Stretching west and northwest from Cortez to the Utah border, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was established in 2000 and boasts the densest collection of archaeological sites in the United States. An estimated 30,000 sites—including cliff…

In the eleventh century, Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico was the center of a Native American cultural region about the size of the state of Indiana. It encompassed most of southwestern Colorado, from Chimney Rock National Monument on the east to…

The cliff dwellings of southwestern Colorado are among the world’s greatest archaeological treasures. The term cliff dwelling can be applied to any archaeological site used as a habitation and located in an alcove or rock overhang; however, the most…

The Far View group at Mesa Verde National Park consists of more than twenty sites, five of which have been excavated. Far View House began as an eleventh-century Great House and part of the region centered on Chaco Canyon. Many of the surrounding sites…

“Great House” refers to a class of ancient Ancestral Puebloan structures from the ninth through thirteenth century. Great Houses were monumental, geometrically formal constructions, with thick stone masonry walls made with careful craftsmanship. While…

Kivas were architecturally unique rooms or structures built by Ancestral Puebloans in southwest Colorado that served important ceremonial and social functions. Architecturally, they are recognized in the archaeological record in southwestern Colorado as…

Long House is the second-largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park. Built by Ancestral Puebloans in the 1200s, the 150-room dwelling was rediscovered by the Wetherill brothers and Charles Mason in early 1890. In the late 1950s and early 1960s,…

Named for early homesteader George Lowry, the Lowry ruin near Cortez (Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, County Rd 7.25, Pleasant View, CO 81331) is a pueblo with thirty-seven rooms, eight kivas, and one Great Kiva. Built between about 1090 and…

Spruce Tree House is the third-largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park, and the first seen by most visitors because of its location near park headquarters. Built by the Ancestral Pueblo in the 1200s, Euro-Americans came to know&nbsp…