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| Land of Ancients
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Human history seeps from the pores of this land – generations of nomads, farmers, builders, warriors, explorers, traders, miners, and ranchers have traipsed the Colorado Plateau and called it home. Nowhere is this more evident than in the southeast corner of this Grand Circle where remote canyons have nurtured civilizations for hundreds of years.
Tens of thousands of people once lived here, building villages along every creek and near every small, life-giving spring. Travel for a day in this part of the Circle and you’ll see their traces: small granaries tucked inconspicuously up under rock outcroppings, circles of sunken stones still noting kivas, places of ceremony. Remnants of their homes litter sage-covered plains and mesas. But time and water – those same sculptors of the canyons – wreak havoc on ancient walls. One of the Grand Circle’s newest national monuments, Canyons of the Ancients, was recently created to help protect some of these fabulous sites.
 The best-known treasures here are Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly. Mesa Verde first caught explorers’ attention because it’s so well preserved: whole towns protected from weather because they were built in high, dry cliff alcoves. Brooms and sandals, grinding stones and dog-hair weavings capture images of life 800 years ago. Archaeologists thought for years that Mesa Verde was this society’s nucleus but, as it turns out, that high plateau was merely a satellite of a far more organized, far more powerful community: Chaco. Apparently the trading and religious center of the Ancestral Puebloan world, Chaco’s trade spread from the Pacific to the Mississippi to Meso America. Over hundreds of years, Chacoans created enormous villages and ceremonial structures, as well as precise solstice markers and elaborate irrigation systems.
On the western side of the Chuska Mountains, Canyon de Chelly was less developed; less populated during Puebloan times, but has been occupied since by other native peoples. The Navajo still farm and raise sheep in this magical canyon through a unique partnership with the National Park Service. 
Where did the builders of these sandstone cities go? It appears that, by 1300, all the Ancestral Puebloans of this area had migrated south to join with other communities of kin – the Rio Grande Pueblos, the Acoma, Zuni and Hopi peoples – possibly forced from this area by cooling weather and dwindling resources. Their traditions live on today though, in the arts and rituals spread throughout New Mexico and Arizona.
The Acoma and Zuni still live in New Mexico in villages that pre-date the Spanish explorers. Close communities, which focus on family and clan ties, ritual, and traditional social events, characterize these and other Pueblos. Acoma Sky City, the oldest inhabited town anywhere in the US, perches high on a solitary butte with commanding, 360-degree views. Zuni– thought to be the famed city of gold, Cibola, the Spanish searched for in 1539 – is a simple town surrounded by fields tended for centuries. A mission church has fabulous, life-size katsina figures on its interior walls, a wonderful blend of Catholicism and Pueblo beliefs.
 Two additional National Monuments are near these villages: El Malpais, with wonderful volcanic lava flows and cinders, and El Morro, which commemorates Inscription Rock – centuries of rock art and European explorers’ signatures.
The Hopi live furthest west, isolated on the southern rim of the enormous Black Mesa, the driest place chosen by any Pueblo people. Able to coax corn and beans out of parched earth, ecologists call them “environmental wizards.” One is not born Hopi, one aspires to become Hopi. Being Hopi is a state of being, of grace, peacefulness, and honesty. Their sacred dances invoke the rains, but also pray for peace and happiness for the entire world. Today, visitors are still allowed to view some dance ceremonies, but not all. Should you be lucky enough to attend one, no photography or recording devices are allowed.
Arts are a part of life for the different Pueblos. Each has become famed for its unique pottery, paintings, katsinas, carved fetishes, and jewelry – either very simple etched silver or delicately inlaid with colored stones. Visitors can appreciate the scope of Pueblo art in the villages or any trading post of the southwest.
Utes were undoubtedly the contemporaries of the Ancestral Puebloans, though their small clan, hunter and gatherer style left only scant traces of their centuries old habitation of the southwest. After the Ancestral Puebloans moved away, Utes continued to live along the western slope of Colorado and in the San Juan River basin. In the mid 1600’s, after they acquired horses from the Spanish, Utes flourished, becoming fearsome warriors, raiders, and buffalo hunters. But by 1880,the group now known as Southern Utes were only 500 people; the Ute Mountain Utes numbered 650.Today both tribes earn revenues from oil and mineral leases, casinos, and tourism. The Ute Mountain Tribal Park, wrapped around the base of Mesa Verde, contains world-class archaeological sites for visitors to tour with Ute guides.
Of all the tribes, the Navajo dominate the political and physical landscape. With more than a quarter million tribal members, and more than seven million acres of reservation land spread across three states, the Dineh are a powerful nation. Relative newcomers to the southwest – they are believed to have migrated here in the 1400’s – the Navajo language is similar to Canadian-Athabaskan. Masters of adaptation, the Navajo quickly picked up agriculture from existing Pueblo groups, sheep-herding from the Spanish, and weaving for profit from traders. Unlike the Pueblos though, most traditional Dineh families choose to live apart from their neighbors. Hogans – one roomed earthen structures that originally served as homes – often sit next to modern houses, but they’re still used and appreciated. Notice how every hogan faces east, to greet the dawn. The traditional arts of the Navajo – sand painting, basket weaving, jewelry making, pottery and rug weaving – have experienced a revival in recent years and are valued by visitors and collectors. Today the Nation has its own unified government and a strong view of the future.
- El Malpais National Monument
- El Morro National Monument
- Ute Mountain Tribal Park
- Mesa Verde National Park
- Anasazi Heritage Center
- Cortez Cultural Center
- Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
- Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
- Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
- Four Corners Monument
- Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum
- Hovenweep National Monument
- San Juan National Forest
- Chaco Culture National Historic Park
- Aztec Ruins National Monument
- Salmon Ruins & Heritage Park
- Canyon de Chelly National Monument
- Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site
- Window Rock Navajo Tribal Park
Human history seeps from the pores of this land – generations of nomads, farmers, builders, warriors, explorers, traders, miners, and ranchers have traipsed the Colorado Plateau and called it home. Nowhere is this more evident than in the southeast corner of this Grand Circle where remote canyons have nurtured civilizations for hundreds of years.
Tens of thousands of people once lived here, building villages along every creek and near every small, life-giving spring. Travel for a day in this part of the Circle and you’ll see their traces: small granaries tucked inconspicuously up under rock outcroppings, circles of sunken stones still noting kivas, places of ceremony. Remnants of their homes litter sage-covered plains and mesas. But time and water – those same sculptors of the canyons – wreak havoc on ancient walls. One of the Grand Circle’s newest national monuments, Canyons of the Ancients, was recently created to help protect some of these fabulous sites.
The best-known treasures here are Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly. Mesa Verde first caught explorers’ attention because it’s so well preserved: whole towns protected from weather because they were built in high, dry cliff alcoves. Brooms and sandals, grinding stones and dog-hair weavings capture images of life 800 years ago. Archaeologists thought for years that Mesa Verde was this society’s nucleus but, as it turns out, that high plateau was merely a satellite of a far more organized, far more powerful community: Chaco. Apparently the trading and religious center of the Ancestral Puebloan world, Chaco’s trade spread from the Pacific to the Mississippi to Meso America. Over hundreds of years, Chacoans created enormous villages and ceremonial structures, as well as precise solstice markers and elaborate irrigation systems.
On the western side of the Chuska Mountains, Canyon de Chelly was less developed; less populated during Puebloan times, but has been occupied since by other native peoples. The Navajo still farm and raise sheep in this magical canyon through a unique partnership with the National Park Service.
Where did the builders of these sandstone cities go? It appears that, by 1300, all the Ancestral Puebloans of this area had migrated south to join with other communities of kin – the Rio Grande Pueblos, the Acoma, Zuni and Hopi peoples – possibly forced from this area by cooling weather and dwindling resources. Their traditions live on today though, in the arts and rituals spread throughout New Mexico and Arizona.
The Acoma and Zuni still live in New Mexico in villages that pre-date the Spanish explorers. Close communities, which focus on family and clan ties, ritual, and traditional social events, characterize these and other Pueblos. Acoma Sky City, the oldest inhabited town anywhere in the US, perches high on a solitary butte with commanding, 360-degree views. Zuni– thought to be the famed city of gold, Cibola, the Spanish searched for in 1539 – is a simple town surrounded by fields tended for centuries. A mission church has fabulous, life-size katsina figures on its interior walls, a wonderful blend of Catholicism and Pueblo beliefs.
Two additional National Monuments are near these villages: El Malpais, with wonderful volcanic lava flows and cinders, and El Morro, which commemorates Inscription Rock – centuries of rock art and European explorers’ signatures.
The Hopi live furthest west, isolated on the southern rim of the enormous Black Mesa, the driest place chosen by any Pueblo people. Able to coax corn and beans out of parched earth, ecologists call them “environmental wizards.” One is not born Hopi, one aspires to become Hopi. Being Hopi is a state of being, of grace, peacefulness, and honesty. Their sacred dances invoke the rains, but also pray for peace and happiness for the entire world. Today, visitors are still allowed to view some dance ceremonies, but not all. Should you be lucky enough to attend one, no photography or recording devices are allowed.
Arts are a part of life for the different Pueblos. Each has become famed for its unique pottery, paintings, katsinas, carved fetishes, and jewelry – either very simple etched silver or delicately inlaid with colored stones. Visitors can appreciate the scope of Pueblo art in the villages or any trading post of the southwest.
Utes were undoubtedly the contemporaries of the Ancestral Puebloans, though their small clan, hunter and gatherer style left only scant traces of their centuries old habitation of the southwest. After the Ancestral Puebloans moved away, Utes continued to live along the western slope of Colorado and in the San Juan River basin. In the mid 1600’s, after they acquired horses from the Spanish, Utes flourished, becoming fearsome warriors, raiders, and buffalo hunters. But by 1880,the group now known as Southern Utes were only 500 people; the Ute Mountain Utes numbered 650.Today both tribes earn revenues from oil and mineral leases, casinos, and tourism. The Ute Mountain Tribal Park, wrapped around the base of Mesa Verde, contains world-class archaeological sites for visitors to tour with Ute guides.
Of all the tribes, the Navajo dominate the political and physical landscape. With more than a quarter million tribal members, and more than seven million acres of reservation land spread across three states, the Dineh are a powerful nation. Relative newcomers to the southwest – they are believed to have migrated here in the 1400’s – the Navajo language is similar to Canadian-Athabaskan. Masters of adaptation, the Navajo quickly picked up agriculture from existing Pueblo groups, sheep-herding from the Spanish, and weaving for profit from traders. Unlike the Pueblos though, most traditional Dineh families choose to live apart from their neighbors. Hogans – one roomed earthen structures that originally served as homes – often sit next to modern houses, but they’re still used and appreciated. Notice how every hogan faces east, to greet the dawn. The traditional arts of the Navajo – sand painting, basket weaving, jewelry making, pottery and rug weaving – have experienced a revival in recent years and are valued by visitors and collectors. Today the Nation has its own unified government and a strong view of the future.
- El Malpais National Monument
- El Morro National Monument
- Ute Mountain Tribal Park
- Mesa Verde National Park
- Anasazi Heritage Center
- Cortez Cultural Center
- Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
- Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
- Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
- Four Corners Monument
- Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum
- Hovenweep National Monument
- San Juan National Forest
- Chaco Culture National Historic Park
- Aztec Ruins National Monument
- Salmon Ruins & Heritage Park
- Canyon de Chelly National Monument
- Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site
- Window Rock Navajo Tribal Park
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| Current New Mexico Members
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| OFFICIAL STATE VISITORS WEBSITE
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To learn more about New Mexico, please visit the Official State Visitors Website:
NEWMEXICO.ORG
To learn more about New Mexico, please visit the Official State Visitors Website:
NEWMEXICO.ORG
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