The following information is from the Desert USA web site.
Situated in the rain shadow of Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Wupatki National Monument was once home to prehistoric Anasazi and Sinagua farmers and traders -- the Hisatsinom, as their Hopi descendants call them. Today, this 54 square miles of the Monument preserves many free-standing masonry pueblos, field houses, rock art, pottery, baskets and tools -- extraordinary evidence of a varied and complex lifestyle. Altogether, more than 2,700 archeological sites have been cataloged at Wupatki National Monument.
The Sinagua people, living in their pithouses, quickly moved out of the area as Sunset Crater began its eruptions. Once the volcano began to quiet again, the Sinagua and Kayenta Anasazi returned and built new homes and pueblos to the northeast of Sunset Crater, in the Wupatki area. The ash from the volcano may have made farming in the area slightly better, holding moisture in the soil. A slight change in climate may have made water more plentiful as well.
The Anasazi, Sinagua, and other cultures had long been trading among each other, and in coming together, these neighbors shared even more of their farming, construction and pottery making methods. The cultural mosaic in the Wupatki basin grew and flourished for well over 125 years.
By A.D. 1225, however, most of the people were gone. Was it the extensive drought that began about A.D. 1215 that drove them away? Did poor soil conservation eventually lead to loss of topsoil and worsening crop yields each year? Or perhaps social unrest of disease disbanded the many pueblos here. For whatever reason, the residents eventually abandoned their homes in the Wupatki area. More than 700 years have passed since then, and the pueblos of the Wupatki area have stood alone, empty and silent.
Since the early 1900s, archeologists have carefully mapped and studied the sites of Wupatki. By 1988, over 2,668 sites within the monument were mapped, marked and identified. The largest are open to the public along the road.
Wupatki ("wu-PAT-ki"), a Hopi word for"Tall House," is a multi-story dwelling with more than one hundred rooms. There is a short trail leading through the ruins that begins just behind the Visitor Center.
Wukoki, the "Big House," stands solitary atop a huge boulder, and may have housed three families. The Citadel ruin, left unexcavated for future archeologists, shows decorative uses of various types of rocks in the construction of the pueblo.
A short trail leads to Lomaki, the "Beautiful House" ruins. Please stay on the trails, and off the fragile ruin walls. To recieve credit for this find you must take a picture of you, your gps and the big house, and sign the log book at the visitor center.