Besides the Verde Canyon Railroad and some wineries, Arizona’s Verde Valley has two well-known National Monuments – Tuzigoot and Montezuma Castle We were able to visit both from our apartment in Sedona. Tuzigoot National Monument Overlooking the fertile Valley, it contains the remains of the best preserved early pueblo (village) built and inhabited by Sinagua (“waterless”) Indians. It had 110 rooms on three levels, and its summit was 120 ft (36m) above the Verde River flood plain. The Sinagua were farmers with trade connections spanning hundreds of miles, who built several such settlements, starting around 1000 A.D. Built up progressively over a 400-year period, Tuzigoot became quite large by the late 1300s. The inhabitants left the area around 1400, but nobody knows why it was abandoned, like other Sinagua settlements in the Southwest. Today it is
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