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Archaeologists long believed the volcano changed Sinagua culture. Yet because the date of the eruption remained elusive, they could not tell how fast those changes occurred. Ort, however, had a geological clock that let him make a better estimate. The Earth's magnetic north pole constantly drifts. Researchers have records of drift going back thousands of years made by measuring how certain minerals are magnetized to align with the magnetic poles as they settle in lake sediments. What Ort needed was a way to link these paleomagnetic measurements to the age of artifacts found in villages abandoned after the eruption. Ort...

It is said that the first structure was built around A.D. 1000, by an ancient culture known as the Sinagua, also known as the Anasazi. The Sinagua's were obviously aware of its greatness, as this is where they built their homes and thrived off of the land. They were agriculturalists with trade connections that spanned hundreds of miles. They hunted game and gathered seeds and nuts to sustain themselves. By studying petroglyphs, artifacts, and comparatives of indigenous and Hopi groups, Archaeologists and anthropologists describe Sinagua rituals as being closely related to the flora and fauna of the area. They utilized...