• Donate
    • Donate
    • Member Circles and Benefits
    • Become a Member
    • Renew Today
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Student Membership
  • Take Action
    • Volunteer Program
    • Make Your Voice Heard
  • About
    • Land Acknowledgment
    • What We Do
    • Position Papers
    • Team & People
    • Job Openings
    • Partners & Friends
    • Annual Reports
    • Policies & Financials
  • Things to Do
    • Events
    • Archaeology Café
    • Exhibits
    • Classes
    • Field School
  • Explore
    • Free Resources
    • Introduction to Southwestern Archaeology
    • Projects
    • Protection Efforts
    • Ancient Cultures
    • Videos
    • Places to Visit
  • Store
    • Archaeology Southwest Magazine
    • All Products
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases/Announcements
    • Preservation Archaeology Today
    • Sign up for E-News
  • Donate
    • Donate
    • Member Circles and Benefits
    • Become a Member
    • Renew Today
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Student Membership
  • Take Action
    • Volunteer Program
    • Make Your Voice Heard
X
  • About
    • Land Acknowledgment
    • What We Do
    • Position Papers
    • Team & People
    • Job Openings
    • Partners & Friends
    • Annual Reports
    • Policies & Financials
  • Things to Do
    • Events
    • Archaeology Café
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Exhibits
    • Classes
    • Field School
  • Explore
    • Free Resources
    • SW Archaeology 101
    • Projects
    • Protection Efforts
    • Ancient Cultures
    • Videos
    • Places to Visit
  • Store
    • Archaeology Southwest Magazine
    • All Products
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases/Announcements
    • Preservation Archaeology Today
    • Sign up for E-News

From Above: Northern Arizona

  • Home
  • >
  • Exhibits
  • >
  • Online Exhibits
  • >
  • From Above
  • >
  • From Above: Northern Arizona

Butte with Ruins in River Canyon

Verde River Canyon, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, 1998  |  55.5 x 65.5 x 1.75  |  $2,800

An isolated butte with ruins on the summit stands in the Verde River Canyon northwest of Cottonwood in central Arizona. This view is to the west at sunrise, with the Chino Valley visible along the horizon.

Butte with Ruins in River Canyon, © Adriel Heisey
Butte with Ruins in River Canyon, © Adriel Heisey

The ancient landscape is a lesson about change, and the inevitability of change, and the humility with which we humans should undertake to do anything—especially here in the Southwest.

—Leslie Marmon Silko
Laguna tribal member and novelist

Erosion and Cornfields

Beautiful Valley, Navajo Nation, Arizona, 1993  |  55.5 x 65.5 x 1.75  |  $2,800

An isolated field, fenced to protect it from livestock grazing on the open range, lies above an eroded slope in Beautiful Valley south of Chinle, Navajo Nation, Arizona. This view is to the northeast, with Pillow Mountain on the right horizon.

Erosion and Cornfields, © Adriel Heisey
Erosion and Cornfields, © Adriel Heisey

I feel modern civilization would be so different without Native American contributions, like corn and rubber. Even if we’re not biologically connected to American Indians in the near term, western society is indebted to those people. And we can have an appreciation even if we’re not their descendants.

—Patricia Cook, archaeologist
Desert Archaeology, Inc.

 

Native American Church Meeting

Lukachukai, Navajo Nation, Arizona, 1992  |  30.5 x 39 x 0.875  |  $975

Native American Church teepee occupies a packed-earth pedestal surrounded by the parked vehicles of church members gathered inside, where smoke from a ceremonial fire has darkened the peak of the teepee.

Native American Church Meeting, © Adriel Heisey
Native American Church Meeting, © Adriel Heisey

 

Parade with Crowd

Navajo Nation Fair, Window Rock, Arizona, 1991  |  30.5 x 39 x 0.875  |  $975

The Saturday morning parade of the Navajo Nation Fair proceeds down State Highway 264 through the town of Window Rock. This aerial view is to the east from the Fairgrounds area.

Parade with Crowd, © Adriel Heisey
Parade with Crowd, © Adriel Heisey

Powwow Dancers with Audience

Navajo Nation Fair, Window Rock, Arizona, 1995  |  45 x 53.5 x 1.75  |  $1,950

Indian dancers whirl in the center of the powwow arena at the Navajo Nation Fair, the world’s largest Native American fair.

Powwow Dancers with Audience, © Adriel Heisey
Powwow Dancers with Audience, © Adriel Heisey

Pueblo Ruin on Boulder

Wukoki Pueblo, Wupatki National Monument, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1997  |  55.5 x 65.5 x 1.75  |  $2,800

Visit this Place

Wukoki is one of six prehistoric pueblos protected in northern Arizona’s Wupatki National Monument.

Pueblo Ruin on Boulder, © Adriel Heisey
Pueblo Ruin on Boulder, © Adriel Heisey

 

Pueblo Ruins on Small Mesa

Wupatki National Monument, Arizona, 1998  |  45 x 53.5 x 1.75  |  $1,950

Visit this Place

Pueblo ruins on a small mesa overlook the Little Colorado River valley in the northern reaches of Wupatki National Monument. Just north of Sunset Crater in northern Arizona, this region was inhabited between AD 1100 and 1250, probably by people displaced by the eruption of that volcano.

Pueblo Ruins on Small Mesa, © Adriel Heisey
Pueblo Ruins on Small Mesa, © Adriel Heisey

My heart said, go and see what you’ve acknowledged from your uncle. If you go and feel people have migrated, you will then know they migrated. When you are young you can be told all these things, but they have to be seen. Of course, I went with my cornmeal and prayed everywhere. I prayed for personal feelings. When all this was confirmed, I felt an eagerness to learn about Hopi culture more.

—Jim Tawyesva, Sr., Hopi elder describing the first time he sought to visit ancestral places.

 

Pueblo Villages on Narrow Mesa

Haano and Sitsom’ovi, First Mesa, Hopi Indian Reservation, Arizona, 1998  |  45 x 53.5 x 1.75  |  $1,950

These two adjacent pueblos occupy the narrow space atop First Mesa. Haano, which is in the foreground, is a Tewa village founded by refugees from Rio Grande pueblos in the late 17th century. Sitsom’ovi, which is in the background, was founded in 1750 by people from nearby Wàlpi.

Pueblo Villages on Narrow Mesa, © Adriel Heisey
Pueblo Villages on Narrow Mesa, © Adriel Heisey

The footprints reaffirm oral and material traditions. The evidence confirms affiliation with Hopi today. People today can recognize the things in the past, and it becomes an unbroken continuity…Our interpretations are based on experience, not hypotheses, like archaeologists. That’s why this continuity is so important to us…It reaffirms ties to the land—it’s one element of our identity, who we are.

—Micah Loma’omvaya, ethnobotanist and Hopi advisor

Reconstructed Ballcourt in Sage

Wupatki National Monument, Arizona, 1997  |  33.5 x 39 x 0.875  |  $975

Reconstructed prehistoric ballcourt at the Wupatki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument, Arizona. This feature is similar to others found much farther south in the Hohokam area of southern Arizona, and may have been used ritually.

Reconstructed Ballcourt in Sage, © Adriel Heisey
Reconstructed Ballcourt in Sage, © Adriel Heisey

Ring on Mesa

Chinle Valley, Navajo Nation, Arizona, 1997  |  45 x 53.5 x 1.75  |  $1,950

A circular feature sits atop an isolated mesa in the Chinle valley southwest of the community of Round Rock on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. In this steep oblique view to the west, Chinle Creek is visible along the top of the frame.

Ring on Mesa, © Adriel Heisey
Ring on Mesa, © Adriel Heisey

 

My own favorite way of experiencing cultural landscapes is to get some idea of what might be there—from maps, from reading—and then to just walk there, and walk, and walk, in ripples, trying to understand how people living there might have related to the hills, the springs, the arroyos, the amazing variety of this high desert ecology.

—Lucy R. Lippard, writer, art critic
Galisteo, New Mexico

 

Road through Sage

Ganado Mesa, Navajo Nation, Arizona  |  30.5 x 39 x 0.875  |  $975

A single-lane dirt track meanders through an unbroken sea of sage to a remote Navajo home site on Ganado Mesa, on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona.

Road through Sage, © Adriel Heisey
Road through Sage, © Adriel Heisey

 

Villages on First Mesa

Wàlpi, Sitsom’ovi, and Haano, Hopi Indian Reservation, Arizona, 1998  |  55.5 x 65.5 x 1.75  |  $2,800

Hopi villages perched on the narrow spine of First Mesa. At lower left is Wàlpi, with Sitsom’ovi and Haano at upper right center frame. View is to north toward Black Mesa.

Villages on First Mesa, © Adriel Heisey
Villages on First Mesa, © Adriel Heisey

“I’ve been waiting for you. You put your feet on this land—it’s yours.” Màasaw gave it to the people and said, “If you want to live like me, this is what I’m giving to you. I will call you Hopi.” So the people took it and he gave it to them. Before the people had nothing, they were just naked. Màasaw said, “Look up there,” and up there was a mesa. “That is where you are going,” he said.

—Elden Kuwanyama, Hopi elder, recounting the beginning of his ancestors’ ancient migrations to the Hopi Mesas.

 

Related to This

  • Location Wupatki National Monument
  • Location Tuzigoot National Monument

Videos

Ancient Images in Contemporary Hopi Art

In the Shadow of the Volcano

see more videos

Magazines

In the Shadow of the Volcano: Recent Research at S...

A Good Place to Live for More Than 12,000 Years (A...

see more magazines

Want to help us? Make a donation

or take action

Cyber SouthwestRespect Great BendHands-On ArchaeologySave History

© 2025 Archaeology Southwest

520.882.6946
Contact
  • My Store Account
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Press Room