Kiva Aztec Ruins


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Unknown Bloom Brothers Company, Minneapolis, Minnesotta 1508-1461-0000.jpg IN-PR-1461 B&W 1508-1461-0000 1508-1461-0000 Postcard 3x5 Historic Photographs 1920s Reproduction requires permission. Digital images property of SHM Library & Archives

Description

Aztec Ruins National Monument is widely known for the Great Kiva. The Great Kiva is a 40-foot diameter semi-subterranean structure which was the central religious site of the complex. Today it is the largest reconstructed Kiva in the United States.

Archaeological work began in 1916. Under the direction of Earl H. Morris of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, the true story of Aztec Ruins was uncovered. Mistakenly considered to be Aztec in origin by early white settlers, the site actually contains the ruins of a 12th-century Ancestral Pueblo settlement built by people associated with Chaco Canyon to the south.

The Ancestral Pueblo people, formerly known as Anasazi, were ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians. They lived in pueblos, multilevel communal dwellings constructed of sandstone, mud, and stones. Pueblos consisted of numerous rooms and housed hundreds of people. Ladders made of timber were used to reach the upper levels. The site was used by people associated with the 13th-century inhabitants of what is now Mesa Verde National Park (to the northwest in southwestern Colorado) and was abandoned about 1300.

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