Desert People Without Water

I recently visited the ruins at Honanki and Palatki.  These are prehistoric settlements built into the red rock cliffs near Sedona, AZ.  Today, the people who built these dwellings are called "Sinagua", which comes from Spanish for "without water".  But everyone needs water, right?  I wondered where these people got drinking water.

I looked for springs around Honanki and Palatki and didn't find any.  That's weird!

Zoom in to see locations of Honanki (H) and Palatki (P) in relation to USGS-mapped springs (blue) and NAU-mapped springs (green).

Although springs have dried up in recent times, the USGS spring data was mapped in the late 1800s / early 1900s when many more springs were flowing.  It looks like the geology of the Sedona Red Rock cliffs just don't produce springs.  So even if the location of springs was different 800 years ago, it would be surprising if there were springs in the cliffs where these people lived.

The closest mapped spring (blue dot = unconfirmed water source) is 1.5 and 2.7 miles away, respectively, but there is no evidence of water in the aerial imagery.  The next closest (green dot = confirmed water source) is 4.7 and 3 miles away, respectively.   Neither Palatki nor Honanki is even built in one of the larger drainages that might flow more often/longer; the drainages that feed their valleys are quite short.  

I don't think these settlements had access to aboveground water throughout the year unless they dug wells or used cisterns to store water.

These and other prehistoric communities in the desert Southwest often built cliff dwellings high above canyon floors, far from surface water sources.  Archaeologists believe these people collected runoff during rainstorms using check dams and seeps, and stored water in cisterns or ceramic containers for later use.

Across the prehistoric Southwest, populations used ingenious methods to exploit scarce water:

• Rock overhangs and cisterns captured and stored rainwater.
• Seasonal mobility allowed families to occupy dry sites part of the year.
• Terraced fields, check dams, and soil-retention walls conserved moisture for crops.
• Small permanent settlements clustered near ephemeral water sources, such as seeps and seasonal pools.

In conclusion, while many large settlements in the prehistoric Southwest were built near springs or rivers, groups like the Anasazi, Sinagua, and others developed highly effective ways to survive in water-scarce environments through dry-land agriculture, runoff collection, and strategic mobility.

Tres Aliances Axle Canyon Restoration

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

They may look like a booby-trap... but those are "vanes", a standard restoration technique by the "induced meandering" school of restorationists. Some restorationists hold to the line that we should just "plant the heck out of denuded riparian areas" and let the stream do as it will, whereas the induced meandering school tries to engineer a solution that takes into account and is inspired by natural processes, and then let natural recruitment restore riparian vegetation. Both schools have something to offer, and both have their drawbacks.

Details:
Yes, the vanes are built in the stream bed. The pits were dug with a backhoe and the juniper posts are a by-product of local thinning work. The line of posts are positioned at a 20 degree angle from the banks, jutting upstream. Previous projects have placed them at a 30 degree angle from the bank (ie jutting further out) and positioned further apart, with sometimes disastrous results. The inspiration for the sometimes counter-intuitional placing is that natural downed logs or rock slides tend to persist when they are at that angle, because they can withstand the impact of water flow, while still slowing it and protecting the banks. As water slows down, it deposits sediment, creating natural sand bars. Eventually the posts will disappear and disintegrate, having done their job. The danger is that the water can cut behind the vanes, as happened last summer on our Santa Fe river project. The problem with simply armoring the banks is that boulders or poles can set up "secondary cell vortexes" in the water's flow which can cause the stream to erode its banks.

From Axel Canyon

You can see more photos of Axle Canyon here: http://picasaweb.google.com/conorpro/AxleCanyon#

Goat Springs: Dry

Browsed mormon tea (ephedra sp) and yucca... we followed cattle and game trails (deer, elk, cow, rabbit feces) through the sandy soils, along washes in the hills, clambered over the spine, up many false leads, looking for the springs.

Bug skewered on cholla. There is one species of cholla, one of prickly pear, and one Echinocereus present in the uplands.
The yucca in this area is heavily browsed. I initially suspected overgrazing pressure from cows or game, but later found yucca leaves in a packrat midden. As Alexandra says, "there are rodents, everywhere." Yucca grows thickly in other nearby pastures, possibly as a result of previous grazing management, because in still other pastures there is thick cholla, or thick juniper.


The grama grass grows in "islands" rather than "networks" over much of this range. There are deep furrows/headcuts leading up from the washes, indicating extensive erosion. While Goat Springs is in a natural hard-rock canyon, there are numerous abnormal, unnatural looking trench arroyos in the area. Rocky soils dominate in the uplands, while a large amount of eolian deposits have accumulated at the base of these hills.



As we approached the true springs we knew we were on the right track, first by the abundant PVC detritus, then by a few dying cottonwood, then a thicket, and, finally, a fenced-off area. The "springs" were marked by extensive rock work, both loose and concreted. The PVC piping led to a stock tank. The "springs" themselves were ineffectually fenced. The only interesting species was some Setaria, probably leucopila, growing in the rocks.

While exploring the headwaters above Goat Springs, we discovered an ancient, destroyed, forest. There is nothing like these trees, which may have been old-growth Pinon or Ponderosa, in the area. Above the springs the shrubs are Mountain Mahogony, whereas below the springs the shrubs are all Apache Plume.