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[Chelsea] [Becky] [Katie] |
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After we left Cutthroat Castle, we finally went to Painted Hand. Painted Hand was surveyed on another field trip by CC students a few years ago. There were pictographs of hands at this site (hence the name). Some are negative handprints (paint sprayed on the rock) and some were painted hand prints…There were lots of dwellings in rock crevices, both habitation sites and storage sites. There were lots of kivas scattered throughout the area and there was a possible reservoir. The reservoir looked as though there had been three separate constructions. One was older, possibly PI because it had upright slabs, then a PII/PIII remodeling because it had McElmo-ish style architecture and maybe a later one with huge rocks which would have taken a couple of men to move. I'm not sure if the larger boulders were later than the PII/PIII remodelings, but it might have been Navajo? Anyway, it was obviously used during at least three different time periods. I'm pretty sure I'm convinced it was used to hold water because if they had had some more architecture remaining, if it had been an open plaza type thing, it would have filled with water. So that was pretty interesting. At Painted Hand there were also some cool petroglyphs of some turkey foot prints. I wonder what that was for? There were facing the inside of a rock crevice, so they weren't pointing to a specific place on the landscape. Maybe they were pointing to a place someone should sit to observe something, or maybe showing where they, or something, had come from? It would be interesting to research that specific petroglyph, it is very intriguing. There was a site a site that was
on top of the mesa that was smaller. I think it had one kiva and
a few roomblocks. Ruth suggested that it was a place for people
to stay while they farmed on the mesa top, which seems to make sense.
Also, it could have been used to watch over the crops, possibly
from people who wanted to steal the crops? |
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| [Chelsea] In the afternoon we went to Negro Canyon to look at the towers and associated architectural features that are contemporaneous to the towers at Hovenweep and Painted Hand. The towers at Negro Canyon were also situated on large boulders, seemingly in an ideal spot for defense. Also, the towers have excellent line of sight with the Chuskas and even all the way to Monument Valley. Indeed the canyon rim seems like it would have been an ideal spot to maximize intervisibility with other towers. One odd feature at Negro Canyon was the extremely large sandstone blocks used for the masonry walls. Specifically, there was one long wall of large sandstone blocks running along the edge of the canyon rim for tens of meters…As there is a rubble mound that looks like it might be a kiva that is located directly behind this wall it seems like this wall could have part of a D-shaped structure on the edge of the mesa top. This wall may have enclosed a plaza. The high location of this structure atop the canyon seems like an ideal spot for a ceremonial structure as it has great vistas and a dramatic location. [Tucker] Towers: |
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