峡谷穹岩,犹他州（摄影：Walter Meayers Edwards）

 

穹岩开了天窗，下面是岩居土著的遗址。曾几何时，Anasazi 部落（意即远古的人）在下方的峡谷种玉米，夜间退到山顶高处歇息。由于避敌或大旱等原因，公元1300年左右他们在犹他消失。这片峡谷，距离犹他峡谷国家公园的盐溪不远，依然残留古洪水痕迹。如今的游客称这片凹地Paul Bunyan's Potty 。

A vaulted grotto with a skylight shelters the ruins of cliff dwellings. The Anasazi, or Ancient Ones, tilled corn in the valley below and retreated to the heights at night. Whether fleeing enemies or a prolonged and widespread drought, they disappeared from Utah by about 1300. This canyon, near Salt Creek in Utah's Canyonlands National Park, also shows evidence of disastrous flash floods at that time. Visitors today know the huge alcove as Paul Bunyan's Potty.

 

(Photo shot on assignment for "Canyonlands, Realm of Rock and the Far Horizon," July 1971, National Geographic magazine)

 

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