Whiskers Draw

A series of alcove dwelling sites in the north fork of Whiskers Draw, a tributary of Cottonwood Creek. This site is not well known, and though a dirt road passes nearby, it is far from obvious there's a canyon to the south, much less a set of ruins.


Not far from here--in this same canyon--is the alcove in which Richard Wetherill discovered, in 1893, the remains of 97 Basketmaker people who had been massacred more than 1500 years before.



This was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the whole southwest, but the location of this alcove, which Wetherill had called "cave 7," was lost, and it remained unknown until 1990, when archaeologists painstakingly exploring every alcove in Whiskers Draw finally rediscovered it.