Norsemen kill eight “Skraelings.”

As recorded in Norse sagas, Thorvald Eriksson, the brother of Leif Eriksson (see entry for CA. 1000), and a crew of 35 are exploring the coast of the Atlantic Ocean when they spy on the beach nine indigenous people, whom the Norse refer to as Skraelings. Without provocation, the Norsemen attack. All of the Skraelings are killed, except for one who manages to escape by canoe. Another party of Skraelings avenge the murders by shooting arrows at the invader’s ship. Eriksson is killed in the attack, and his crew returns to Greenland.

Sinagua culture begins to flourish.

The Sinagua culture develops in the Verde Valley of what is now central Arizona after a volcano spreads ash over their lands. The ash improves the fertility of the soil, allowing the Sinagua to harvest large crops for the next 200 years. Located north of the Hohokam (see entry for CA. 400 TO 1500) and south of the Anasazi (see entry for CA. 750 TO 1400), the Sinagua culture adopts elements of these traditions. Like the Anasazi, for instance, the Sinagua build cliff dwellings, some of which will survive at Walnut Canyon National Monument, near present-day Flagstaff.

Ca. 1100 to 1200

The Anasazi construct cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

In what is now southwestern Colorado, the Ana-sazi (see entry for CA. 750 TO 1400) at Mesa Verde construct adobe dwellings of 10 to several hundred rooms in alcoves in canyon walls. The largest of these cliff dwellings is Cliff Palace, which includes 220 rooms. To reach the buildings, inhabitants have to make a difficult and steep climb using handholds and footholds carved into the cliffs. Their inaccessibility suggests that the cliff dwellings are meant to provide protection from the residents’ enemies as well as from inclement weather.

“Strange and indescribable is the impression on the traveler, when, after a long and tiring ride through the boundless, monotonous pinon forest, he suddenly halts on the brink of the precipice, and in the opposite cliff beholds the ruins of the Cliff Palace, framed in the massive vault of rock above and in a bed of sunlit cedar and pinon trees below. This ruin well deserves its name, for with its round towers and high walls rising out of the heaps of stones deep in the mysterious twilight of the cavern, and defying in their sheltered site the ravages of time, it resembles at a distance an enchanted castle.”

—Gustaf Nordenskiold, the first scientist to study Cliff Palace, in 1891

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, the largest of the Anasazi’s cliff dwellings (Library of Congress, Neg. no. USZ62-ii657i)