slgwv's photos with the keyword: Navajo

The de Chelly (de shay) sandstone is a unit with large-scale crossbedding, inferred to be of dune origin, like the Navajo Sandstone of Zion and Glen Canyon. It's considerably older, though, being Permian, some 150 million years or so before the late Jurassic. It forms both Canyon de Chelly and the buttes in Monument Valley. It's correlative with the Coconino Sandstone of the Grand Canyon. On the trail to White House ruin.

Navajo Reservation, Arizona, USA. "Chelly" is locally pronounced "shay." It's an Anglo mispronunciation of a Spanish attempt to render "tséyi'," which is Navajo for canyon--

No, not _that_ White House! This is a Paleo-pueblo ruin in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in the eponymous national monument in the middle of the Navajo Reservation. It's built in an alcove under an overhanging cliff of de Chelly sandstone. According to tree-ring and C-14 data, construction began in the 1070s CE and the site was abandoned around 1300 CE (http://shouldbedigging.com/white-house-ruin-canyon-de-chelly/). The reasons for abandonment are unclear, but it's widely thought to be protracted drought as many Paleo-pueblo ruins were abandoned around this time. The Navajo are themselves latecomers to the area, one of several Athabascan groups arriving out of the north after the ruins were abandoned. The Paleo-pueblo peoples were traditionally called the Anasazi, from a Navajo phrase for "old ones," but that term is now out of favor because there's no love lost between the modern Pueblo tribes, thought to be the descendants of the Paleo-pueblos, and the Navajo. Btw, "de Chelly" is pronounced "de shay." It's an Anglo mispronunciation of a Spanish attempt to transliterate "tséyí", "canyon" in Navajo.

Anasazi ruin in Canyon de Chelly, on the Navajo Reservation.