This morning we drove to Montezuma Castle National Monument but when we arrived we found a full parking lot - not one spot left for us and the dozens of other cars and buses that were arriving. So we left and drove the short distance to another portion of the monument, Montezuma Well, and found a couple of available parking slots. Both the Castle and the Well are pet friendly areas so Abby got to learn more about the ancient people of the Verde Valley.

Montezuma Well is a large "cenote" or limestone sink which is a collapsed portion over an underground stream exposing a small lake in the surrounding desert.

In the vertical walls of the cenote are a few cliff dwellings.

And on the surface above is a small pueblo of about 30 rooms. Archaeologists estimate that about 200 people lived there between  A.D.1125 and 1400.

Nearby the terrain drops precipitously into the Verde Valley and the underground stream emerges in the cliff wall.

At that point the prehistoric residence had constructed a mile long irrigation ditch that diverted the water to an open flat where crops were grown.

After we toured the Well area we drove back to the Castle hoping that things had cleared out a bit, and they had. It was about 12:30 so maybe lunch time is a good time to visit these popular attractions. The "castle" consists of two sections: a 20 room five-story cliff dwelling in an alcove 100 feet above the valley floor,

and a nearby six-story 45 room pueblo built up against the cliff base.

The cliff dwelling is in remarkably good shape because it is protected from the weather, but the pueblo is not protected and has mostly collapsed. This community was built and occupied at the same general time as at the Well, and at Tuzigoot (that we visited a few days ago), and at the RV park ruins.

It really is a mystery why all these sites and the many others in the valley were abandoned around 1400. All the evidence indicates that water continued to flow in springs, streams and rivers throughout that time so drought was not an issue. However, the climate was changing rapidly as the world cooled in what is known as the Little Ice Age (which peaked around 1600 prompting the Industrial Revolution in Europe). It was a time of tremendous population movement everywhere in the Americas adjusting to the climate changes, and all this generated a considerable amount of conflict as people intruded other people's territories. So it was probably a combination of factors that lead them to move to very large pueblos in major river valleys - opting for life in the "big city" rather than in the "burbs." Perhaps it is as simple as "safety in numbers."