AD 850 to 1250
Chaco Canyon was a major urban center of ancestral Puebloan
culture. Remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings,
engineering projects, astronomy, artistic achievements, and distinctive
architecture, it served as a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration
for the prehistoric Four Corners area for 400 years--unlike anything
before or since.
1250 to Present
Members of affiliated clans and religious societies from Hopi and the
Pueblos of New Mexico continued to return to Chaco on pilgrimages to
honor their ancestral homelands.
The Chacoan people did not just "disappear" when they left the Four
Corners area (shared state border area of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah,
Colrado) in the 13th century. They migrated from this area, moving
south, east and west to join relatives living on the Hopi mesas, along
the Rio Grande and around Zuni Mountain. Today, these people themselves tell stories of
migrations from Chaco to their present homelands.
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Chaco Canyon Photo Slide Show for the Virtual Tourist
