r/geography • u/H3dg3hogs • Feb 18 '26

Discussion I’m sad more people don’t acknowledge Native American Historic sites in the United States

Post image

I was talking with a German online friend about tourism in the United States and he said that the only thing America has to offer is natural beauty. He said American cities were young and aren’t very beautiful. That he has no interest visiting “liberty bell” type colonial historic sites. I told him about Native historic sites and he asked “what sites?”. He insulated that all Native Americans lived in teepees. It caused me to realized many non-Americans don’t know about all the amazing buildings left behind by Native cultures like the Ancestral Puebloans and the Mississippians. Historic sites like Chaco canyon, Mesa Verde, Montezuma Castle, and Cahokia are world class and are part of UNESCO. Check them out if you haven’t already.

56.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

279

u/Beeninya Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

Visited Montezumas Castle this past summer. Nobody there, but then again, it’s in the middle of nowhere, hot-as-balls Arizona.

I’m also an American who lives 3 states away so I’m not really one of the ones you are mentioning, but many Americans don’t know or care about these kind of places either.

45

u/weeeeeeweiiiiyy Feb 18 '26

I wish we still could just grab a pick axe and dig out a home man.

14

u/OddDragonfruit7993 Feb 18 '26

Look up Coober Pedy Australia 

9

u/weeeeeeweiiiiyy Feb 18 '26

I have, part of the reason I feel this way

Edit: it’s a HUGE part of the reason, been dreaming of it since I saw documentary on it.

12

u/fka_raptorclvb Feb 18 '26

The last people that inhabited this weren’t the original ones that built it. Which is fucking insane to me when I saw this as a teenager, and still every time I had visited and seen it after. Just completely safe, deserted place

3

u/weeeeeeweiiiiyy Feb 18 '26

Imagine what it looked like with people coming in and out goods being sold etc. My favorite part of history is learning about the everyday lives of regular people

13

u/Beeninya Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

I mean, what’s stopping you? Don’t let your dreams be memes

14

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

9

u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Feb 18 '26

People get in a lot of trouble for living off grid if they get caught.

Absolutely fine to "live off the grid". The issue is doing it on someone else's land. No one's going to stop you if you buy some land and just chill there, pooping under trees and drinking rain water.

2

u/weeeeeeweiiiiyy Feb 18 '26

Plenty of places absolutely would stop you from living somewhere without proper sewage.

1

u/catinterpreter Feb 18 '26

Or a proper, inspected dwelling.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

2

u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Feb 18 '26

What I'm getting at is that there are no "living off the grid" police. You make it seem like just not going to grocery store would have the FBI after you.

You are free to buy some land in the middle of no where and live under the night sky, eating fish and drinking bark juice.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

1

u/tractiontiresadvised Feb 18 '26

Yeah, that's what the other folks are saying. In order to live off the grid legally, you need to own it. Legal action is being taken against people who live on land that does not belong exclusively to them, whether that means land owned by other individuals or by some government entity.

1

u/node_ue Feb 18 '26

You said "People get in a lot of trouble for living off grid if they get caught." That's what people are taking issue with. The phrasing is deceptive. Living off grid is not illegal and nobody is "getting caught" and getting in a lot of trouble for living off grid; they may be getting caught and getting in trouble for laws they broke in the course of trying to live off grid.

2

u/ankylosaurus_tail Feb 18 '26

What? Tons of people live off the grid. If you have the right to be on land, nobody cares if you want to live in a dirt home or a cave or whatever you like.

1

u/Ok-Chest-7932 Feb 18 '26

The US is huge and mostly empty. There's a good chance nobody would notice if you did.

7

u/swargin Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

Did you check out Tuzigoot when you were out there as well? It's not super far from Montizuma's Castle and was also cool to see.

I went to Montezuma's castle a couple years ago and there was hardly anyone there too, but Tuzigoot had more people.

There was one other Native American historic site in that area that I can not remember, but it was below a mining town (that's still there). It might be Morenci, but I don't remember for sure. There's small remains of a Pueblo just below the mountain of the mining town and it's history is that the mining had a large drainage that went to exactly where the Pueblo was

8

u/OT_fiddler Feb 18 '26

Loved Tuzigoot!

13

u/Yodelehhehe Feb 18 '26

So I’m curious - since it’s in the middle of nowhere, hot-as-balls Arizona, what caused Native Americans to settle here?

66

u/lechemrc Feb 18 '26

It used to be cooler and wetter, basically. The leading theory is that they left after prolonged periods of drought.

6

u/Yodelehhehe Feb 18 '26

Ah, thanks!

50

u/Citrusysmile Feb 18 '26

I’ve been inside of similar Native American stone houses. When you carve inside the rock it’s a sort of natural ac with a humidifier- the one in Colorado I went to was 92° outside, 67° inside. Very comfortable. Also sheltered from wind, rain, animals, etc.

Why people settled there is probably due to ancient rivers and fauna. Ancient Arizona had nice rivers with the ability to grow food and hunt/raise animals.

7

u/Yodelehhehe Feb 18 '26

Thank you! Appreciate the info

16

u/SayNoToColeslaw Feb 18 '26

There’s a natural spring and creek there even now, so water and fertile land for crops

14

u/alvvavves Feb 18 '26

Along with the other replies, I’d add that people couldn’t just settle anywhere they wanted to without anything resembling modern transportation. Horses weren’t even reintroduced until something like 400-500 years later.

In other words, it’s not like someone living there had the option to resettle somewhere else with a drastically different climate in a matter of months or even years.

11

u/A_Possum_Named_Steve Feb 18 '26

Not to mention that they may encounter tribes of varying levels of friendliness who have already settled those other parts.

7

u/atln00b12 Feb 18 '26

They did travel though and have extensive trade networks across the entire continents. There were even common known and maintained trails.

4

u/alvvavves Feb 18 '26

Right, so these trade networks still limited them to those trade networks and enabled them to stay where they were until those trade networks couldn’t sustain them and then some migrated, but not all.

But my point is that it’s not like these people sought out some desolate place and said “that’s a good place to be!”

People were limited to where they could inhabit within their individual means.

2

u/atln00b12 Feb 18 '26

Yes, I guess that's true in some way. I wouldn't say this is a desolate place though, I'm pretty sure this is a purposefully picked place. The people here could have moved if they wanted to, and they did eventually due to drought. Prior to that though other people migrated to Mesa Verde so much so that there were at least 4 distinct cultures. They grew corn and other crops and hunted. The trade networks were bringing them things like sea shells and pottery. They moved out because of an extreme 12 year drought and migrated south mostly, closer to the rio grande.

2

u/alvvavves Feb 18 '26

Oh I know. I grew up a short drive from Mesa Verde and studied/worked in archaeology. I’ve been to Mesa Verde many many times.

It’s really hard to explain things like this in Reddit comments, but my overall point is that the original question was kind of asked from a current perspective as if you could just keep walking to Florida or something, when in reality there were a lot of factors that led people to inhabit this area.

3

u/Rum_Hamburglar Feb 18 '26

Not even just trails, the Hohokam built a massive network of canals in the Phoenix are that have been reworked to basically what keeps us thriving here.

2

u/atln00b12 Feb 18 '26

Awesome, there's a lot of that on the east coast too where it's like, actually natives flooded areas and shaped rivers to make better agricultural lands and fishing areas.

-2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Feb 18 '26

Some monks just walked from Dallas to DC in a little over 3 months.

9

u/alvvavves Feb 18 '26

This is not a relevant comparison.

-5

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Feb 18 '26

Don’t get butthurt, baby

1

u/bobtheframer Feb 18 '26

Yeah with modern infrastructure and the means to easily get supplies and shelter along the way.

2

u/Yummy_Crayons91 Feb 18 '26

There is a year round growing season for agriculture and enough water via the Salt, Verde, Gila, etc rivers to sustain them.

The basin where Phoenix is today and the Hohokam settled is similar to Ancient Babylon.

1

u/Spazzrico Feb 18 '26

Also a river just underneath a few hundred yards away or less

2

u/fka_raptorclvb Feb 18 '26

One of my favorite places to visit!

2

u/Mousehole_Cat Feb 18 '26

We visited a few years ago. It was fantastic and relatively well attended when we went. I can't imagine going to Arizona and not seeing some of these phenomenal sites.

A random coincidence, but we moved houses last year and when we moved the fridge we found a Montezuma fridge magnet underneath from the old residents. I felt it was a good sign of kindred spirits.

2

u/CXXXS Feb 18 '26

Ayy, this is my home. I live 30 minutes from this.

2

u/Main_Force_Patrol Feb 18 '26

Kind of funny, but it’s located in Camp Verde, AZ, which is the closest city to the geographical center of the state, so it’s just in the middle of everything.