AmericaQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect. For four weeks a team of scientists and explorers will work to unravel the mysteries surrounding an ancient Pueblo indian tribe. Follow along here for daily reports on the Quest.

A platform in the sky

The moon rises over a dried Juniper tree

By Dan Buettner

March 20, 2000
Web posted at: 3:35 p.m. EST (2035 GMT)

It's 12:20 a.m. and I'm beat tired and freezing cold, warming up around a flickering campfire. My teammates are all asleep. Above, a nearly full moon floods the canyon floor with a ghostly, blue light. It illuminates the stream that burbles past our tents and the two canyon walls that tower above.

A few minutes ago, David and I returned from a magical hike to Scaffold House ruins, about a mile and half up a side canyon from here. Working by the light of the moon, we spent four hours exploring and photographing the ruins. It was like taking a trip to the 12th century.

Two weeks ago, returning from Keet Seel, our Navajo guide told us about an amazing ruin up another canyon, but we didn't have time to look for it. This morning we set out to find it. There were no guarantees, but if we were successful, we'd be one of only a handful of people who've seen the ruin in the past 800 years. Moreover, I believed we'd find more evidence of warfare, my favored theory for explaining the collapse. (John and Christina disagree with me.)

Last week, I amassed some strong clues suggesting that the Anasazi suffered a great war just before they left their homes at the end of the 12th century. At Castle Rock, we explored a site that held the remains of what appeared to be people who had been murdered. We also saw rock art that looked like people shooting arrows at each other. In Chaco Canyon, archaeologist Tom Windes told us about the elite burials of bejeweled giants with their heads caved in.

I must admit, however, that Christina found out that the late builders at Chaco used flimsier wood, suggesting that the good trees were cut down. The dams there led us to reason that Anasazi were channeling water because of a drought. These were all strong clues to support her theory that environmental degradation was the collapse culprit.

To reach Scaffold House we needed a special permit from the Navajo Nation. With permit in hand, the team descended the mesa near Navajo National Monument early this morning and began splashing our way down an ice-cold creek. After three hard hours of hiking, John climbed a steep embankment and yelled, "I see it!"

Scaffold House ruins sits in a massive but shallow cave at the end of a side canyon facing west. Its location is important. First, its westward orientation gets the sun's warming rays almost all day during the cold winter months. Second, I believe it was built so that no one could enter the canyon without being seen by the people living in Scaffold House.

We scrambled over boulders, through thick brush and up waterfalls for another hour until we reached the site. I felt a rush of excitement as we approached the first of its 56 rooms. Inside, you could still see corncobs, pottery shards, storage bins, and wooden construction beams. On one wall the ancients left two delicate handprints. I lightly touched my own hand to the handprint. To think that another human being had touched this same spot a thousand years ago made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I felt a strange connection to the Anasazi, a powerful, dare I say spiritual, link to the past.

Dan Beuttner looks out over Scaffold House

We moved on to the Scaffold itself. It's built into a long, vertical crack in the cliff, up about 50 feet from the dwelling below. The platform is made of logs and sticks and is covered with an adobe floor -- all planted into the sides of the crack. It is far and away the most daring piece of aerial construction in the Southwest. What's more, it's perfectly preserved. The beams are a deep brown color and the adobe floor is as smooth as it was when its builder layed it down, right about the time Marco Polo was taking off for China.

Why build such a scaffold? Since it was completely open and accessible to rodents, it probably wasn't used for storage. It would have been too long and dangerous a climb for it to have some daily use, such as sleeping.

In my mind, only one option remained. It was a lookout platform for defensive purposes.

Pedals Up!

Dan

AmericaQuest
Classroom Connect