Nearly one thousand years ago the Puebloan Indians migrated into the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. The hunter/gatherers liked the weather and terrain and so they decided to build themselves homes in the cliffs and mountains. The Navaho Indians called the earlier settlers Anasazi, which meant “Ancient Ones.” After spending a great deal of time at Mesa Verde the Anasazi moved south and built a large kiva and community called Aztec. About 600 years ago the Puebloan Indians just simply disappeared from Aztec.
Do not be confused by the name. The “Aztec Ruins” as the installation is called, were not built by the Aztec Indians of central America. These and other, similar facilities were constructed by ancestral Puebloan people centuries before the Aztec empire. The term “Aztec Ruins” dates back hundreds of years to Spanish maps of the 1800’s. In the early days the site was subject to looting and other misuse.
Aztec, New Mexico is a small town south of Durango and the National Park Service has established a monument there based on the ruins of the settlement. It is an active archeological exploration site and the scientists are still trying to find out what happened to the Indians and why they disappeared.
The site is just an hour south of our campground on US 550 so we bundled up on Tuesday morning and headed to the National Monument. There is a small but very informative Visitor’s Center which features a 15-minute film explaining about the Indians, the site, and the excavation and reclamation efforts. There are many displays explaining the daily life of the Indians, how they hunted, plus the weapons and tools that they used. We scanned a QR code at the information desk and they after watching the film, set out along the paved path for a one-hour self-paced tour.
Some of the architecture is stunning. They knew to use multi-layer footers under the large pillars that hold up the 90-ton roof of the main Kiva. They inset ladders into the Kiva walls to allow people to easily enter and exit the great room. It is estimated that the Aztec installation has upwards of 400 rooms, many of which no one knows the purpose of. Many rooms are connected by low hung doorways – the Puebloan Indians were very short by contemporary standards. The interior rooms have short tunnels to the outside to provide some light and fresh air. There are several smaller round kiva rooms which were used for gatherings and sacred ceremonies.
This was a neat excursion. It was merely an hour away, provided a modicum of exercise, was profoundly interesting and left one with a sense of living history. By the way, current Puebloan people do not consider the site to be ruins, but just a currently unused settlement.
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