemnly imitated adult work.
The little unroofed room to your right is a fine example of the way the
Salado used the natural cave: here they simply built a curved wall
across a natural recess, creating a small unroofed room which was
apparently used for cooking, judging from the smoke-blackened walls and
the several firepits once found here.
[Illustration: _The entry passage._]
[Illustration: _Room with half-T door._]
These people made many of their doorways in the half-T shape you see in
this little room. The half-T prevented strong drafts, and provided a
place to balance with one hand while stooping through the door. Salado
men averaged about 5 feet 6 inches tall, the women about 5 feet, so they
had as much difficulty as we do getting through these small doorways.
[Illustration: _Original roofing timbers remain in portions of Lower
Ruin._]
23 PARTIAL ROOF. This large room contains a good example of Salado
roofing technique. Walls of stone and mud were built in courses about 2
feet high each, until they reached 6 feet in height. A central upright
post was then placed to hold a main roof beam. The smaller roof poles
rested on the main beam, and above them went a layer of reeds, saguaro
ribs, grass or other small poles. On top of these layers went a thick
mud coat, deep enough to allow a shallow firepit to be safely built in
the upstairs floor.
[Illustration: _Hallway with partial mud-capped roof._]
24 HALLWAY. The village was not built all at once. Construction at
different times is revealed in sealed doorways, wall abutments, and
hallways. This passageway gave access to three rows of ground floor
rooms; it probably also served as additional storage space.
[Illustration: _Interior roofing and hatchway to room above._]
[Illustration: _Stone-lined hatchway._]
25 ORIGINAL ROOM. Look inside and imagine how dark and stuffy these
rooms were. Often ground-floor rooms in the back of the cave—dark and
poorly ventilated—were used just for storage. Ladders gave access to
different floor levels in the village, sometimes through corner
hatchways like the one in this room.
26 ROOM USES. During excavation of this village, an infant burial was
found in the corner of this room. The death rate among infants was high,
and burying babies in the corners of houses was the custom among Pueblo
Indians until quite recent times. Adults were usually buried in the
loose rock slope in front of the village or in abandoned rooms. Terraces
in front of some cliff dwellings served as burial grounds, but no
terrace or cemetery has been found here.
[Illustration: _Connecting rooms in two-story section of ruin; burial
was found in right-hand corner of farthest room._]
Although these rooms are small by our standards, there was no need among
the Salado for larger spaces; actually the Salado houses are remarkably
large in comparison to most cliff dwellings. Since the climate is mild
here, most of the Indians’ time was spent on the roofs and outdoors.
Houses served mainly for sleeping, storage, cooking, and winter shelter.
Salado furniture was minimal: a few pottery vessels, baskets, spare
tools, a metate and firepit, mats for sleeping and sitting, perhaps a
ladder to an upstairs room. Looms for weaving their elaborate cotton
textiles were apparently outdoors, as no trace of them was found in the
rooms.
[Illustration: _Elaborate woven cotton shirt recovered from Tonto
Ruin—fine example of Salado weaving._
Photo courtesy of Arizona State Museum]
[Illustration: _Shells traded from the Gulf of California were carved
to make bracelets._]
[Illustration: _Dramatic geometric designs in black, white and red were
characteristic of Salado pottery._]
27 ORIGINAL CLAY FLOOR. All floors in the village were once smooth, made
of adobe clay like this one, but heavy traffic over recent years has
destroyed all but this one remnant. Please help us preserve this floor
by staying out of the room.
[Illustration: _Cross-Section of a floor._
Showing: outer wall; rock; clay floor; shallow firepit; bedrock]
At the back of the room the clay floor joins natural bedrock of the
cave. Because the cave floor was so irregular, the Indians had to build
retaining walls and fill to make a level spot for their homes. Wet clay
was spread on the fill to make, when dry, a smooth, level floor.
Note the little clay-lined firepit in the center of the room; it is only
about 6 inches deep and 5 across, but provided adequate heat and cooking
space.
28 METATE (meh-TAH-tay) and MANO (MAH-no). These Spanish words refer to
the stone tools used for grinding dried corn, seeds, mesquite pods, palo
verde beans and other foodstuffs. The small, hand-held stone is the
mano. We do not know what the Salado called these essential kitchen
tools, for their lost language was unwritten.
Imagine the many hours of hard work represented by the deep grooves worn
in this hard stone! Try it yourself: kneel and rub the mano back and
forth over the trough of the metate; think of doing such work for many
hours each day.
[Illustration: _Metate and mano._]
Can you see the broken metate that was used as a building stone? Look
above the barred door to the right, just below the stabilizing beam.
29 SMOKE-BLACKENED WALL. Just as we do spring cleaning, Salado women
frequently replastered their little houses with clay. Smoke from cooking
and heating fires blackened the wall, but you can still see here
hundreds of finger marks left as wet clay was smoothed by hand on the
wall.
[Illustration: _Finger imprints in plaster._]
30 OPEN ROOM. The Indians did not build a roof for this room, because
the cave ceiling served the same purpose. Since this large room had good
light and ventilation, and offered space protected from the fierce
summer sun, it was probably used as a community work area. Two seed
grinders, called mortars, are worn into the bench-like bedrock in the
back.
[Illustration: _A bedrock mortar in the community workroom._]
Any of the larger rooms in this village could have been used as meeting
rooms or ceremonial chambers, but after damage by early souvenir
hunters, no evidence of such use could be found during scientific
excavation of the village. Another ruin in the area had a large
rectangular room with an altar and other features indicating ceremonial
use. Pueblo Indian religion today is deeply threaded through all phases
of daily life, and these ancient Pueblos were undoubtedly equally
religious.
[Illustration: _A view of the central section of the Lower Ruin_]
PLEASE BE CAREFUL
RETURNING TO THE PARKING AREA.