Palatki

The Palatki Heritage Site — in the Hopi language Palatki means 'red house'– is an archaeological site and park located in the Coconino National Forest, near Sedona, in Arizona.

The Palatki site has a set of ancient cliff dwellings in the red sandstone cliffs, built from 1100 to 1400 CE by the Sinagua people of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. The cliff dwellings were built under south-facing overhangs for shelter and winter sun. The Sinagua people planted crops and made pottery in the area. Palatki and Honanki, another nearby archaeological site, had the largest cliff dwellings in the Red Rock formation area from 1150 CE to 1300 CE.

Palatki consists of two separate pueblos, suggesting two family or kin groups may have lived here, one in each pueblo. The circular shield-like pictographs above the eastern pueblo have been interpreted by some archaeologists as being a kin or clan symbol.

There are pictographs and petroglyphs at the Palatki site, including some that predate the cliff dwellings. Many of the pictographs on the rock walls are from the Sinagua. However, those created by peoples of the Archaic period in North America include some of the more abstract pictograph symbols and drawings that are 3,000 to 6,000 years old, and some of the petroglyphs, estimated to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old.

Visitation to the site for over a century has caused degradation of the archaeological elements. It was begun by 19th century Euro-American settlers, with little archaeological awareness for the area.

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