Looking west across site area toward the Franklin Mountains in the distance. With only 8 inches of annual precipitation, the site environment today supports semi-arid desert shrubs with little grass, lots of mesquite, creosote bush in gravelly areas, and some narrow-leaf yucca. Pueblos tend to be concentrated near mountains where runoff could be used to water crops and surface water would have been available for drinking. The mountains and foothills supplied timbers for houses, a variety of plant and animal foods, and raw materials for chipped and ground stone artifacts. |