The ancestral Pueblo People of Mesa Verde, Canyon of the Ancients, and Hovenweep

Around 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a people living in the Four Corners region chose this area for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished in this area, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, in the late A.D. 1200s, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away. Mesa Verde National Park, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, and Hovenweep National Monument preserves the spectacular reminder of this ancient culture.