People gathered here during the 1100s. What began as family housing grew into this 100-room pueblo with a tower, community room, and ceremonial ball court. The ball court may have had multiple functions: a place where special ceremonies were held, where competitive games took place for socialization, or where children played. After rains, it may have served as a reservoir.
Located near the crossroads of east-west and north-south travel routes, the pueblo evolved to serve a community heavily engaged not only in farming but also in ceremony, trade, and crafts specialization.
By 1190, as many as 2,000 people lived within a day's walk and Wupatki Pueblo was the largest building for at least 50 miles. The pueblo stood three stories high in places. Double walls were filled with a rubble core and were about 6 feet high; roofs were constructed with timbers, cross-laid with smaller beams or reeds, and finished with grass and mud. There were no exterior doorways at ground level.
This was a curious place to build a farming community........summers are hot, dry and windy, a climate very similar to today. Yet 800 years ago, agricultural plots would have been carefully placed in small pockets of soil across the landscape.
A farmer's faith was tested regularly as rainfall came at the wrong time or not at all, and dry winds parched the soil and crops.
Each field was at the mercy of where rain fell; no surface irrigation was possible. One field might produce while another withered, so the planting effort was extensive. Numerous storage rooms within the pueblo attest to a constant preparedness for crop failure.
Using the red sandstone outcrop as a backbone, and its naturally fractured blocks as bricks, masons laid stone rooms up and down the length of the formation. High walls on the north and west sides blunted prevailing winds. Terraced rooms to the south and east bathed in winter sun. Flat roofs served as water systems, collecting precipitation and directing it to storage pots.
