After leaving Honanki we stopped at a couple of pull outs to explore the area a half hour or so, I found a couple of hikes it might be interesting to take in the future. Then on to Palatki to check out the Grotto pictographs. The last time (2017-04-24) we took the tour of the ruins so decided to just go up to the pictographs on this visit. Unfortunately there was not a tour for the Bear Cave or Agave Roasting Pits on this day so will have to phone in the future to find out when there may be one.
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The construction of Palatki is believed to have begun in AD 1100 and occupied by the Sinagua until AD 1275. With a possible total of 16 rooms between the two dwellings it is believed (3 to 5 people for each room) there was a potential population of between 40 and 80 people living in this ‘village’. The rooms were probably used for sleeping with daily activity taking place outside or on the roof tops.
West Alcove – the 5 to 7 room dwelling has deteriorated to a point it can no longer be visited. Excavators believe that it included a square kiva or ceremonial room.
East Alcove had 5 lower rooms with a granary or storage room at the east end of of the complex. The archaeologists know there was a second story on three of the rooms but have no evidence to confirm that rooms 4 and 5 had an upper story.
The pictographs in the Grotto site are from the:
Paleo period (11,100 to 9,000 BC) and Archaic (9,000 BC to AD 600) – rakes, squiggles, patterns of dots, also found are fine scratched lines that are beneath the paint of the Archaic and Sinagua pictographs.
Sinagua (AD600 to 1300) – animal and human forms in white, red or yellow.
Many of the pictographs have been superimposed by an image from a later culture.
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