After this initial period, the Anasazi left the plateaus above the canyons to move into the cliff dwellings, supposedly to provide fortification against hostile forces. Some archeologists believe that the Anasazi moved to the cliffs to escape the ravages of the floodplain, and the heavy rains of winter. Later, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, other Indians from Chaco Canyon and Tsegi Canyon moved here but didn't stay for long. By ad 1284, the last of the Anasazi had left, and, as in Chaco Canyon and other sites, their flight is still a mystery. Perhaps enemies appeared, causing a swift departure.
Nobody knows for sure.
Hopi Indians seem to have come here around 1300, a theory borne out by remains of ceramic art in the canyons. The Navajo, a nomadic Apache tribe, came from the Great Plains in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the area became a Navajo stronghold with the colonization of most of the Southwest by Spaniards. It was a staging point for raids on the Spanish and later the U.S. Army. In the early 1800s, an all-day battle was fought between the Navajo and the Spanish, ending with the Indians being trapped in Massacre Cave. In 1864, Col.