Kinishba Ruins

Infobox_nrhp | name =Kinishba Ruins
nrhp_type =nhl


caption =
nearest_city= Whiteriver, Arizona
locmapin = Arizona
lat_degrees = 33 | lat_minutes = 47 | lat_seconds = 36 | lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 109 | long_minutes = 59 | long_seconds = 53 | long_direction = W
area =
architect= Unknown
architecture= No Style Listed
designated= July 19, 1964cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=93&ResourceType=District
title=Kinishba Ruins |accessdate=2007-12-03|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = October 15, 1966cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = Private
refnum=66000180

Kinishba Ruins is a sprawling, 600-room pueblo archaeological site in Arizona that includes a combination of Mogollon and Anasazi traits and is considered ancestral to both the Hopi and Zuni cultures. The site is perched above a now-desiccated spring in a scenic, pine-fringed alluvial valley, near the seat of government for the White Mountain Apache Tribe. The site has been variously designated as the Fort Apache Ruin; LA 1895 (N.M. Laboratory of Anthropology); Arizona C:4:5 (Gila Pueblo - Arizona); Hough No. 134, AZ V:4:1(ASM), and 46004 (FAIRsite). “Kinishba” is derived from the Apache term, kį dałbaa, meaning “brown house.” For the last 75 years the ruin has served as a proving ground for efforts in what we refer to today as applied archaeology and heritage tourism.

Kinishba is located at about 5,000 feet above sea level, south of the Mogollon Rim and north of the Salt River, at the eastern foot of Tsé Sizin (“Rock Standing Up,” a.k.a Sawtooth Mountain), on White Mountain Apache Tribe trust lands (a.k.a. the Fort Apache Indian Reservation). The site is the most publicly accessible of the 20 or so large (150 or more rooms), Ancestral (Mogollon) Pueblo village ruins that were built and occupied as part of the colonization of the Mogollon Rim region in the A.D. 1200s and 1300s. The largest 13th and 14th century ruins along the Mogollon Rim share a suite of architectural elements, ceramic assemblage attributes, and locational characteristics—especially proximity to expanses of land suitable for dry maize farming and ready access to domestic water, tabular sandstone or limestone, and ponderosa pine—indicative of shared origins and lifeways, as well as sustained interactions.

The site is located on the trust lands of the [White Mountain Apache Tribe] , was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964, and is administered by the Tribe and the Fort Apache Heritage Foundation as a "satellite" element of the [Fort Apache Historic Park] .

References

Welch, J.R. (2007) ‘A Monument to Native Civilization’: Byron Cummings’ Still-Unfolding Vision for Kinishba Ruins. Journal of the Southwest 49 (1): 1-94.Welch, J.R. (2007) The White Mountain Apache Photographs of Chuck Abbott and Esther Henderson. Journal of the Southwest 49 (1): 95-116.Welch, J.R. (2007) Kinishba Bibliography. Journal of the Southwest 49(1): 117-127.

External links

* [http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/amsw/ American Southwest, a National Park Service "Discover Our Shared Heritage" Travel Itinerary]