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Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States.
A kiva is a room used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo people, kivas are a large room that is circular and underground, and are used for spiritual ceremonies.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States.
Casas Grandes is a prehistoric archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture. Casas Grandes has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is under the purview of INAH.
Pueblo Bonito is the largest and best-known great house in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico. It was built by the Ancestral Puebloans who occupied the structure between AD 828 and 1126.
Salmon Ruins is an ancient Chacoan and Pueblo site located in the northwest corner of New Mexico, USA. Salmon was constructed by migrants from Chaco Canyon around 1090 CE, with 275 to 300 original rooms spread across three stories, an elevated tower kiva in its central portion, and a great kiva in its plaza. Subsequent use by local Middle San Juan people resulted in extensive modifications to the original building, with the reuse of hundreds of rooms, division of many of the original large, Chacoan rooms into smaller rooms, and emplacement of more than 20 small kivas into pueblo rooms and plaza areas. The site was occupied by ancient Ancestral Puebloans until the 1280s, when much of the site was destroyed by fire and abandoned. The pueblo is situated on the north bank of the San Juan River, just to the west of the modern town of Bloomfield, New Mexico, and about 45 miles (72 km) north of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. The site was built on the first alluvial terrace above the San Juan River floodplain.
A Timeline of Chacoan history includes Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Twin Angels Pueblo, Casamero Pueblo, Kin Nizhoni, Pierre's Site, and Halfway House.
Tsin Kletsin or Tsin Kletzin is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located on top of South Mesa in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northwestern New Mexico, United States. It is located 3.2 kilometers south of Pueblo Bonito. Tree-ring dating placed the construction around 1110-1115 A.D. Originally it contained 81 rooms, 3 kivas and a plaza constructed to create a 2-story structure. The plaza was enclosed by a wall, and a 1-meter-wide entry portal allowed access to the plaza from the south. The masonry style of this complex is called McElmo (Chaco-McElmo), characterized by large sandstone blocks and some tubular slabs. Some 800 meters north-east from Tsin Kletsin there is Weritos Dam. Its alleged role was to retain the storm water runoff in a reservoir that archaeologists Lagasse, Gillespie and Eggert suggest provided Tsin Kletsin with all of its domestic water. However, massive amounts of silt accumulated during flash floods would have forced the residents to regularly rebuild the dam and dredge the drainage channel, and perhaps as early as every 2 years the water might have overflown the dam causing some flooding.
Kin Kletso is a Chacoan Ancestral Pueblo great house and notable archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Nageezi, New Mexico, United States. It was a medium-sized great house located 0.5 miles (0.8 km) west of Pueblo Bonito; it shows strong evidence of construction and occupation by Pueblo peoples who migrated to Chaco from the northern San Juan Basin in the time period of 1125 to 1200. From its masonry work, rectangular shape and design Kletso is identified as Pueblo III architecture by prominent Chaco archaeologists Stephen H. Lekson and Tom Windes. They also argue that this great house was only occupied by one or two households. Fagen writes that Kletso contained around 55 rooms, four ground-floor kivas, and a two-story cylindrical tower that may have functioned as a kiva or religious center. Evidence of an obsidian production industry were discovered here. The house was erected between 1125 and 1130.
Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began c. 990 and was largely complete by 1075, with significant remodeling occurring in the early and mid-1110s. Following the onset of a severe drought, most Chacoans emigrated from the canyon by 1140; by 1250 Chetro Ketl's last inhabitants had vacated the structure.
Pueblo del Arroyo is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, in New Mexico, United States.
Hungo Pavi is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, northwestern New Mexico, United States. A set of ruins located just 1 mile (2 km) from the ruins of Una Vida, Hungo Pavi measured 872 feet (266 m) in circumference. Initial explorations revealed 72 ground-level rooms, with structures reaching four stories in height. One large circular kiva has been identified. Its ruins now lie within Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
Kin Nahasbas is a Chacoan Anasazi great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, 25 miles southwest of Nageezi, New Mexico, United States. Built in either the 9th or 10th centuries, it was major pueblo located slightly north of the Una Vida complex, which is positioned at the foot of the north mesa. Limited excavation has been conducted in this area. The ruins are now protected within the borders of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
Cuarenta Casas is an archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture.
Hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings are found across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before 1492 CE, these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest.
The Pueblo III Period was the third period, also called the "Great Pueblo period" when Ancestral Puebloans lived in large cliff-dwelling, multi-storied pueblo, or cliff-side talus house communities. By the end of the period, the ancient people of the Four Corners region migrated south into larger, centralized pueblos in central and southern Arizona and New Mexico.
Pot Creek Cultural Site is an abandoned 13th century pueblo located on private land owned by Southern Methodist University and on public Carson National Forest land in Taos County, New Mexico.
The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.
Gallo Cliff Dwelling is a pair of Ancestral Puebloan room blocks that lie under a cliff in Gallo Canyon, New Mexico. Located adjacent to the National Park Service campground, the site includes a central room that features a multi-storied wall and a five-room structure with kiva that was probably occupied during the early 12th century by Mesa Veredans, who built in a distinctive McElmo masonry style. The inhabitants of these dwellings dates from 1150 to 1200 AD, or the late Chacoan Period. National Park Service excavations there during the 1960s uncovered a quantity of perishable items, including sandals and baskets, from the rooms.
References
- Fagan, B (2005), Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-517043-1 .
- Yankosky, Dan; Malville, J. (1997), Casa Chiquita, Confluence Creations, archived from the original on 2009-07-12, retrieved 2009-09-15Yankosky, Dan; Malville, J. (1997), Casa Chiquita, Confluence Creations, archived from the original on 2009-07-12, retrieved 2009-09-15.
