Chaco Culture


One of the best stops I made in New Mexico was at Chaco Culture National Park. This is the site of many ancient and fabulously preserved pueblos that date from between AD 850 and 1250. It's really a remarkable place, perhaps - from an archaeological point of view - one of the most significant sites in the USA. It is also one of the most beautiful, as the canyon itself is a gorgeous expanse of colored mesas and desert scrub, throughout which rise the crumbling citadels of a culture lost to time. One of the most fascinating walks takes you under the ridge of the mesa that most of the sites are built around, a ridge that is decorated with fascinating pictographs depicting people and animals (and, unfortunately, a few more modern gnashes of graffiti as well.) Being in Chaco is like folding back the curtains of prehistory.

Take a trip to New Mexico and check it out!


One of the larger pueblos


Pueblo with one of its great kivas




Details of some of the walls


Pectographs!


Pueblo with rabbit


My first glimpse of a collared lizard in the wild! A herpetologist's perk in Chaco.