Hopi Mesas

35.8881°N, 110.5189°W.

Three sandstone mesas (First, Second, and Third Mesa) in northeastern Arizona that have hosted continuously inhabited Hopi villages for at least 800 years. Old Oraibi, on Third Mesa, has been continuously occupied since approximately 1100 CE — making it one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the United States. The Hopi language is one of approximately 30 surviving Uto-Aztecan languages, related linguistically to Nahuatl spoken 2,500 km south. Hopi traditional religious practice continues today; the Hopi maintain knowledge of all kachina ceremonies through an annual cycle that begins at the winter solstice with the Soyal ceremony. The Hopi Tutuveni petroglyph site preserves a labyrinth-pattern engraving of the Man-in-the-Maze design also found among the Tohono O'odham — the same image repeated across two cultures separated by 600 km. The mesas sit at the geographic center of the Navajo Reservation, surrounded but not subsumed.

A village inhabited since 1100 CE speaks a language related to Nahuatl spoken in central Mexico — and carries the same labyrinth design as a culture six hundred kilometres south.