As ancient ruins decay, experts say: Bury them By Katy Human and Electa Draper
Denver Post Staff Writers

[T]his summer, workers will dump tons of desert dirt to protect the original architecture in Chaco’s Pueblo del Arroyo, covering the lower walls to keep wind, water and temperature swings at bay. [Crews have filled in about one-quarter of the rooms at Chaco, some with just a couple of feet of dirt, others with 6 feet.]

At Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, they’ll continue work on the National Park Service’s largest project to date: the reburial of more than 100 rooms painstakingly excavated a century ago.

And at Chimney Rock, experts will soon decide whether to cover a great house and a kiva, the structures that draw virtually all the site’s annual 10,000 tourists. [Late this year or early next year, the Forest Service will decide whether to leave the site as it is, fill it in or find some middle ground.]

At a few Southwestern sites, backfilling has gone on quietly for several years, said Todd Metzger, a Park Service archaeologist in Arizona.

Now it’s either happening or proposed at almost all federal ruins because of what he calls a “crisis situation” in stabilization.