Frequently Asked Questions

Visitation Questions

How long does it take to see the park?

Most visitors come to visit the Tuzigoot pueblo which is viewed by a moderate 0.3 mile (0.5 km) loop trail. Hiking the Pueblo Trail takes about 30-45 minutes. The park has several other hiking trails available. Give yourself at least two hours to complete the Tavasci Marsh Trail. Check park hours before visiting. The trails and pueblo are only accessible during operating hours.

Can we go into the pueblo?

The citadel at Tuzigoot can be accessed by stairs on the Pueblo Trail where visitors can see the interior of one of the pueblo rooms that has mostly been reconstructed. From inside, visitors can climb another set of stairs and stand on the citadel roof. One of the large rooms in the building on the north side of the Pueblo Trail loop has a doorway for visitors to enter. These are the only two rooms visitors can access. Please do not climb, sit, or stand on the walls.

Why are there modern ladders, tools, and piles of dirt in some of the rooms? What are those people doing to the walls?

The National Park Service has been conducting restoration work on the pueblo since the 1990s to repair walls and replace concrete and other materials used in the reconstruction in the 1930s that cause structural damage. Cultural resources staff work with natural materials that are very similar to the materials used in the original construction 1000 years ago. This important ongoing project is mostly conducted by staff members and interns who are tribal members.

I found something that looks like an artifact, what should I do with it?

If you find something interesting on the trail, take a picture of it to share with a ranger and leave it where you found it for others to enjoy. The natural location and position of an object can tell archeologists a lot about the item like how old it is, what the object or the area might have been used for, or if there might be similar objects nearby. When an artifact is removed from where it's found, we lose all of that information. Please note it is illegal to take anything from national park sites including artifacts, bones, antlers, feathers, rocks, plants, and animals.

Where is the lake?

The lake shown on GPS and many digital maps next to Tuzigoot Road is Pecks Lake. The portion of the lake along Tuzigoot Road dried up in the mid-2000s. There is no water access in the park.

 

Archeology Questions

What does the name Tuzigoot mean and how is it pronounced?

Tuzigoot is the anglicization of an Apache phrase that's usually translated as "crooked water." In Apache, the name is Tú Digiz, and it was given to this site in 1934 by Ben Lewis, an Apache man who worked on the excavation of the pueblo. It's pronounced "TOO-see-woot."

Who lived here and who built these dwellings?

Archeologists call the people who lived at Tuzigoot, Montezuma Castle, and Montezuma Well the Sinagua. The Hopi people call them the Hisatsinom, or "ancient ones." These people were relatives of the Ancestral Puebloans. You will most often see them referred to as the Sinagua at the national park sites in the Verde Valley.

Other peoples that lived in the area at the time these dwellings were occupied were the Hohokam, Yavapai, and Apache. Many indigenous people still maintain a strong connection with this place today and the park service collaborates with several associated tribes for a variety of projects and events. The dwellings here are remembered and honored, not forgotten and abandoned. These sites remain places where people come to connect with their heritage.

Where does the name Sinagua come from?

The name "Sinagua" comes from the two Spanish words "sin" and "agua", and means "without water." This refers to the name given to the San Francisco Peaks by the Spanish in the late 1500s, the Sierra Sin Agua, or "mountains without water." The first people called the Sinagua by archeologists were those that lived and farmed in the Flagstaff area (Northern Sinagua), but when archeologists began studying the culture that lived here in the Verde Valley, they learned that the people here were also members of a very similar culture (Southern Sinagua). We do not know what these people called themselves.

How many rooms does the Tuzigoot pueblo have?

There are 87 ground level rooms at Tuzigoot, plus 23 upper-story rooms, for a total of about 110.

How many people lived at Tuzigoot?

The latest estimate is that about 225-250 people lived here at any given time.

When was Tuzigoot built?

The oldest rooms at Tuzigoot were built around 1000 CE although people lived in this area long before then.

How much of Tuzigoot is original?

When the excavation of Tuzigoot started in 1933, most of the pueblo had been reduced to rubble over the past 600 years. Without anyone to conduct repairs to the dwelling, wooden beams and roof supports had decomposed, adobe mortar cracked, and walls crumbled. While there are a handful of original walls that remain in the pueblo, such as the lower part of the eastern wall of the citadel, about 80% of the pueblo we see today was reconstructed from 1933 to 1935 using the stones found on-site.

Were there other villages like Tuzigoot in the Verde Valley?

Yes. At least 50 large pueblos have been found in the Verde Valley. There are over 400 known dwellings in the Verde Valley. Some of these dwellings include Palatki and Honanki heritage sites near Sedona. Most are not open to the public.

There were at least three other villages which were within sight of Tuzigoot.

How did they get into the rooms?

Ground floor rooms had hatchways through the roofs and were entered using ladders. The upper rooms probably had doorways through the side.

Why did these people leave?

People moved out of this pueblo in the mid-1400s, and we're not entirely sure why. There is some evidence of climate change around that time which may have impaced agriculture, and other theories that have been suggested are drought, disease, warfare, or politics. Some descendants of the Sinagua say that it was just time to move on to a new home.

Where did they go?

There is evidence to indicate that many of them migrated to the northeast to join the Hopi, while others moved to the south and integrated into other settlements there.