Navajo National Monument

Navajo National Monument, a complex of three prehistoric cliff dwellings near the town of Tonalea in northeastern Arizona, U.S. Located in the Navajo Reservation, the three sites—Betatakin (Navajo: “Ledge House”), Keet Seel (“Broken Pottery”), and Inscription House—are among the best-preserved and most-elaborate cliff dwellings known. The three sites, made a national monument in 1909, have a total area of 0.6 square mile (1.6 square km).

The dwellings were the principal home of the Kayenta Ancestral Pueblo, a prehistoric people who lived there from about 1250 to 1300 ce. During that period the Ancestral Pueblo, formerly hunters and gatherers, became farmers, taking advantage of the area’s perennial streams and fertile bottomland soils. Archaeologists long believed that the cliff dwellings were built to protect grain stores from scavenging rodents, but evidence found in the late 20th century led some to propose that the region was subject to intertribal warfare, raiding, and possible cannibalism during the period, suggesting the need for easily defended dwellings. By the late 13th century, however, climatic change had brought severe drought, the depletion of timber in the nearby mountains had produced heavy soil erosion, and the Ancestral Pueblo were forced to abandon the area.

Byron Cummings, an archaeologist, and John Wetherill, a local rancher and trader, explored the ruins of Keet Seel, the largest of the sites, in 1907. Two years later Cummings and Wetherill discovered the ruins of Betatakin and Inscription House. The 135 rooms of Betatakin are tucked into a cliffside alcove measuring 452 feet (138 metres) high and 370 feet (113 metres) wide. Also situated in a cliff alcove are the 160 rooms and 6 kivas (ceremonial houses) of Keet Seel. Inscription House (named by Cummings and Wetherill for graffiti they found on a wall dated to 1661) has 74 rooms and 1 kiva; it has been closed to the public since 1968. To visit the other two ruins, visitors must take guided tours led by park rangers.