Sand Canyon and the Canyons of the Ancients
Near Cortez, Colorado
West of Cortez lies one of the most densely documented archaeological landscapes in North America. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument covers more than one hundred seventy six thousand acres and contains over eight thousand five hundred recorded archaeological sites, the highest density of such sites per acre of any national monument in the United States. The centerpiece is Sand Canyon Pueblo, a large village built between approximately twelve fifty and twelve eighty of the common era.
At its peak, Sand Canyon Pueblo encompassed roughly four hundred twenty rooms, ninety kivas, and fourteen towers, housing perhaps seven hundred or more people. The kivas are circular chambers, partly underground, that served as the ceremonial and communal heart of Ancestral Puebloan community life. The village was abandoned by around thirteen hundred of the common era, part of the broader departure of the Ancestral Puebloan population from the entire Four Corners region.
Archaeologists continue to debate the combination of forces that drove that departure. Extended drought lasting several generations played a major role. Deforestation and environmental strain compounded the pressure.
Some evidence points to increased conflict and raiding in the decades before the final abandonment. Whatever the combination, by thirteen hundred the canyons around Cortez were empty of their builders. The Ancestral Puebloans did not vanish.
Their descendants are the Hopi, Zuni, and Rio Grande Pueblo peoples of today, who trace their lineage to these communities and regard these sites as sacred places of their ancestors.
