The Lost City which once was is not consumed by the town of Overton and the Lost City Museum which was built right on top of where the village once stood. Nobody can for sure say where the lost city was however because it stretched for 30 miles. It was an advanced Anasazi civilization. The main part of the Lost City remains flooded for over 65 years under Lake Mead. Of course drought is now occurring and evidence of the Lost City are being exposed. 

Technically you could hike to the location but based on reading other peoples explorations a few have died trying to get to it. I know I could do it but some things are best left alone not because we fear them its because in Overton the museum gives you everything you need such as artifacts, Petroglyphs, restored pueblos and a few sites with historical markers. 

They called the Anasazi in this area Basket Makers or called Pueblo Grande De Nevada. They lived on the Muddy River near the Virgin River before 500 A.D.  The lost city was not one city according to my studies since the name Pueblo Grande De Nevada meant lost city but the true reality it was many different cities scattered on a bluff overlooking the Valley Of Fire.

The Indians built pit houses and eventually two to three story houses to live in. They would hunt around the Valley of Fire gathering their food while later they farmed on the river.  Mesa House is a term they use for the last occupational period in this area. The Mesa House period lasted from 1100 to 1150 A.D. 

The Lost City exaction began in the 1920s under the Southwestern Museum while in the 1930s the work became extensive with the many finds of artifacts and reconstructed Pueblo Houses in Overton.

Nobody knows what happened to the Anasazi they mysterious vanished much like in Arizona. In Arizona one day the entire village disappeared with food still cooking over a fire. The incidents in this case are similar not sure if when the water started to dry out they moved on...if disease swept through killing all but a few....if they were abducted by aliens nobody really knows. This was an advanced civilization that died very few native American tribes ever built homes but the Anasazi did. 

Eventually the Moapa Indians overtook the area in history its a fact that when one tribe dies out another tribe wanders such lands to hunt and farm.  You also have to consider back hundreds of years ago this area was alot cooler then it is today.  This might not be the Lost City in South America but at one time it was a prestigious city that thrived.

I mean honestly the Valley Of Fire and this area we investigated tie into one another.  The Anasazi needed the Valley to live just as the Valley invited the Anasazi to hunt at at least according to the Petroglyphs on the canyon and valley walls.  I think the message is more important then the ghost with this exploration as without sites like mine nobody would ever know who the Anasazi area they deserve to be remembered afterall this was there land before ours. 

I also think that their is a lesson to be learned from all of this. Stick with the Museum otherwise you might spend your last moments dying in the desert. Its not hard to survive in the desert if you know how to survive but if your a group like mine trying to show off please take caution I have had a taste of this area I know what can happen its not worth visiting a site that's underwater but if you feel the need to want to see it then we will team up and help eachother get to the real lost city location which I have an idea where it is!

© By

Lord Rick-AngelOfThyNight

Theories About The Moapa Anasazi - 2004 

For Educational Purposes Only as long as author is included below!

The Virgin Anasazi
Research on the Virgin Anasazi
The Virgin Anasazi are the best known of Southern Nevada's prehistoric cultures. The Virgin Anasazi are the western most and least studied of the six currently recognized Anasazi subdivisions. There are several reasons for this. One is that major public works projects in the area, such as the flooding of the Hoover Dam reservoir, Lake Mead, occurred in a time before more careful research was done. The original investigator, Mark Harrington, was also put in a compromising position as many details could not be observed due to the continued filling of Lake Mead.

In 1961, Richard Shutler published Harrington's findings in "Lost City Pueblo Grande Nevada". In the early 1970's Claude Warren working for UNLV conducted several field schools at the Steve Perkins site. After 30 years, that material has yet to be published. In 1990, Dan Larson et al, published 'Impacts of Climatic Variability and Population Growth on Virgin Anasazi Cultural Development". Unfortunately this study is based in part on poorly described material and misnamed structures at the Steve Perkins site.

In 1992 Margaret Lyneis published her excellent study, "The Main Ridge Community At Lost City". During the 1980's Lyneis also published several articles of merit an the Virgin Anasazi. Part Lyneis' study at the 'Main Ridge' clarified the nature of 'rooms' and 'houses' as they were described by Harrington. This same approach is currently being applied by myself toward getting accurate information about the Steve Perkins site published.

Virgin Anasazi Conceptual Issues
There are many issues associated with this study area that are common to poorly studied subjects. The first of these is terminology. If we look at just the Moapa Valley and the immediate area of the Main Ridge Community we have to ask ourselves why are they called the "Virgin" Anasazi when most of the known settlements were located on the Muddy River? The answer might be in pre-flood geography as the Muddy River flowed into the Virgin River and appeared to be a tributary of the stream as the Virgin flowed into the Colorado River after the confluence with the Virgin River. Evidence of occupation along the Virgin River is less prevalent but better published.

The importance of recognizing this is that the Virgin River is basically a rain-fed steam whose flow is effected by environmental factors such as drought and more effected by the opposite, flooding. This is in contrast to the Muddy River whose flow is based on artesian springs which are common in the area. Blue Point Spring and Rogers Spring nearby in Lake Mead NRA along the North Shore Road are also examples of local hot spring streams. The Muddy River is reliable in a place where other water sources are not. Another difference between the two streams is the width of their respective floodplains. The floodplain of the Virgin River is usually to narrow for cultivation. In the areas that do lend themselves to cultivation along the Virgin River near Mesquite and along the Arizona Strip, there seem to be fewer habitations recorded so far than are found in the Muddy River valley. The Muddy River, in contrast flows through a arable wide valley.

Knowing this one would think that the bulk of the 'Virgin' Anasazi population would more likely have centered around the Muddy River. This is born out by the evidence. (9) What's in a name? A lot it seems. The 'Muddy' Anasazi might not be as cache, but it is more accurate. The reason that labeling can have an effect is clear when we look at research that has been published in scientific journals about the 'Virgin' Anasazi. In the 1990 study, "Impacts of Climatic Variability and Population Growth on the Virgin Branch Anasazi Cultural Development", published in American Antiquity ( see #9 in the Bibliography), the research is based on descriptions that are misleading. Specifically structures at the Steve Perkins site that are called 'pithouses' are counted as habitations when they are no more than 1 meter in diameter. The other issue with this study is that while it places the majority of the population along the Muddy River, the flow of the Virgin River is what was measured to show the drought effect.

The authors suggest that a more persistent reliance on agriculture by the Virgin Anasazi during the onset of the drought of 1000 to 1015 AD was due to the 'relative reliable water source of the Virgin and Muddy Rivers {which} would have been perceived as less risky'. ( 9 p243) After the drought the Anasazi continued to be agriculturalists, their population increasing over the next 100 to 150 years. When drought conditions returned in 1120 to 1150 AD 'the Virgin Branch Anasazi experienced several consecutive years of crop failure and reduced yields of wild resources. In response to such conditions it is likely that they chose to emigrate to more productive agricultural lands elsewhere ..' (9 p.244)

This is one explanation of why the Moapa Anasazi left the area. It is based on the reasoning that non-irrigated agriculture requires a minimum of 250mm of rainfall per year to be sustainable. The Southwest is notable for its well defined and very accurate dendrochonologic data. Through this data archeologists have been able to determine that several droughts affected the Anasazi at approximately the same time as they abandoned or left certain areas. In their excellent compilation of data and study of flow in the Virgin River throughout the (ca.) last 2 millennia, Larson et al make a case for abandonment in the Virgin River Valley. We would expect that migration would be to more reliable resources such as those found in Moapa Valley and even in the Las Vegas Valley.

Based on the current inventory of known structures, the majority of the 'Virgin Branch Anasazi' lived in the Moapa Valley throughout the history of that cultures occupation in this area. It is not likely that the drought would have impacted the Moapa 'branch' of the 'Virgin Branch Anasazi' quite as much since they had a reliable source for irrigation that was not effected by droughts. The Virgin River valley is too narrow in most of its course to be used for agriculture. The best location for such use is near Mesquite Nevada in the area known as the Big and Little Bends on the Virgin River. The census of structures along most of the Virgin River below Mesquite Nevada show a dramatic decline in the number of structures until the confluence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers near what Lyneis calls the 'Main Ridge'.

One might consider that the Virgin Branch Anasazi had a Moapa Branch which had different issues relating to their agricultural economy than other nearby groups whose water supply was less dependable. While on a regional level the Anasazi in this area were effected by the droughts which effected groups throughout the Southwest, on a local level, the effect of the drought must have been significantly less because they did have a reliable water supply and that there were others available nearby which had never been fully colonized.

If the great droughts of the past effected the abandonment of the Moapa Valley by the Anasazi people it could only have been indirectly. This suggests several other possibilities for the abandonment of Moapa Valley that are not related, or at least directly related to drought factors. The Moapa Anasazi could no doubt sustain prolonged droughts. It would seem that prior to abandonment of the Moapa Valley there should be some indicator for that abandonment.

Too often when an area is poorly studied, outside influences and factors are often needed to fill in where local research does not exist. This situation influenced how the sites at Casas Grandes were interpreted for years. (10) At Casas Grandes, several theories of development there preceded actual research. Once some of the data was examined, different, locally based theories of change and development emerged. (10 p314-316) It is very likely that this is the case for the Moapa Anasazi. The work which has been done so far is in many instances excellent however it has been limited due to several factors identified by Lyneis in 1992. (7) These include the lack of suitable funding and interest by local archeologists. The valuable research done at the Steve Perkins site has lain dormant for 32 years. The only interest in completing this project was among several dedicated UNLV students and staff throughout the late 1970's, 80's and beyond. So far it has not been completed. I will try to have this project in a state which is publish-able before the end of the year.

My research will focus specifically on the bases of the points found at Steve Perkins, the definition of the structures there, and finally a completed summary of what was found there and description of what might have happened there. Hopefully this will result in a better understanding of the Moapa Anasazi.

Andreas P. Charest