TranscriptIn 1874, as pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson clambered down the boulder-strewn canyon, he knew he was descending into the past. Only 20 years had elapsed since scouts from the Mormon expedition to the region first reported ancient lost cities. Defiantly, the stone walls had withstood the onslaught of time; of untold summer storms and winter snows. An overwhelming silence enveloped the photographer. He called the place Hovenweep: "Deserted valley" in Paiute. But at one time, these canyons were alive with the sounds of village life. Most intriguing were the towers; sentinels of a culture that, in the distant past, had spread across the Four Corners region. In 1874, the canyon breezes carried with them questions that haunted William Henry Jackson and archaeologists as well. Who were these people? And how long had it been since these canyons had slipped into the silence of the centuries? 1,000 years ago, the Four Corners region of the Southwest was a heartland for the ancestors of today's Puebloan peoples. A part of the high, uplifted Colorado Plateau, this arid region is dominated by harsh desert landscapes. Islands of green in a sea of desert tan; isolated mountain ranges punctuate the horizon. As far back as 10,000 years ago, Paleo-Indian hunters and gatherers wandered through these canyons and high plateaus. Even as the lands were slowly turning to desert, they tracked the remaining giants of the ice age in between the forested highlands of the Dolores Rim to the north and desert lowlands of the San Juan River basin to the south. On the Great Sage Plain, the desert advances or retreats with rainfall. In this battle between eco-zones, the front lines have shifted upslope and downslope over time. Yet this is also the land that held the greatest value to Ancestral Puebloan farmers. Fields surrounded each village, and check dams and other drainages farther away contributed to food production. In the fields, crops of corn, squash, and beans were dependent on soil moisture trapped from the winter snows and spring showers and the monsoon rains of late summer. As in Puebloan societies today, some religious ceremonies at Hovenweep may have centered about bringing rain to this parched land. Virtually all Hovenweep villages cluster around springs and seeps at canyon heads, except Cutthroat Castle, which is located on the bend of an intermittent stream. Control of reliable springs may have meant the difference between life and death. Though towers mark spring locations, at Hovenweep and many other sites, they were probably not built for the protection of the springs. The open, rambling nature of the towers and other buildings around the springs suggests that they were not originally built as defensive structures. But all of this may have changed with time. We don't know why, but for some reason the Puebloans across the region began to leave their rural, isolated farms and join each other in ever increasing numbers. Like the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, the buildings of Hovenweep were constructed in a frenzy of building activity beginning around the year 1200. It was the start of the Puebloans’ greatest building achievements since the construction of the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon almost three centuries before. Yet, across the Southwest, this was also the beginning of a time of strife and unrest. Were the ancient Puebloans banding together for protection? Against who or what? The real enemy may have been the changing climate. With water scarce, protection of canyon head springs took on new importance. At Hovenweep, some towers have no ground floor entrance. Small peephole-like openings contribute to suspicions that some towers may have become defensive bastions, no matte what their original intent. Hovenweep National Monument includes the standing architecture of six principal villages: Cajon, Square Tower, Holly, Horseshoe, Hackberry, and Cutthroat Castle. Cajon is the most southerly site. At 5,170 feet, it has the lowest elevation, and its climate is both warmer and drier than other villages. For the Puebloan farmers, Cajon offered a significantly longer growing season than other Hovenweep villages. However, in time of drought, Cajon was also the most vulnerable village. In the late 1200s, the scattered juniper trees disappeared as the tree line retreated upslope. Yet, in spite of its location, Cajon was built around one of the largest and most reliable springs. Above the site, a check dam held runoff and enhance the spring flow. The spring seeps, deep within the pour-over ledge, were partially walled off. Cajon once sheltered 80 to 100 residents. Buildings ringed the mesa and covered the talus slopes below. Rubble now obscures most of the lower buildings, but kiva depressions remain. The broad sweep of expansive vistas from these structures includes Ship Rock in the San Juan basin to the east. To the north, Little Ruin Canyon was the site of one of the largest of the Hovenweep villages: Square Tower. Populations may have totaled 400 to 500 people, concentrated at the canyon head and just downstream at the junction of a side canyon. None of the Hovenweep villages have been thoroughly excavated. Rubble obscures large areas, and archaeologists do not have a clear picture of the layout of all buildings. A large standing structure known as Hovenweep Castle dominated the canyon head community. Yet, this is only the last visible relic of an impressive pueblo that stair stepped down the slope to the canyon bottom. Below the rim, the slender profile of Square Tower rose from the canyon bottom three stories when it was completed in the early 1200s. The tower may be purely ceremonial, marking the nearby spring that made life at the Square Tower community possible. Nearby, cliff dwellings clung to the canyon walls and ledges. Most village residents lived down canyon in the vicinity of Twin Towers. Hidden in tons of rubble, depressions of at least 30 kivas verify that this was a very densely populated part of Little Ruin Canyon. Twin Towers sit on two boulders separated from the canyon rim. They occupy virtually al of the real estate on the boulders, which also help dictate their D shapes. Early visitors were drawn to the exceptional masonry of shaped and fitted stones at Twin Towers. They were public buildings and may have been used for ceremonial purposes. Below the rim, eroded Boulder Hose evokes intrigue. Petroglyphs are incised in its natural cavity, which was enclosed in a double wall by the Puebloans. Residential areas extended from both sides of the canyon rim down towards the bottom. Because of the danger of flash floods, the streambed was left as an open area. Stronghold House was named in the early 1900s by pioneering archaeologist Dr. Jesse Fewkes because of its appearance separated by a moat-like chasm from the canyon rim. A section of Stronghold House bridged a crevice, but once the log truss rotted, the building was torn in two, with part of it tumbling into the canyon below. To the north, a similar fate struck Tilted Tower at the Holly settlement. The base of the boulder that was its foundation may have eroded and shifted in the deluge of an ancient storm, sending the entire structure tumbling into the canyon. Only foundation stones cling to the tilted surface of the boulder, not even hinting that this was once a large multi-room pueblo. The Holly site clustered around a spring at the head of Keeley Canyon, which joins Little Ruin Canyon downstream. The west side of the canyon is dominated by Holly House. Its walls are carefully crafted with pecked stones two to three layers deep. Like Square Tower, Holly Tower was a slender tower at least two stories high. Hand and toeholds chiseled into the boulder at its base led to the entranceway. Like at Square Tower, the residents of Holly were able to read their own solar calendar. Located on the wall of a deep crevice, the incised spirals still follow the arc of the Sun and accurately track the solstices. The Horseshoe Community was located in nearby Horseshoe Canyon. Walled off from the outside world and located on a high precipice the Tower Point Ruin looks as if it was constructed with defense in mind. Like other sites, buildings occupied the slopes below the tower. Yet its location and particularly the wall that separated it from the mesa bring up the possibility that this large round tower may have served as a defensive bastion. The Horseshoe Community was built around double-walled Horseshoe House. This was likely the key ceremonial and religious center for this settlement of 50 to 70 Puebloans. At the heart of Horseshoe House was a round kiva-like room built on the rimrock above the spring. The spring emerges from a shallow cave. Cliff dwellings share the cave, including a combination kiva and tower. Painted plaster walls are still intact within the kiva. Adjacent to Horseshoe, large trees hide part of the Hackberry site. Crumbling walls and mounds of rubble disguise the fact that Hackberry was once one of the largest of the Hovenweep villages, with a population of maybe 350. At least 13 kiva depressions suggest that dense residential areas above and below the rim crowded the Hackberry site. The deep cave beneath the cap rock of the mesa sheltered cliff dwellings and the source of life at the community, the spring. To the north and east, Cutthroat Castle is one of the most spectacular and unusual of the Hovenweep villages. Set amidst a juniper and pinion forest, Cutthroat received the most rainfall, but it was the only village not located at a canyon head. Also, no permanent spring is now visible. Build on an S bend in a small canyon drainage, the people of Cutthroat Castle probably dammed sections of the intermittent stream to impound water. Round and oval towers punctuate the village landscape. The heart of the village was a double-walled building now called Cutthroat Castle. Three stories high, it was built atop a large sandstone slab on the north side of the shallow streambed. It was a ceremonial building; a tower-kiva complex. A natural tunnel through a crack in the sandstone allowed access from the lowest level into the heart of the building. Cutthroat Castle was the ceremonial center for 150 to 200 villagers. The ceremonies that were once held here—the chants, the dances, the reverberating sound of the foot drum—all of this is lost with time. There is no way to recover the past and understand the entire story of life at Hovenweep. Still, the towers of Hovenweep stand, monuments to the care and skill of their builders. Of all the works of the ancestral Puebloans, these villages have survived the centuries. Hovenweep villages were built on a human scale. If anything, the structures appear to emerge from the land. Like water, the stones gracefully flow from the bedrock that supports them. They are a part of the place. The towers of Hovenweep speak to us in a language that spans the centuries.
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A brief overview of the cultural history within Hovenweep National Monument. |
Last updated: June 20, 2025