Other ruins worth exploring around Arizona.
Links to 7 ruins areas in Arizona managed by the National Park Service. mjh
Clear Sky Clock
This is a very interesting site intended for astronomers. Projecting over the next 48 hours, it predicts 4 qualities affecting sky watchers / star gazers: cloud cover, transparency, ‘seeing’, and darkness. Naturally, Chaco has a pretty dark sky.
What really makes me note this site are the links below the “clock” to various other sites, particularly the Topo Map and Star Map links. Pretty cool.
Also, look for the link to ‘All New Mexico’. From the home page, you can see similar data for points all around the globe. This site and its links are worth some time exploring. mjh
Southern New Mexico (.com)
Southern New Mexico Travel and Tourism Information: SouthernNewMexico.com
SouthernNewMexico.com features New Mexico travel, tourism, and community information. It is your guide to New Mexico attractions, businesses, communities, destinations, events, real estate and history.
There are currently 457 articles on this site.
Recommended by Jas. (Thanks!) mjh
Have you been to the southernnewmexico.com website? There’s a few very cool articles and a little piece on Bat Cave in Catron County where I did my master’s work. It’d be a fun area to cruise some lazy day. Also stuff on pueblos in that part of the state.
Around Albuquerque
A Virtual Tour of Albuquerque, New Mexico presented by Douglas Aurand & Associates
This site lets you sweep a camera around various spots in Albuquerque. It’s mostly commercial (ice cream parlour, hotel, etc) and a little touristy (zoo, balloon fiesta). mjh
Metropolitan Chaco
Nice long article on Chaco from the Albuquerque Journal. mjh
My Chaco site: www.mjhinton.com/chaco/
My Outliers site: www.mjhinton.com/outliers/
ABQjournal: Metropolitan Chaco By James Abarr
A capsule look at six major sites easily accessed from a paved, nine-mile loop road through the center of Chaco Canyon:
UNA VIDA: A largely unexcavated pueblo near the Visitor Center, where the loop road begins. Estimated to contain 150 rooms and five kivas. Tree-ring samples place the start of construction in A.D. 850.
HUNGO PAVI: A medium-size pueblo of 73 rooms and two kivas. Tree-ring dates show that the dwelling was built in stages from A.D. 943 to 1047.
CHETRO KETL: Second largest pueblo in Chaco Canyon with 500 rooms and 12 kivas, including rare tower kivas, built in the shape of the letter “E” around broad central plazas. Construction phases date from A.D. 883 to 1117.
PUEBLO BONITO: Largest of the Chaco communities. This massive D-shaped structure, extending over more than three acres of ground, contains 650 rooms and 32 kivas built around two plazas. Constructed in phases from A.D. 828 to 1103, the pueblo was four stories high in places.
PUEBLO DEL ARROYO: A partially excavated pueblo on the banks of Chaco Wash with 284 rooms and 14 kivas. Tree-ring dates place start of construction in A.D. 1052.
CASA RINCONADA: One of the largest kivas, or subterranean ceremonial chamber, ever found in the Southwest. What archaeologists call a “Great Kiva,” it measures 62 feet in diameter and was constructed in A.D. 1054. Features include an encircling masonry bench, antechambers, a large raised firebox and floor vaults.
OTHER MAJOR CHACO SITES: Include Peñasco Blanco, Casa Chiquita, Kin Kletso, Tsin Kletsin, Wijiji and Pueblo Alto, built atop the north rim of the canyon. All date from about A.D. 900 to 1100 and are accessible by foot trails of varying distances.
If you go
WHAT: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior; telephone (505) 786-7014.
WHERE: In northwest New Mexico. Best access route from Albuquerque is I-25 to Bernalillo and U.S. 550 to County Road 7900, 50 miles west of Cuba. Turn left, route to the park (21 miles) is clearly marked on paved CR-7900, five miles, and CR-7950, 16 miles of dirt road to park boundary.
HOURS: Visitor Center, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. However, park trails and campground remain open year-round.
FEES: $8 per vehicle.
FACILITIES:
Visitor Center has an information desk, museum, theater, book store and gift shop. Picnic tables with shade shelters are provided nearby.
Nine-mile paved loop road through the canyon passes the ruins of Una Vida, Hungo Pave, Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo del Arroyo and Casa Rinconada. Self-guiding trails available at each site.
Four back-country hiking trails provide access to other major ruins. Permits required. These are free and are available at the Visitor Center.
Gallo Campground, one mile east of the Visitor Center, offers camping in a picturesque area of petroglyphs, a cliff dwelling and high-desert landscape. There are 48 well-equipped campsites available on a first-come basis at $10 a night. Camping limited to seven days.
Trailers and RVs more than 30 feet long cannot be accommodated.
Read the full article …
Continue reading Metropolitan Chaco
Mesa Verde Centenial in 2006
Mesa Verde National Park Centennial 1906-2006
Mesa Verde National Park is the premier archeological park in the United States and a World Cultural Heritage Site. The cultural and natural resources in the Mesa Verde region are significant both nationally and internationally. On June 29, 2006 Mesa Verde will celebrate 100 years as the first National Park set aside to preserve the works of man. In order to commemorate such a significant milestone, Mesa Verde National Park staff, the Mesa Verde Museum Association, and ARAmark Mesa Verde Company, our park concessionaire, are working together to plan a year long celebration in 2006.
Save the San Juan Basin
Forest Service says drilling in HDs is a year away By Dale Rodebaugh, Herald Staff Writer
The Colorado portion of the San Juan Basin is much smaller than the remainder, which lies in New Mexico. … Already, some 20,000 gas wells dot the southern San Juan Basin landscape. The 10,000 new wells would be drilled over 20 years.
“We’re not at the what if” level,” [San Juan National Forest Supervisor Mark] Stiles said. “Our task is to analyze drilling on definite proposals.”
Stiles was talking about 56 of 70 wells proposed for a roadless area in the HD Mountains, which lie in La Plata and Archuleta counties. Coal-bed methane developers have made applications to drill in specific spots there.
alibi . february 12 – 18, 2004
As part of a recent round of updated policy-making, Bureau of Land Management officials, under authority of the Interior Department, decided to permit roughly 10,000 new oil and natural gas wells in the San Juan Basin. The permits would be good for the next several decades.
Some folks in northern New Mexico were not happy about this, and as a result, an odd coalition of ranchers, Navajo representatives and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against BLM in Washington, D.C., last week seeking to minimize the number of permits while drawing attention to environmental concerns.
The San Juan Citizens Alliance organizes for the land and people of the San Juan Basin. Our major priorities includle protecting wildlife and wildlands, advocating greater corporate and governmental responsibility in development of oil and gas resources, protecting and restoring rivers, and promoting basic civil rights and civil liberties for all residents.
The Four Corners Region of the southwestern United States (CO-NM-AZ-UT) is amazing. The San Juan area of southwestern Colorado is breath-taking. It was raped a century ago by miners who didn’t give a damn; shall we watch history repeat itself? mjh
Grade School Studies of Chaco
Y-Press Online | Archaeology lesson takes students to Colorado dig center By Cameron Johnson, 15, Y-PRESS
Eighth-grade students in an accelerated-learning program at Hannibal (Mo.)Middle School spend the year learning about the Anasazis – a Pueblo Indian civilization in the Mesa Verde region during the 10th to 13th centuries. Just before graduation, they take all they’ve learned to the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colo., where they spend a week immersing themselves in the Anasazi culture.
Wolves North and South
New Predator in Yellowstone Reshapes Park’s Entire Ecosystem (washingtonpost.com)
Nine years have elapsed since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imported 15 gray wolves from Canada to colonize Yellowstone, wolfless since 1926, when hunters finished exterminating them as unwelcome pests and dangerous predators.
Today, the park has 250 to 300 wolves, too many to track them all with radio collars. They are no longer classified as an endangered species, but are now “threatened,” and, if a dispute between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Wyoming is resolved, they may soon be “delisted” altogether, allowing carefully controlled hunting.
But, for scientists, this triumph is only the beginning. Wolves, it turns out, constitute a “keystone species” that is reshaping an entire ecosystem in ways not foreseen when researchers began a crossed-fingers experiment in wildlife preservation.
Compare the successful reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone with the difficulties near the Gila Wilderness, where local obstructionist hoodlums kill the Mexican gray wolves (los lobos). mjh
ABQjournal: Two Female Wolves Found Dead
Thirteen wolves have been found dead in Arizona and New Mexico since March 2003, some from gunshot wounds and auto collisions and others from still unknown causes.
Wilderness Volunteers
Trips are one week long and are limited to 12 or fewer participants. Meals are included in the trip price.Participants share camp chores. Most trips include extra time to explore and enjoy the area in which they are based. Wilderness Volunteers teaches and follows Leave No Trace outdoor living skills and ethics. Participants provide their own camping gear (a list specific to each trip will be mailed with registration confirmation), a sense of adventure, and a willingness to contribute time and energy to worthy projects.
Hummingbirds, Raptors and Owls
See this link for Audubon birding opportunities, including 3 lectures (2/19 hummers, 3/18 raptors, and 4/15 owls). mjh
Central New Mexico Audubon Society Field Trip Schedule
EL MORRO NATIONAL MONUMENT
ABQjournal: Enchanting El Morro a Lasting Record of Past Travelers By James Abarr, For the Journal
EL MORRO NATIONAL MONUMENT — On the western slopes of the Zuni Mountains, 42 miles southwest of Grants, a golden sandstone mesa offers a unique tapestry of New Mexico’s yesterday.
For more than 250 years, the soaring cliffs of El Morro, rising 200 feet above the ancient Zuni Trail, beckoned travelers to rest in their shelter. It was an idyllic camping place in a small forest of juniper and pines beside a catch-basin, which trapped rainfall and melting snow runoff and never failed to provide ample water.
Through the centuries, these Spanish and American passers-by carved their names and a record of their deeds into the soft sandstone walls. The result is more than 1,000 inscriptions — a remarkable history book in stone which has been set aside as El Morro National Monument. …
If you go
WHAT: El Morro National Monument, administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior; telephone: (505) 783-4226.
WHERE: In west-central New Mexico, 42 miles southwest of Grants via N.M. 53.
HOURS: Open daily except Christmas and New Year’s; summer hours, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.; remainder of year, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
FEES: $3 a person; children under 17, no charge.
FACILITIES: Visitor Center provides information, brochures and guide books, and a 15-minute video introduction to the monument.
A museum features exhibits covering 700 years of human presence at El Morro.
Campsites and picnic areas are located within the monument. An RV park is available near the monument entrance.
ACTIVITIES: Inscription Rock Trail, a paved one-half mile loop, leads past the major inscriptions at the base of the mesa.
Mesa Top Trail, a 2-mile-long roundtrip loop, offers panoramic views from the summit of El Morro and provides access to two prehistoric Anasazi Indian pueblos. One pueblo, which dates to the 13th century, has been partially excavated.
Continue reading EL MORRO NATIONAL MONUMENT
Anasazi Migrations into Hohokam Territory
Very interesting informative article about studies of Anasazi migration into Hohokam territory in Arizona. Several cool photos, including the first rectangular kiva I’ve seen attributed to Anasazi. mjh
Pueblo groups moved to San Pedro River sites in 13th century by PAUL L. ALLEN, Tucson Citizen
The Pueblos, from the Tusayan and Kayenta areas, brought with them prized obsidian and pottery, but they strained the economy in southern Arizona’s river valleys.
Evidence shows that platform mounds began appearing about 1275, coinciding with the migrants’ arrival.
”This may be more than a coincidence,” said Jeffrey Clark of the Center for Desert Archaeology. ”The mounds serve integrative functions inside the villages but also could have served as territorial markers for the irrigation communities – an architectural message directed to the migrants that ‘We were here first; this is our turf.’ ”
The Tucson-based, nonprofit center has spent more than a dozen years studying the northern San Pedro River Valley. The area, from around Benson north to the river’s confluence with the Gila River, is the last relatively undisturbed riparian setting in the southern Southwest. …
The Hohokam and Hohokam-influenced groups living in the San Pedro Valley north of today’s Redington in the late 1200s likely were puzzled by construction being done by their new neighbors about seven miles south, an area now called Davis Ranch.
Architecture was an important aspect of the socio-religious organization of southern Arizona communities.
While the locals constructed formal platform mounds, 6 to 8 feet tall upon which important ceremonies were conducted, their new neighbors were digging an underground room – a kiva that also would serve a ceremonial function.
This second article is shorter but chock full of new (to me) places and names in Arizona. Lots of new things to investigate. mjh
Ancient sites reveal clues to life, death of a culture by PAUL L. ALLEN, Tucson Citizen
The movement of Pueblo migrants from the Four Corners region to the southern San Pedro Valley and from northern New Mexico into the Rio Grande Valley to the south between the mid-1100s and the late 1300s was greeted with mixed reactions by the ”locals.”
In some communities, archaeological evidence indicates the newcomers coexisted peacefully and over time were simply absorbed. But evidence suggests not all encounters were so peaceful.
Reeve Ruin, a Pueblo community north of what now is Cascabel, is defensively located atop a high cliff. It was protected by stone walls fashioned with narrow openings that limited access to the village itself. The site was excavated in the 1950s by Charles Di Peso of the Amerind Foundation.
Curiously, the Davis Ranch site, a second migrant village located on a flat across the river from Reeve, also excavated by Amerind, appears to have no such defensive aspects.
NewMexicoPhotos.com
My friend and colleague, Lisa Tannenbaum, has created a very cool site of photos of New Mexico (including Chaco and Bosque del Apache). You can even send email cards and download wallpaper — all for free. mjh