Desert Smoke Signals
by The "Early Warning System" of the Navajo Tribe.
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The “early warning system” of the Navajo of course is the proverbial “smoke signal”. Not chic of course by today’s standards but a simple technique nonetheless by a indigenous tribe in the Americas.
Archaeologist and volunteers will comb the deserts for the stacked sandstone wonders of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
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They will theorize and speculate on how they did this. They will study their lookouts called pueblitos built 300 hundred years ago overlooking the San Juan Basin. These structures were used to protect against Spanish and other tribal marauders.
What is left of these wonders are about 200 locations which are stacked up on rocky ledges in these impressive states.
They theorize that one would climb up into these structures and hide out by pulling up a ladder which would protect them from harm while they waited and watched. Then by using smoke signals to warn of impending intruders.
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Using sophisticated technology they will develop a picture of this “early warning system”. They climb up into the structures to see if they spot each other as they did long ago.
Educators will show historical evidence and societal habits of the Navajo people which is a factor of this study.
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Of the 200 sites they estimate that there were more buried and collapsed under the sands of time waiting to be discovered and mapped.
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