Square Tower House Pueblo ruins, Mesa Verde National Park, CO.
Deep canyons at Canyon de Chelly, AZ.
Great Kiva, Lowry Pueblo in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, CO.
Oak Tree Pueblo ruins from lookout, Mesa Verde National Park, CO.
shape during the 1860s and finally drawn in 1912. Today, flags of the states and Indian nations flap overhead, and Ute and Navajo vendors sell art and souvenirs. I see visitors—particularly the younger ones—twisting their bodies to place a limb in each state at the same time. Along Colorado’s southwestern edges, the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a sprawling 176,000 acres with the country’s most densely packed evidence of Puebloan native cultures including villages, dams, reservoirs, cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and more. There have been more than 6,300 recorded sites so far, with estimates of up to 30,000 sites likely. Lowry Pueblo with its walled ruins and great kiva is one of the most popular sites within the monument grounds. Built around 1060 A.D., it was home to about 40 people. The monument’s Visitor Center and Museum, 10 miles north of Cortez and three miles west of Dolores, displays such artifacts as millennium-old, pieced-together pottery jars, clay and stone pendants, bracelets and arrowheads. In one corner sits a recreated roofed pit home typically dug into the earth. “Corn, squash and beans—they were farmers,” says museum volunteer Tom Hayden. “They lived in this area for about 800 years.” A more compact Puebloan archeological site is nearby, Hovenweep National Monument, part of a canyon with
the ruins of what were six villages dating back to 1200- 1300 A.D. Rimming the canyon’s cliffs are small rock- walled ruins including multistory square and circular towers, D-shaped homes and rounded kivas—all built nearby to what were then mesa-top crop fields. Today, a short hike from the Visitor Center leads to an overlook and a two-mile trail around the canyon’s rim. Ruins include the so-called Square Tower, Hovenweep Castle, and Eroded Boulder House. “It was a farming community—families working on their farms, kids taking care of dogs and turkeys. At night, they would gather in their homes or in the kiva for community activities,” explains Sierra Coon, Hovenweep’s Chief of Interpretation. “One thing that certainly struck me is the silence. You can hear the wind in the sage and it's a more personal experience because it's not as busy as other sites. You almost feel like you have it to yourself.” After seeing Puebloan potsherds in museums, I’m thrilled to go on my own artifact hunting expedition on the nearby Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch west of Cortez, a 2,000-acre working ranch with several guest cabins. I’m actually getting the chance to see landscape with pottery slivers never touched before, and without the glass and rope barriers of museums.
FOUR CORNERS
COAST TO COAST FALL MAGAZINE 2019
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