Walnut Canyon: Home of the Pre-Columbian Sinagua People

Walnut Canyon is a United States National Monument located in southwestern state of Arizona. This national monument is situated near Flagstaff, about 230 km (142.92 miles) to the north of Phoenix, the capital of Arizona. One of the important features of Walnut Canyon is that it has been identified as the home of a group of Ancestral Puebloans known as the Sinagua.

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Native American culture that inhabited what is today known as the Four Corners region of the United States, i.e. the southwestern corner of Colorado, the southeastern corner of Utah, the northeastern corner of Arizona and the northwestern corner of New Mexico.

Sinagua’s Presence

Sinagua is a contraction of the Spanish words sin agua, which means ‘without water’. The Sinagua were a Pre-Columbian people who lived between the 7th and 15th centuries AD in central Arizona. The name given to this group of people attests to the arid region in which the Sinagua managed to survive.

Prior to the 12th century AD, the Sinagua had maintained a light presence in Walnut Canyon. It was only around 1120 AD that this culture began to have a greater existence in the area. It was also about this time (during the 12th and 13th centuries AD) that the Sinagua were most successful, and they had adapted to much of the western Mogollon Rim, the San Francisco Mountain volcanic field, and the Verde Valley.