Michael Candelaria

February 28, 2016

Archaeology 2030

The People of Sinaqua

The Montezuma Castle site was first observed by early European-Americans in 1860,
long abandon by the Sinaqua people by then. The Sinagua people came from a Pre-Columbian
culture that was closely related to the Hohokam and other indigenous native tribes of the
southwest (Wikipedia: Montezuma Castle National Monument). The Montezuma Castle
archaeological site itself was not excavated till the 1930s. Archaeologist Harold S. Colton that
was working on the Montezuma Castle site coined the term Sinaqua. The term comes from the
Spanish word Sin meaning without and Aqua meaning water. (Wikipedia: Montezuma
Castle National Monument). The site was being analyzed and investigated to learn about the
culture of an extinct civilization. For the most part they have succeeded on suggesting how/why
they built their structure in the sheer limestone cliff and the environment the Sinagua people
lived in.
Sinagua people primary existence was between 1100 and 1425 A.D. along with other
cultures that surrounded

the Verde Valley area. The

economy for the Sinaqua

people was

primarily a hunter-

gatherer foraging society. With

agriculture subsistence

being another part of the way they

lived (Jackson, Earl,

Sallie Van Valkenburgh,

Montezuma Castle

Archeology: Part I: Excavations

and Conclusion). You can see in (figure 1) that the Sinaqua people land was surrounded by other
native tribes. This supports another idea why they built their home into the sheer cliff side, for
protection of attacks by the tribes that might attack and rising flood waters from the Beaver
River.
Figure 1
When Montezuma castle was excavated back
in the 1930s most evidence was located and referenced by
hand drawing maps that were put to scale by hand
measurements Figure 2. The first part of the excavation was
done by digging two test trenches in front of the castle,
looking to locate any burial grounds or house structures
buried under the ground. Five feet below the ground there
was a clay wall part of a pit house located. In another spot
Figure 2

six inches above the floor was located a skeleton of an aged

female (Jackson, Earl, Sallie Van Valkenburgh, Montezuma Castle Archeology: Part I:
Excavations and Conclusion). With the ruin being almost nine hundred years old the preservation
of such a structure is an ongoing thing to protect this adobe building against the weather. The
drawing in figure two shows how the Sinagua people built their castle in the mountain cliffs.

Some of the evidence found at the Montezuma site have been various stone artifacts.
They have located grinding stones (Metates), bone
awls and knifes that the Sinaqua that used. Pottery
that was left behind held either water or food. There
was even evidence of the footwear the Sinaqua people
wore (Jackson, Earl, Sallie Van Valkenburgh,

Figure 3

Montezuma Castle Archeology: Part I: Excavations and Conclusion). In figure 3 they have
shown that the Sinaqua people had a
written language using petroglyphs. That could be thought of by archaeologist of a sense of the
people had a knowledge what was around them. You can see in the petroglyphs assorted animals
and it looks like people or their spirits they might have believed in. With all the evidence that
was found around the excavation the people of Sinaqua were very knowledgeable to survive in
the environment that they settled.
With all the material that has been excavated at the Montezuma Castle site you can
interpret that the Sinaqua people did not move around. That they were a stationary culture of
people and could be classified as a hunter-gatherers (Dumke, Montezuma Castle and Well).
Throughout their archaeological history you can draw a hypothesis that their culture didnt
change, leaving the archeologist a mystery of why they Sinaqua people left their castle. In the
desert that they lived was it from drought, or lack of food they might have hunted out. That is the
only hypothesis that can be considered in the element they lived in.
The dating of Montezuma Castle can only be a relative dating. The date of the site has
such a wide range of over three hundred years you can be sure of actually when the Sinaqua
people lived in the area. The first settlers in the area called it Montezuma Castle figuring that

Montezuma the emperor of the Aztec was connected to the castle. We have come to find out that
Montezuma Castle was abandon forty years before he was born. Having an exact date for the site
can only be a relative date guess.

Work Site
1) Jackson, Earl, Sallie Van Valkenburgh. Harris, and Katharine Barlett. Montezuma Castle
Archeology: Part I: Excavations and Conclusion. Globe, Az: Sothwestern Monuments
Association, 1954. Print.

2) Montezuma Castle National Monument. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 21

Feb. 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_Castle_National_Monument

3) Kimberly Dumke. Montezuma Castle and Well: Cliff dwelling was part of a successful,
safe community. National Geographic. October 30, 2010
Pictures Credit
1) http://www.verdevalleyarchaeology.org/earlyinhabitants

2) http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/moca/3-1/images/fig1.jpg