Navajo National Monument facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Navajo National Monument
IUCN Category III (Natural Monument)
Keet Seel cliff dwellings
Navajo National Monument Location in Arizona Show map of Arizona Navajo National Monument Location in the United States Show map of the United States
Location	Navajo and Coconino counties, Arizona, USA
Nearest city	Kayenta, Arizona
Area	360 acres (150 ha)
Created	March 20, 1909
Visitors	61,195 (in 2018)
Governing body	National Park Service
Website	Navajo National Monument
Navajo National Monument
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
NRHP reference No.	66000176
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

The Navajo National Monument is a special place in northern Arizona, USA. It's part of the Navajo Nation territory. This monument was created to protect three amazing cliff dwellings built by the Ancestral Puebloan people long ago. These dwellings are called Keet Seel, Betatakin, and Inscription House.

The monument is located high on the Shonto plateau. It looks out over the beautiful Tsegi Canyon system. You can find it west of Kayenta, Arizona. When you visit, there's a visitor center with a museum. There are also three short trails you can explore on your own. You can even find two small campgrounds and a picnic area.

One popular trail is the Sandal Trail. It's about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) long, roundtrip, and easy to walk. This trail leads to a viewpoint where you can see the Betatakin ruins. They are across the deep Betatakin Canyon, about 560 feet (170 meters) away. This viewpoint is the only place to see the cliff dwelling unless you join a guided tour.

Park rangers lead free tours to the Betatakin cliff dwellings. These tours usually last 3 to 5 hours. For a bigger adventure, you can take a 17-mile (27 km) roundtrip hike to Keet Seel. The Inscription House site is further west and has been closed to visitors for many years.

Navajo National Monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. This means it's a very important historical site.

Betatakin in a huge alcove, seen from an overlook

Exploring Keet Seel

Map of Navajo National Monument

Keet Seel (also spelled Kiet Siel) means "broken pottery scattered around" in the Navajo language. It's a very well-preserved cliff dwelling. It was built by the ancient Ancestral Pueblo people. You can find it in a part of the Tsegi Canyon near Kayenta.

People first started living at Keet Seel around the year 1250. Many people were moving to large sites like this in the American Southwest at that time. There was a lot of building at Keet Seel between 1272 and 1275. After that, building slowed down and stopped completely by 1286. No new structures were built for about 20 years before the site was left empty.

At its busiest, about 150 people might have lived here. The climate is very dry, and the overhanging cliff protects the site. This helped keep the buildings and artifacts in great condition. Many experts believe Keet Seel is one of the best-preserved large ancient ruins in the American Southwest.

Discovering Betatakin

Betatakin means "House Built on a Ledge" in Navajo. The Hopi people call it Talastima, which means "Place of the Corn Tassel." Betatakin is smaller than Keet Seel. It had about 120 rooms when people left it. Like Keet Seel, Betatakin was made from sandstone, mud, and wood. Today, only about 80 rooms remain because some rocks have fallen inside the alcove.

Betatakin has only one kiva, which is a special round room used for ceremonies. Keet Seel has several kivas. Betatakin was built inside a giant alcove, a large curved space in the cliff. This alcove is about 452 feet (138 meters) high and 370 feet (113 meters) wide. The building happened between 1267 and 1286.

The first archaeological digs happened in 1909. Byron Cummings from the University of Utah led these early efforts. More work was done in the 1950s and 1960s. At its busiest, experts think about 125 people lived at Betatakin.

View of cliff dwellings from an overlook at Navajo National Monument

How the Sites Were Found

Kit-Siel ruins (circa 1871 to circa 1907)

Local Navajo people knew about the Keet Seel site for many years. The first Europeans arrived in 1895. These were the Wetherill brothers, who were ranchers from Colorado. They were very interested in the Ancestral Puebloans. They went on many trips into the Kayenta region. They found many sites that had not been known to non-Native people before.

The Wetherills took many artifacts from the ruins. The Navajos had left these items untouched for centuries. Richard Wetherill is known for using the term "Anasazi." This word refers to the ancient people who lived in this area. In Navajo, it means "Ancient Enemy Ancestors." Today, we often use the term "Ancestral Puebloans" instead.

It wasn't until 1909 that Betatakin was officially recorded. This happened after Navajo National Monument was created. John Wetherill, Byron Cummings, and Navajo guide Clatsozen Benully were the first to record it.

The Wetherill brothers made money by giving tours of sites in the Tsegi Canyon area. Later, they worked to help protect these important sites. The artifacts they took from the Ancestral Pueblo sites were sold or sent to faraway places. Because of this, we don't know where many of them are today.

What People Ate

Approach ladders at Keet Seel ruins, 2012

The Ancestral Pueblo people in this area were farmers. They mostly grew crops for their food. Their main crop at Navajo National Monument was maize (corn). They also grew beans and cucurbits (like squash and pumpkins). While farming was very important, they also hunted wild animals found in the area.

It's believed that these people lived in the cave dwellings for a good reason. By living in the caves, they could use the flat land on the mesas and canyon floors for farming. This helped them grow enough food in this high, desert environment. The ruins at Navajo National Monument have many rooms that were used for storage. This suggests they grew enough crops to store a lot of food.

How They Built Their Homes

Cliff Dwelling of Keet Seel, Navajo Reservation, Kayenta, Navajo County, AZ (1933)

The buildings inside these cave sites were mostly made of sandstone blocks. These blocks were held together with mud and mortar. Before this, people often built villages on top of mesas. But in the mid to late 1200s, many people started moving into these protected cliff dwellings. This allowed larger groups of people to live close together in easily defended spots.

Many of the buildings here are similar to other Ancestral Pueblo styles. They include features like Kivas (round ceremonial rooms) and pit-houses. Keet Seel even has a circular tower. However, the limited space in the caves meant that homes were built very close together. At its busiest, Keet Seel had over 150 rooms and 6 kivas. Betatakin had about 120 rooms and one kiva.

They also used jacal walls. These walls were made from upright wooden poles covered with mud. The dry conditions and protection from the cliff at Keet Seel helped preserve these building styles.

Some structures were likely built at the base of the cliff too. But these areas were not protected by the overhanging cliff. So, they were destroyed by weather and erosion over time. At Keet Seel, archaeologists found evidence of 25 groups of rooms below the cliff. Each group had a living room and one to four storage rooms around a small courtyard. This layout was similar to buildings from the Pueblo III Era at Mesa Verde. Betatakin had about 20 such room groups.

Why They Left

Betatakin ruins in Betatakin Canyon.

Many archaeologists agree that people left this region of the Southwest quite suddenly. But they debate why. Experts have found that there was much less rain between 1276 and 1299 AD. This time is known as the "Great Drought." Less rainfall in an already dry area would have made it very hard to grow crops.

Later evidence suggests that deep arroyos (gullies) started to form. This would have damaged the remaining farmland. More sediment was deposited on the fields, and the water table dropped. This made the land unsuitable for farming.

No matter the exact reason, it's clear that the Ancestral Pueblo people moved away. Near the end of the 13th century, they went to places with more stable water sources. This suggests the land here could no longer support the large number of people who once lived in these amazing cliff sites.

Hopi legends tell a different story. Their oral traditions say that the area (now Tsegi Canyon) was left for spiritual reasons. The Snake Clan and the Horn Clan lived in the Navajo National Monument ruins. The Horn Clan forced the Snake Clan out. This was because the Snake Clan children were said to be biting other children and causing death. This story might be a way to explain a historical event where one group made another leave.

How the Monument Was Created

President William Taft first made this area a national monument in 1909. In 1912, he made the monument smaller. It became three specific areas of land:

• A 160-acre (65 ha) area around Betatakin.
• A 160-acre (65 ha) area around Keet Seel.
• A 40-acre (16 ha) area around Inscription House.

Weather at the Monument

Navajo National Monument has a cold semi-arid climate. This means it has cold winters and hot summers.

Images for kids

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  Keet Seel cliff dwellings

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  Betatakin in huge alcove, from overlook

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  Map of Navajo National Monument

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  view of cliff dwellings from overlook at Navajo National Monument

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  Kit-Siel ruins - NARA - (circa 1871 to circa 1907)

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  Approach ladders, Keet Seel ruins, 2012

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  Cliff Dwelling of Keet Seel, Navajo Reservation, Kayenta, Navajo County, AZ (1933)

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  Betatakin ruins in Betatakin Canyon.

See also

In Spanish: Monumento Nacional Navajo para niños