It can be imagined with what enthusiasm a band of the farmers might have first noticed, on the north bank of Beaver Creek, only 4 miles from the Verde River, a great cavern-pitted limestone cliff, well over 100 feet high. This was an ideal spot for a dwelling site, with good farmland nearby on the creek terrace. Here they began building rooms to accommodate their needs. We find that in a quarter-mile strip of cliff there were two distinct apartment houses. Growth during several generations made one of these villages a 5-story structure with 45 rooms. A hundred yards east was a 5-story structure with 20 rooms, which was destined, centuries later, to be inaccurately called Montezuma Castle. [Illustration: _Montezuma Castle rises above the model which explains its history_] _The Classic Period_ These dwellings were occupied until about A. D. 1400. As many as 200 persons may well have lived in the several house clusters. The castle could have accommodated 12 or 15 families (possibly 50 people). These cliff dwellers lived through the peak period of Pueblo culture, producing stone implements, excellent turquoise and shell jewelry, cotton cloth (some of it elaborately decorated), sturdily constructed baskets, and many other objects. The pottery made locally, at Montezuma Castle and in the Verde Valley generally, consisted mainly of plain brown or red ware. The prehistoric people of the Verde, although apparently highly talented along certain other lines, seem never to have developed a really ornamental painted pottery of their own. Instead, they acquired decorated pottery from the north by trade with the Flagstaff area and the Hopi country. _Abandonment_ There seem to have been several reasons for the abandonment of Montezuma Castle and other pueblos in nearby areas. Those in the Flagstaff area, about 50 miles to the north, underwent depopulation sometime in the 1200’s, possibly as a result of a century of recurring droughts. There was continuous drought for 23 years, from 1276-99. It is thought that many of these people moved southward into the Verde Valley which during this period showed an increase in population. During this same period, the dry farmers on the desert flats of the Verde Valley moved to the banks of the spring-fed streams. Here irrigation was practiced by others in the small acreage available along the streams. This combination of small farming acreage and a concentration of population may have led to interpueblo strife; and this in turn contributed to a gradual exodus from the Verde Valley. By the late 1300’s the pueblos in the Verde Valley were overpopulated for the available farmland and food supply. Montezuma Castle was probably abandoned during the first part of the 1400’s, since no trade pottery dating after that time has been found.