Aztec Ruins National Monument: A Walk Through Ancestral Puebloan History

Aztec Ruins National Monument offers an in-depth introduction to Chaco Culture.  If you are visiting Chaco Culture National Historical Park, it’s well worth it to come here as well.
 
Since Aztec Ruins is less than 30 minutes from Salmon Ruins, you can easily combine seeing both archaeological sites in the same day.  I visited them after going to Chaco Canyon and they expanded on what I learned from my trip there.  But if you go before visiting Chaco Canyon, you’d get an excellent overview of Chaco culture that would only enhance your enjoyment of the national park.

Entrance to the site

First established as a national monument in January 1923 and designated a World Heritage Site in 1987 along with Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins is not actually associated with the Aztec civilization of Mexico.  The site acquired its name because in the 19th century, European settlers mistakenly believed the Aztecs had emigrated north from Mexico.  In fact, Aztec Ruins was constructed by Ancestral Pueblo people.

The home of Earl Morris, an archaeologist who excavated Aztec Ruins in the early 20th century, has been converted into the Visitor Center.  Besides a well-stocked gift shop, it includes a museum with exhibits about the people who inhabited Aztec Ruins, how buildings were constructed, and how dendrochronology was used to date the site.  Another section of the museum provides information about the descendants of the Ancestral Puebloans – the many Indigenous cultural groups who live in the Four Corners region today.  A video about Aztec Ruins and its importance to present-day Pueblo people offers another perspective about the site.

View of Visitor Center from the back

Before beginning your walk through the site, you’ll definitely want to get the trail guide because otherwise, you won’t know what you are looking at.  You can buy a print booklet or use a QR code to download a guide to your smartphone.  I bought the booklet because I wanted to use my phone to take photos -- it was raining off and on and I didn't want my camera to get wet -- and also because I wanted to support the site.

After exiting the Visitor Center, a short walk along an asphalt path brought me to the Great House complex.  Encircled by a stone wall, the structures here were built in the early 12th century.  Because they resemble the buildings at Chaco Canyon, the Aztec Ruins National Monument is considered a Chaco outlier site.

View of part of Aztec Ruins

There are actually two sections of Aztec Ruins National Monument – Aztec Ruins East and Aztec Ruins West.  It’s the western section that visitors can explore and the Great Kiva is the most impressive building at the site.  It was reconstructed in 1934 by Errol Morris.

The Great Kiva

Since none of the other kivas I saw at Chaco Canyon or Salmon Ruins had been rebuilt, the interior of this Great Kiva was fascinating.  The stairs are modern touches – ladders would have been used by the Ancestral Puebloans to descend into the kiva.  In the center, the small square shape is a hearth.  Three large pillars are visible but there are four altogether; two of them rested on top of floor vaults.  The purpose of the floor vaults is not definitively known but they may have been used for storage or as floor drums, as the park ranger explained when I asked about them.  He also told me the flat round stones were used as the base for pillars, to help stabilize them.

 

Interior of the Great Kiva

But the Great Kiva is not the only kiva at Aztec Ruins.  A much smaller one is located close by, near the central plaza.  This kiva had a hearth, which is partially visible in the central foreground, but no floor vaults, and is similar to the kivas I saw at the other Chaco archaeological sites.

Another kiva

Following the pathway, I walked through a corridor inside some of the buildings (seen in the background of the photo above).  It isn’t possible to step inside all of the individual rooms; however, the guidebook pointed out notable features in them.  The most interesting is a mat made from willow branches that are tied together with cord made of yucca.  According to the guidebook, this mat is in the same place where the people who lived here more than 800 years ago hung it.

Willow mat hanging from opening

Another original feature of these rooms are the ceilings.  Large beams supported smaller logs placed on top of them at right angles.  Over them, thinner pieces of wood were laid.  Each layer was constructed from different species of trees.  To hold everything together, mud was pressed into the layers of wood and that became the floor of the room above it.  Because the logs have been well-preserved, dendrochronology enabled archaeologists to date Aztec Ruins with a high degree of accuracy.

Closeup of the ceiling of a room at Aztec Ruins

A third type of kiva found at Aztec Ruins is called a tri-wall kiva.  Two circular stone walls surround the third wall that forms the actual kiva.  According to the Aztec Ruins Facebook page, only 10 such multi-wall kivas have been discovered in the Southwest.

The tri-wall kiva

Archaeoastronomy was part of Chaco culture, including at Aztec Ruins.  One of the walls at the site lines up with sunrise during the summer solstice and sunset during the winter solstice.  When the sun rises or sets, the light shines along the wall.

Wall used for archaeoastronomical purposes

The masonry at Aztec Ruins is just as impressive as it is at other Chaco sites.  But one thing sets Aztec Ruins apart: A band of green stones creates a horizontal stripe on one of the walls along the visitor pathway.  It’s a beautiful contrast and just one more reason to visit this wonderful place.

Green band of stones in wall

For more information about Aztec Ruins National Monument, please visit their website.

Visiting Salmon Ruins: Ancient Puebloan History and Heritage Park in New Mexico

As I noted in my previous blog post, the Chaco people did not live only at Chaco Canyon.  There were a multitude of outlying settlements in the region of what’s now northwestern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and eastern Arizona.  Salmon Ruins was one such place.
 
Located near Bloomfield, New Mexico, Salmon Ruins is a museum and archaeological site managed by a San Juan County non-profit organization.  It’s named after the 19th century family that settled there and helped preserve it years later.  And, just so you know, the first syllable is pronounced like the word awl, not like how the syllable for the fish is pronounced.

Sign at entrance to Salmon Ruins

Salmon Ruins is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area!  I had never heard of it but when arranging to visit Chaco Canyon, that was the place where our guide, Tori Myers, said she would meet us.  She is a professional archaeologist and the Executive Director of Salmon Ruins.  (I cannot recommend Tori enough if you are looking for a guide to take you on a tour of Chaco Canyon.)

 
The museum at Salmon Ruins is very well done.  In a large round room that reminded me of a kiva, there are many display cases along the walls that describe different aspects of the lives of the Ancestral Puebloan people who inhabited the site.  In the center of the room, there are special temporary exhibits.

Tori Myers, Executive Director at Salmon Ruins, in the museum

The gift shop has a wide selection of books, some clothing, materials for kids, pottery and jewelry, and a few postcards and other souvenirs.  From the gift shop, you exit to a deck and a rather steep cement path leads down to the actual ruins.  In nice weather, the deck would be an enjoyable place for a picnic but when I visited, it was cold and drizzling.
 
The pathway has a railing but you definitely want to be careful walking down it.  Once I reached the bottom, the path was no longer paved.  To my left lay the Heritage Park section and to the right were the Chaco culture ruins.  I opted to see the ruins first.
 
Numbered markers on the trail correspond to explanations in a guidebook loaned to museum visitors so they know what they are looking at.  It’s a 29-page guidebook with a detailed description of 21 different parts of the archaeological site.  It's also laminated, which was great since it started to rain more heavily partway through my perambulation of the ruins.

A room known as the "bowling alley" because of its shape

According to the guidebook, people lived in Salmon Pueblo beginning in the second half of the 11th century A.D.  The buildings were used until the end of the 13th century and the purpose of some of the rooms seems to have changed over time.  Pottery, seeds, and other artifacts have been discovered in some of the rooms.

Some buildings at Salmon Ruins were 2 or 3 stories high, although it doesn’t look like it nowadays.  However, standing on the slightly rising slope of the ground, you can get a sense of the size of the pueblo.  It was much larger than I expected and took me longer than anticipated to walk around it.

Upper level of rooms at Salmon Ruins

Salmon Ruins had rooms in different shapes and sizes, as did Chaco Canyon, but it was only at Salmon Ruins that I saw square rooms repurposed into round kivas, as shown in the photo below.  The guidebook said this one dated from about 1120.

This originally square room was turned into a round kiva

The rooms behind Marker 12 helped support a tower kiva situated above and to the right.  Because the path leads around the periphery of the rooms, you can look down inside them.  There isn’t much to see now but the guidebook stated that some hearths were present.  I think the openings in the walls on the far side held wooden beams that formed the floors of the second story.

Rooms built up against the Tower Kiva partially visible at the top right

The Tower Kiva was originally roofed but now is open to the sky.  On the ground, you can see a small hearth at the left.  It’s not clear what the larger rectangular structure to the right was but a ranger at Aztec Ruins National Monument, the topic of my next blog post, suggested the one there could have been used for making drumming-like sounds.  It was easy to imagine climbing down the ladder, finding a seat on the stone bench, and watching a performance as if I were a spectator at a theater-in-the-round.

Tower Kiva

Besides the Tower Kiva, Salmon Pueblo also had a Great Kiva.  Located behind the main area where most of the buildings are situated, this kiva was larger but it was more difficult to picture people using it.

Great Kiva

I then retraced my steps and turned to explore the Heritage Park area.  George Salmon, son of Peter Milton Salmon who was the original pioneer settler in 1877, built the house in about 1898.  I couldn’t go inside but there were some wagons and farm implements scattered around the premises that were interesting to look at.

Salmon Homestead

Throughout this section of the grounds, several structures give visitors an idea of the variety of cultures that inhabited this region over through the centuries.  The guidebook describes them in some detail.  Aside from the Salmon homestead, all the buildings are reconstructions that are meant to represent different time periods during which people inhabited this area.

The Salmon family used the root cellar to store vegetables and fruit.  I peeked inside but there was nothing to see.

Root Cellar

The trading post represents the intersection of Settler and Indigenous cultures in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  I didn’t look inside because not only was it raining, it had started to snow and I wasn’t dressed properly for the weather.  So I didn’t spend as much time exploring the rest of Heritage Park as I would have liked.

Trading Post

Heritage Park showcases 2 hogans, one male and the other female.  They are shaped differently and although men and boys can enter a female hogan, women and girls cannot go inside a male hogan (as I learned from the guidebook).  The hogan in the image below is a male hogan and known as a forked stick hogan because it’s constructed of 3 poles joined together in a cone shape and then filled in with other logs and covered with mud.  But since this hogan did not receive a final blessing, anyone can approach it without violating cultural norms.

Forked Stick Hogan

Going back in time, you will see a structure made of logs that is partially underground.  This is a Basketmaker Pithouse.  According to the guidebook, this pithouse represents the time period of 200 – 700 A.D.  The Basketmaker people lived in the Four Corners region, including at Chaco Canyon.

Basketmaker Pithouse

The “oldest” part of Heritage Park is the Ice Age Pond.  It’s meant to depict the Archaic Period from around 9,000 years ago to approximately 200 A.D.  The guidebook goes into detail about what the landscape looked like at this time and how people survived.  It would’ve been cool to see a replica mammoth here but I had to content myself with imagining the scene.

Ice Age Pond area

Salmon Ruins is a wonderful place!  Adults and children alike will be fascinated by the archaeological ruins and will enjoy learning about the diversity of cultures showcased in Heritage Park.  Just 20 minutes from Farmington, a quick turn off from Highway 64, it’s well worth a visit and I highly recommend spending a few hours there.  Learn more about it HERE.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park: Remote and Revealing

Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  First designated as Chaco Canyon National Monument in 1907, it became a National Park in 1980 and a World Heritage Site in 1987.  In 2013, the International Dark-Sky Association certified the park as an International Dark Sky Park.

Entrance to Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Chaco Canyon is remote and not easily accessible if you don’t have a four-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance.  That’s because one section of the road leading into the park is unpaved, with long stretches of gravelly washboard.  Rather than risking an accident with my compact car, my traveling companions and I arranged to visit with a guide, Tori Myers of Salmon Ruins, who is a professional archaeologist and who drove us there in an SUV.  (Salmon Ruins will be the topic of my next blog post.)

Our tour guide's SUV was the perfect vehicle for visiting the park

Paleontological evidence reveals fossils from the Late Cretaceous period of around 80 – 75 million years ago.  The heyday of human habitation in Chaco Canyon was between 850 – 1150 A.D. but archaeological evidence has revealed that people were living in the region at least a thousand years earlier.  A river ran through the canyon and the climate was more humid; today, it’s arid and the river has dried up.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park was the center of a civilization in what’s now New Mexico that included many smaller outposts as far south as the area near current-day Grants, N.M. to as far north as current-day Cortez, Colorado, and into eastern Arizona.  Evidence of trade with Mesoamerica reveals the range of Chaco Culture.  The park is known for its architecture, petroglyphs, and its astronomy programs.

View of Pueblo Bonito, one of the sites at Chaco Canyon

Our first stop after checking out the Visitor Center was Una Vida.  A short walk from the parking lot, this mostly unexcavated “Great House” shows the skill of the masons who constructed these buildings.  A “great house” isn’t actually one large building; rather, it’s a group of buildings containing many rooms, plus kivas of various sizes, surrounding a plaza.  (A kiva is a round space encircled by a stone wall that is built partly or completely below ground and used for ceremonial activities.)  Una Vida is one of the older sites at Chaco.  It was constructed between 850 – 1250 A.D.

Part of Una Vida, easily accessible from the Visitor Center parking lot

Driving by Hungo Pavi, our next stop was Chetro Ketil.  This Great House was larger than Una Vida and Tori pointed out many architectural features we wouldn’t have known about had we not been with her.  She explained how the masonry of the buildings at Chaco changed over the centuries and told us that the wooden beams we saw in the buildings were the original logs.

View approaching Chetro Ketil

Chetro Ketil was constructed up against a cliff wall, as were many of the other Chaco sites.  Tori told us that along the cliff, petroglyphs were visible so I walked along a trail to see them.  Helpfully, markers on the trail pointed straight to each collection of petroglyphs and looking through my camera’s zoom lens easily revealed them.

Petroglyphs on trail; note the spiral and humanoid images

A brochure from the Visitor Center explains how the petroglyphs were made and offers theories about what they might mean.  However, accurately determining the ages of the images is difficult.  Some of the images seem to represent people and animals while others are apparently more symbolic.

More petroglyphs; note the geometric forms and what may be a caterpillar or cacao plant

After eating a boxed lunch, we explored Pueblo Bonito, the largest and most famous site in Chaco Culture National Historical Park.  Constructed between approximately 850 – 1150 A.D., with buildings that were 4 stories high and spread over 3 acres, the complex was semi-circular in shape and situated next to a cliff wall.  In fact, the trail from Chetro Ketil with petroglyphs ends behind Pueblo Bonito.

View of Pueblo Bonito, from the front of the site

Due to its location in a canyon, Chaco is very windy.  My traveling companions needed the walking sticks they’d brought with them to help when going up and down some rocky paths and to maintain their balance when the winds gusted.  And, due to the wind, dust often swirled around us and I had to be careful to protect my camera lenses.

 
My fellow travelers were glad to take advantage of a strategically-placed bench that lets you rest and contemplate what the scene may have looked like 900 years ago when Pueblo Bonito flourished.  Many archaeologists now think that instead of being homes for a huge number of people, the buildings in Chaco Canyon primarily served ceremonial and trading purposes.  Looking at the large kiva in front of us, it was not hard to believe that.

Large kiva at Pueblo Bonito

A trail leads you through some of the rooms inside Pueblo Bonito.  I saw the exquisite masonry up close and it was amazing how well the stones fit together and how smooth the walls were.  But what really struck me were the logs.  Tori, our guide, explained how the beams were used to support the additional floors/ceilings of the buildings.  Looking at wood around 1,000 years old -- the same wood the builders of Pueblo Bonito touched -- it was humbling to ponder the longevity of Chaco and realize how much older it is than the present-day United States.

Log beams and wood lintel above upper window at Pueblo Bonito

It was now almost mid-afternoon and from Pueblo Bonito, we drove on the paved road back to the Visitor Center.  We passed the Wetherill Cemetery where Richard Wetherill, an archaeologist at the turn of the 20th century with a mixed reputation, was buried.  Further along, Tori pointed out what she called “small sites” on our right; they were small, individual structures whose purpose is unknown.

Info plaque and trail to Wetherill Cemetery

The next place we stopped to look at is called “the Staircase.”  You can clearly see steps carved on the right of the cliff.  Tori told us they lead up to a Chaco road.  The Chaco Culture built hundreds of miles of roads connecting outlying sites to the buildings in Chaco Canyon.

"The Staircase" -- the steps are visible at the top center of the cliff

The last place of interest was Fajada Butte.  Actually, that was the first noticeable point of interest we saw as we approached Chaco Canyon in the morning and Tori explained that during the summer and winter solstices, a beam of sunlight shined across a spiral petroglyph at the top of the mountain.  It was clearly and intentionally designed as some sort of astronomical marker by the Chaco people.

Fajada Butte

After around 1250 A.D., new buildings were no longer being constructed.  Over time, the people using Chaco Canyon left the area, perhaps as a result of changing climate conditions.  Their descendants, the Hopi, Pueblo, and Navajo (Dine) people all have ancestral connections to Chaco.

Looking down at Pueblo Bonito from a vantage point high above, with a view of the canyon in the distance

Tori revealed the history of Chaco Canyon to us during an informative and very enjoyable day.  Chaco Culture National Historical Park is not an easy place to get to but it’s well worth the effort and going with a guide makes it even more pleasurable and rewarding.

 
(For information about taking a tour of Chaco Canyon, please click HERE.)