Palatki Heritage Site is located in the Coconino National Forest

Coconino National Forest

The Coconino National Forest is a 1.856-million acre United States National Forest located in northern Arizona in the vicinity of Flagstaff. Originally established in 1898 as the "San Francisco Mountains National Forest Reserve", the area was designated a U.S...

 in Sedona, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 (approximately 34 55' 3.58"N, 111 53' 58.85"W). Built in the formidable red rock cliffs of the area are a set of ruins

Ruins

Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...

 belonging to the Sinagua

Sinagua

The Sinagua were a pre-Columbian cultural group occupying an area in central Arizona between the Little Colorado River and the Salt River including the Verde Valley and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country between approximately 500 AD and 1425 AD.Early Sinagua sites consist of pit houses...

. The Sinagua are thought to be connected to the Hopi Indian Tribe. The word Palatki means 'red house' in the Hopi language. The Sinagua created the ruins from 1100 to 1400, but there are pictographs and petroglyphs that are much older. It's told that ancestors of Native American's lived in the area from around 1150 to 1300 CE. Some of the petroglyphs are estimated to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old and came from the more archaic cultures. Palatki and its sister site, Honanki, were the largest cliff dwellings of the Red Rock country between 1150 A.D. and 1300 A.D.



The Palatki Heritage site is open to tourists 7 days a week from 9:30am - 3:00pm. There are two different trails during the tours to go on and one allows tourists to see the beautiful Sinagua cliff dwellings and the other trail allows tourists to view the various pictographs and petroglyphs there. No pets are allowed and cars must purchase a Red Rock Pass to enter.



Unfortunately, the strong tourist attraction in the area has caused erosion and deformation to the area. This was originally the cause of poor archaeology appreciation by the European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

founders of the area. Photographs from the early 1900s show that an estimated 70 to 90 percent of the original structures have been destroyed. Some stories suggest that early visitors would dig up the bones of the dead, buried beneath the ruins, and take them home as souvenirs.

Despite the previous problems of the area, Palatki is still a popular attraction.

External links

• US Forest Service website on Palatki
• Palatki Heritage Site
• Palatki Ruins and Petroglyph Rock Art
• Palatki Heritage Site at Sedona Hiking Trails

Arizona°N date=December 2010°W