Wupatki Ruins - Wupatki National Monument, Flagstaff, AZ - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

The most striking feature of the Wupatki Ruins (Hopi, big house), 15 m., is the manner in which the builders have utilized the natural walls of red sandstone, constructing above and around them, so that the buildings seem to grow right out of the earth. Occupied in the third or Great Pueblo Period, it contains many details characteristic of that culture in this area - the rectangular kiva at the southeast corner, the small ventilator in the outside wall of the first row of rooms, and the T-shaped doors. The most puzzling structure is the large circular pit, with high masonry walls and a bench of the same material running completely around. The entrance is on the northeast side. This at first led to the supposition that it was a kiva of the round type found in Chaco, New Mexico, but there are no other kiva features. Furthermore Wupatki has another kiva of the square type. From tree rings it is apparent that the site was occupied at the end of the eleventh century A.D., was rapidly expanded during the twelfth century, and declined by the beginning of the thirteenth. The ruins are strategically situated with a broad view of the Painted Desert.

The Wupatki National Monument was created in 1924, to include not only this site but also many others in the eight-hundred-acre tract. In 1937, the area of the monument was increased by more than thirty thousand acres that contain many more unexcavated ruins.