Ancestral Puebloan Homes

Once upon a time, more than 500 ancient people lived in the Frijoles Canyon and Pajarito Plateau area near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Now a part of Bandelier National Monument, Frijoles Canyon contains numerous remains of a number of ancestral pueblo homes, some that are rock structures and others in caves produced by voids in the volcanic "tuff" of the canyon wall that have been further carved out by human hand.

The 33,677-acre canyon and mesa country of Bandelier is part of the Pajarito Plateau formed by two eruptions of the Jemez Volcano which is 14 miles to the northwest. Happening more than one million years ago, each eruption is calculated to have been more than 600 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The pink rock of the canyon wall may look like sandstone but is actually volcanic ash that was compacted over time into a soft crumbly rock called "tuff" that is very easily eroded by wind and rain. Over time, the exposed rock takes on a "Swiss cheese" appearance and the ancestral pueblo people used tools to enlarge some of the natural openings in the cliff face into rooms.

The panorama opens with a view in the distance of remains of the circular Tyuonyi Pueblo constructed in the mid-1300's on the canyon floor. It then rotates to show the entrance to one of the enlarged cave rooms with its entrance ladder.

Most of the pueblo structures in Bandelier date between 1150 and 1600 AD.

USA-Canada / USA-New Mexico

Lat: 35° 46' 58.03" N
Long: 107° 17' 24.22" W

Elevation: 1885m

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Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

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