I would LOVE to know more about the Anasazi; what I have read is beyond fascinating. I enjoy the scholarly studies, but among the “non-academic”, popular writings of that general area, Tony Hillerman’s stuff is wonderful.

My wife, my son and his wife, and I traveled to Walnut Canyon, near Flagstaff, where there are easily accessible ruins similar to the ones your post mentions. Even there, the early archaeologists routinely dismantled the dwellings, dug through the dirt floors haphazardly, and generally vandalized the site in the name of science. We’ve learned a lot since those days, but I’m still impressed that these students, apparently with little outdoor experience, would tackle that region south of the Colorado/Lake Powell area. Water is always a huge issue, and I can imagine forage for their mule was not any easier to come by.

I still owe you some stuff about the Galveston hurricane and Mormon missionaries, so it’s forthcoming. Great blog, Ardis, keep it going!

Coincidentally, there is an editorial in today’s Deseret News that speaks about modern emendations of historic and prehistoric sites.

This is a fantastic blog, I look forward to new entries.

On a previous post about David Roberts’s Smithsonian article, I suggested reading In Search of the Old Ones — that concerns some of his hikes around this part of the West, including his discovery of artifacts like pots and baskets, as perfect as when they were left behind hundreds of years earlier. A major theme of that book is the modern ethic of avoiding damage to such sites, as well as the dilemma between preserving artifacts in situ where they can tell us the most about the culture they came from, or bringing them to museums where they can be protected from vandals and private collectors.

I remember vaguely a trip to Natural Bridges about 45 years ago–what I remember best is the disappointment I felt when Dad told us to quit climbing on the ladders (the same ones that the 1907 explorers saw?).

I looked the place up on Google maps–it looks every bit the desolate wilderness that it was back then.