www.ArizonaRuins.com

Ancient Ruins of the Agua Fria National Monument

The Agua Fria National Monument is located about forty miles north of Phoenix, along the east side of Interstate 17. Created by proclamation of President Bill Clinton on January 11, 2000, the Monument contains 71,100 acres (111 square miles) and more than 450 archeological sites, most of which are located along the perimeters of Black Mesa and Perry Mesa. Black Mesa is visible from the Sunset Point rest stop along I-17, and the best access is from the Bloody Basin Road exit, where you will find an unmanned information kiosk with maps and information. The Monument is currently managed by the Arizona Bureau of Land Management (BLM), although in my many trips I have only come across Bureau personnel once. Click here for a map of the Agua Fria National Monument.

The BLM finds itself in a dilemma concerning management of the Monument. With no personnel to monitor the area, revealing the locations of individual ruins exposes them to looting and vandalism. For the time being they have compromised by making one particular site--Pueblo La Plata--the sacrificial lamb, publishing its location on their maps and maintaining (sort of—you’ll need a high-clearance vehicle) an access road. You’re on your own for the other sites. The BLM’s Agua Fria web site is at http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/blm_special_areas/natmon/afria.html.

The ruins here are not the awe-inspiring, well-preserved cliff dwellings found further north. These are laid out on flat, exposed ground, using a construction technique known as “massed room block”. In essence, the structures originally consisted of field-stone walls stabilized with mud mortar, and roofed over with timbers, sticks, mud and grasses. (“Field-stone” means the rocks have not been shaped or worked before employing them in the structure.) Presumably the mud-mortared walls were originally protected from rain by the overhang of the roof. The roofs have long since disappeared, however, and time, rain, and modern-day looters have reduced most of the walls to piles of rubble. They are still quite impressive: some of the sites contain over one hundred rooms, and are surrounded by a multicolored carpet of broken pot sherds. Evidence of extensive agriculture, including terraces and berms for controlling rain runoff for crop irrigation, have also recently been discovered over large areas of both mesas, although these are generally only visible from the air and under specific lighting conditions.

Major Ruins

The following is a list of some of the major ruin complexes in the Monument. The names, of course, were coined by modern-day archeologists: we have no idea what the original inhabitants called them.

MAJOR SITES/COMPLEXES - AGUA FRIA NATIONAL MONUMENT
PERRY MESA
Pueblo La Plata 120-160 rooms
Baby Canyon Group 100 rooms
Pueblo Pato/Perry Tank Group 300 rooms
Lousy Canyon Group 68-80 rooms
Hackberry Wash/Rosalie Mine 130 rooms
Brooklyn Group 300 rooms
Squaw Creek Group 150-200 rooms
BLACK MESA
Badger Spring Ruin 30-50 rooms
Richinbar Mine Ruin 30-50 rooms
Black Canyon Fort 12 rooms

Pueble La Plata

Pueblo La Plata is the one site in the Agua Fria National Monument the location of which is published by the BLM. To get there, take the Bloody Basin Road exit from I-17, and head east. The blacktop will change almost immediately to a well-maintained dirt road, where you will find a sign marking the entrance to the Monument and a kiosk with a map. A high-clearance vehicle is recommended, but if it hasn't rained recently almost any vehicle will do.

Measuring from the kiosk, go east on Bloody Basin Road. It will run parallel to the highway for a while, wind down into a valley, cross a ford at the Agua Fria River at the 4.9 mile mark, and climb back up on top of Perry Mesa. At the 8.9 mile mark, turn left onto an unmarked (and much more poorly maintained) dirt road. For this you will definitely need a high clearance vehicle. This road is a little more than a mile long, passes to the right of some large piles of dirt that were bulldozed up during the excavation of a stock pond, and ends at a parking area near a sign marking the trail to Pueblo La Plata (see Photo 1). The walk from there to the ruin is a few hundred yards.

Photo 1
Sign marking the trail head to Pueblo La Plata. The ruin is the mound, barely visible in the middle of the photo.(2007)
Photo 2
Low altitude shot looking northeast. (2007)
Photo 3
Low altitude shot looking southwest. (2007)

Pueblo La Plata: Click on a thumbnail for larger pictures.

The site itself is difficult to photograph. The walls are reduced to only a few feet of height in most places, and brush and grass has collected inside the ruins, restricting visibility. (The brush grows preferentially inside the ruins because the walls give them some protection from high winds and, more importantly, from grazing cattle. Thus, spotting little islands of brush from a distance can be a good clue to the presence of ruins.) In any case, although you can get a good sense of the size and complexity of the site as you walk around it, it is difficult to capture the same feeling in a ground-level photograph. I have therefore developed what I call my “balloon cam” which allows me to take aerial photographs, at least on calm days.

Photos 2 and 3 are low-altitude shots of Pueblo La Plata. You can see my car (barely) in the distance in the center of the Photo 2, which is as close as a vehicle can get. Photo 3 is looking towards the southwest, out along a peninsula that is bordered on the right (north) by Silver Creek and on the left (south) by an unnamed wash. If you walk out in that direction, about halfway to the tip you will find a large man-made rock wall (not visible in the picture) that spans the width of the peninsula, dividing it off from the rest of the mesa. Its purpose is unknown, at least to me.

Photo 4
Wall construction using field stones and mud mortar. (2007)
Photo 5
Wall joints indicate that sections were added at different times. (2007)
Photo 6
Different materials indicate different periods of construction. (2007)
Photo 7
Multicolored pot sherds litter the ground. (2007)

Pueblo La Plata: Click on a thumbnail for larger pictures.

Photo 4 shows a close-up of the construction technique used in the walls. Note that the stones are used as they are found (field-stones) with no attempt to modify them to fit, except perhaps for breaking exceptionally large pieces into more manageable sizes or smoothing off inconvenient nubs. Note also the strawless mud mortar used to stabilize the walls, and the extent to which is has decayed over time. In cliff dwellings, which are protected from rain, it is common to see such walls covered over in a plaster of mud half an inch to an inch thick. If that technique was used here, the covering has long since been washed away.

One of the ways archeologists can tell that a structure was built over time rather than all at once is through features like the one shown in Photo 5. The vertical joint between wall sections (near the right) clearly indicates that this was once an outside wall, with a new section subsequently added on. Another indication that a structure was built in stages is a sharp difference in construction techniques or materials. The wall section on the left of Photo 6 is constructed predominantly of sedimentary rocks, while the section on the right uses a form of basalt.

Photo 7 shows a fairly typical section of ground around the ruin. The larger pot sherds shown here are one to two inches in length. The presence of pot sherds, especially along the banks of a stream or river, is another good indication that a ruin is nearby.

Baby Canyon Group

The Baby Canyon ruin is my favorite in the Agua Fria National Monument. Located on top of a hill that rises up out of a deep and rugged canyon, it has sweeping, dramatic views in three directions. It is also fairly hard to get to, requiring a hike across aforesaid canyon, and so is better preserved than Pueblo La Plata.

Photo 1
Baby Canyon hilltop ruin: Looking north. (2007)
Photo 2
Approach to the ruin. The other three sides drop steeply into the canyon. (2007)
Photo 3
View from inside the ruin. (2007)
Photo 4
High-altitude Balloon-Cam shot. (2007)
Photo 5
Medium altitude Balloon-Cam shot. (2007)

Baby Canyon Ruin: Click on a thumbnail for larger pictures.

Photo 1 shows the ruin from the south canyon wall. The natural stone used in the construction and the brush that has grown up over the site make the ruin difficult to spot from a distance. Photo 2 shows the saddle that connects the hill to the south rim of the canyon. The other three sides comprise almost vertical cliffs, plunging a hundred feet or more into the canyon below. Photo 3 shows the view from inside the ruin, looking down the canyon.

As with virtually all sites in the Agua Fria National Monument, the Baby Canyon ruin is very difficult to photograph. Photos 4 and 5 are aerial shots, taken from my Balloon Cam, that give a sense of the scale of the ruin. The white line in the photos is the kite string that tethers the balloon. The tiny blue-clad figure on the ground is Yours Truly. These photos have to be taken very early in the morning, to avoid the strong winds that are almost always present on Perry Mesa during the day.

Photo 6
Broken matate, surrounded by pot sherds. (2007)
Photo 7
Mano and metate. (2007)
Photo 8
A typical section of ground, covered in broken pottery. (2007)
Photo 9
Section of wall showing remnants of mud mortar. (2007)

Baby Canyon Ruin: Click on a thumbnail for larger pictures.

Photos 6 thru 8 show some of the artifacts found in the ruin. The metate in Photo 6 was almost certainly used to grind maize (corn), nuts and seeds for food. The air pockets in the basalt from which it is made act like perpetually sharp sandpaper, which aids in the grinding. The metate in Photo 7 may also have been used for food. However, part of the process of making pottery involves grinding the clay, so it is possible that this one had dual purposes.

Photo 8 shows the carpet of pot sherds that cover the site (compass included for scale). One of the better-preserved interior walls is shown in Photo 9, with mud mortar still visible between the stones.

Pueblo Pato

Pueblo Pato (also known as the Perry Tank Group) is not particularly interesting to anyone but an archeologist. Almost as hard to get to as the Baby Canyon ruin, it is spread out in several small clusters, all of which are overgrown with brush and cactus. This makes them difficult to find, much less photograph. Cumulatively, however, this is one of the biggest ruins in the Monument, so it may be worth the hike for anyone up to a challenge.

Photo 1
Typical brush-covered section of Pueblo Pato. (2007)
Photo 2
One of the few rooms not covered in brush. (2007)
Photo 3
Typical wall section. (2007)
Photo 4
Flakes of obsidian, left over from making arrowheads and scrapers. (2007)
Photo 5
Petroglyph found near the ruin. (2007)

Pueblo Pato: Click on a thumbnail for larger pictures.

Photo's 1 and 2 show some typical rooms in the ruin. As is frequently the case, the brush and cacti grow higher and thicker inside the ruin than on the rest of the mesa. Photo 3 shows a typical wall section. The air pocket-filled basalt stones used in the wall are common in the area, since the caprock of the entire mesa consists of basalt from the Joe's Hill volcano, only a few miles away. This kind of stone is also frequently used to make metates (grinding bowls).

Photo 4 shows pieces of obsidian that were flaked off during the fabrication of cutting tools such as arrowheads and scrapers. Obsidian is a volcanic glass, but it is not found anywhere near Perry Mesa.

Pueblo Pato was supposedly named for the petroglyph of a duck located near the ruin, but I have never been able to find it. Photo 5 shows a petroglyph I did find close by. It's definitely not a duck, but I don't know what it is: I am not aware of any indigenous animals that have both horns and a dog-like tail. Suggestions appreciated.

UPDATE - Aug, 2008: The Duck petroglyph really does exist! According to some sources, this is the only such petroglyph in the American Southwest. Many thanks to reader Kevin Artz for sending in this picture.

Petroglyphs

In addition to the ruins, there are thousands of petroglyphs in the Agua Fria National Monument. Click on this thumbnail for more images and descriptions.

Return to Arizona Ruins HOME