Chaco Canyon becomes the centre of Ancestral Puebloan life

From about 850 to 1150, Chaco Canyon, in the high desert of north-western New Mexico, was the ceremonial and trading centre of the Ancestral Puebloan people. They built a dozen enormous stone 'great houses', such as Pueblo Bonito with 600 to 800 rooms and rising four or five storeys, aligned to the movements of the Sun and Moon, and connected by roads to some 150 outlying communities. Archaeologists found cacao residues from Mesoamerica, macaws and turquoise, which show long-distance trade. A long drought around 1130 to 1180 and political change led to the abandonment of the canyon. Modern Pueblo peoples trace their ancestry to Chaco.

Open on the timeline