Exploring Tuzigoot National Monument | Arizona

Tuzigoot National Monument – what a treasure. Sitting on a low hilltop west of Sedona, Arizona, this cultural site is a must-visit location in a quest to understanding prehistoric life in the Grand Canyon state.

Pin image for TimeTravelTrek post reading: Arizona Adventures Tuzigoot National Monument, TimeTravelTrek.com with 8 images of entrance sign, pottery, pueblo stone walls, a man on a bike overlooking the monument, and a dark interior picture.

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What and where is Tuzigoot National Monument?

Tuzigoot National Monument is a prehistoric site featuring an ancient pueblo constructed on a hill above the Verde River. It is located near Clarkdale, Arizona, about 23 miles (37 km) southwest of Sedona.

Although there is a lot of overlap, most archaeologists acknowledge 6 major cultures who inhabited different portions of Arizona between about 450 and 1450 CE. These include the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) in the northeast; Mogollon in the southeast; Trincheras in the south along what is now the border region between Mexico and the United States; Patayan in the west; Hohokam in the south-central part of the state; and the Sinagua in the north-central heart of Arizona – from what is now Flagstaff to just south Camp Verde.

Although the earliest people to arrive in Arizona left behind fluted spear points that date to 13,000 years ago, more permanent settlement in the Verde Valley happened about 1,500 years ago. These people were the Sinagua.

Some settled in massive cliff dwellings like Montezuma Castle. There were scores of smaller villages in the area, such as Palatki and Honanki. Others settled in larger pueblos – like Tuzigoot.

When the site was first excavated in the 1930s, the archeologists took a suggestion from a Tonto Apache member of the excavation crew for a name. Ben Lewis suggested Tú zighoot. It meant “crooked water.”

It was changed to Tuzigoot and pronounced TWO-zee-goot.

Man in dark shorts and short sleeved top walking paved path by stone walls on hill above green valley with dark mountains in background. — The lush Verde Valley helped support the hundreds of people who lived at the Tuzigoot pueblo at its peak (Photo Credit: Megan Kopp)

Visiting Tuzigoot National Monument

Camped in nearby Dead Horse Ranch State Park, we hopped on our bikes and took a trail leading down into Tavasci Marsh area. It takes a bit of route finding and you will need to walk bikes when you encounter signs saying walking only, but you can get right up to the monument entrance – a great option if you don’t feel like driving over from the campsite.

After parking our bikes outside the 1930s era stone building, we entered the museum and showed our park pass before diving into the displays. This museum is one of my favorites because so many of the unique artifacts unearthed during the first archaeological dig are on display. It provides a tangible picture of early life in the Verde Valley.

Plus, the building itself is a gem – styled with heavy stone walls, plaster and ceiling structure like that originally found in the Tuzigoot pueblo.

Interior of a museum with large dark wood beams on ceiling, white walls and glass display cases with clay pots and interpretive signage. — The interior of Tuzigoot’s museum has changed little since it was built in 1936 (Photo Credit: Megan Kopp)

Timeline for a monument

1137-1386       Occupation of Tuzigoot by the Sinagua people
1933                Two archaeologists & 50 laborers hired to begin excavation of the site
1933-34          86 rooms & 415 burial sites excavated; 6 rooms restored; trail built
1934                Artifacts put on display in an old store in Clarkdale
1934                Grace Sparkes begins lobbying for a national monument
1935                Works Progress Administration funding to build Tuzigoot museum
1935-36          Tuzigoot visitor center & museum built (keeping the artifacts in Arizona)
1937                NPS-sponsored proposal for Tuzigoot National Monument approved
1939                President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed proclamation creating the NM
1966                Tuzigoot NM Archaeological District on National Register
2010                Tuzigoot Museum building added to National Register of Historic Places

Heading outside to view the once-thriving pueblo ruins

After getting our fill of amazing artifacts – from pots to shell beads to scraps of baskets and cotton fabric – we pulled out sunglasses and headed outside to wander the paved path through the ruins.

Over nine hundred years ago, using materials at hand, stones were laid for the first room foundation. Massive double walls, space filled with rubble, tapered as they rose. Mud mortar filled outer cracks.

Most rooms had two large juniper posts in the center. These supported the cottonwood and pine roof beams. A mat of reeds, willow branches, juniper bark, and grasses, placed on rafters, finishing the ceiling, and providing insulation. The roof was sealed with mud.

Room after room, one story was added on top of another. There were few doorways. Most rooms were entered by ladders going down through roof hatches. Almost every room at Tuzigoot had a hearth, indicating a living not a storage space. Rooms for trade and politics and other cultural activities surrounded an open plaza used for daily and ceremonial activities.

Darkened interior room with stone walls and large wooden beams for support and roof structure. — The reconstructed rooms at Tuzigoot allow visitor to get a feeling for the spaces that once existed at the pueblo (Photo Credit: Megan Kopp)

Over several centuries Tuzigoot grew into a 110-room pueblo. In the 1930s, archaeologists Caywood and Spicer believed the population of Tuzigoot to be around 450 people at its peak. Today’s estimate – with better understanding of how spaces were used – is closer to 225.

Wandering the reconstructed rooms, we imagine them filled with people making pottery, weaving cotton, climbing ladders, building new rooms, knapping points, grinding corn, cooking meals, performing ceremonies, giving birth, and burying their dead.

Tuzigoot was a hive of activity for hundreds of years… and then it was silent.

Overlooking stone walls running down a hillside. — The pueblo once flowed down the hillside from the summit rooms at Tuzigoot (Photo Credit: Megan Kopp)

What happened to the Sinagua?

After several hundred years of living in the Verde Valley, people began migrating to new places. According to the Hopi, this area was never a permanent home. It was a stopping point on a migration journey.

While no one knows for sure, there are theories it could have been changing climate, food shortages, and/or increased tensions between groups that signaled the time to continue the migration. Many moved northeast to Chavez Pass and Homol’ovi, as well as villages at the Hopi Mesas.

Nearly 200 years after their departure, when the first Europeans arrived, they found the valley populated by Yavapai people living in scattered ranchertas, clusters of dwellings that were less permanent than pueblos. Tuzigoot was a pile of silent stones.

Most people travelling in the American Southwest have heard of the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture and are familiar with the more recent Hopi pueblos. The Sinagua culture is a bridge in between these two that is worth learning more about.

I hope you join us on this and other active travel journeys seeking the past!