Sunday, 28 April 2013
Indian Ruins - Canyon de Chelley
The nature of the geology of the sandstone canyon walls provides many recesses above the canyon floor where lodging can be established. The basic construction was explained as stone blocks held together with some type of mud mortar. The stones were tooled to some extent to aid in orderly wall building. Some buildings, but not where we were, were built to five levels. This settlement is different from the others we saw as ruins are both on the wall and floor of the canyon. New fencing in front of the ruins was introduced last year. The fence is so tall that it is very difficult to set-up a tripod and not have the fence in the shot. Another site in the canyon could not be photographed because of the height of the new fence.
Pictographs range from ancient to relatively modern.
A tree with leaves budding out. I believe this is a Cottonwood tree. Apparently it and Russian Olive trees were introduced in the 1930s when the rivers through the canyon were dammed to create reservoirs for flow control. The Russian Olive is considered a weed and is being removed from the canyons. They a cut in the summer and burned in the winter. Oscar our guide remembered when there were no trees and the canyon floor was sand.
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