Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado

This center has been operated by the BLM since 1988.
It is the starting point for visits to the
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument

ANASAZI:  Ancestral Pueblo peoples
The word Anasazi is Navajo for "Ancient Ones"

Chuska Puma by Charles Bruce
Pumas on Parade
a Public Art for Public Lands Project

painted white ware  AD 975-1150

Pueblo II period

from Mockingbird Mesa

Can you see....two baskets?....corn cobs and kernels?

"This section of a "pithouse floor" was removed intact from Grand Mesa Village during the Dolores Archaeological Project in order to save delicate, charred artifacts on its surface. Burned material survives for centuries because it has nothing for insects or bacteria to eat.  Wood fragments showed tree rings dating to AD 867.  The fire preserved one moment of Anasazi domestic life."

At this site, there is a steep, paved 1/2 mile trail that winds through the trees and shrubs along several switchbacks to reach a Pueblo at the top.

This sign was at the beginning of the trail...
I walked alone, I did not talk to myself loudly

"Escalante Pueblo was a compact village on a hilltop overlooking the Dolores River.

Archaeologists believe it was occupied three different times, based on tree-ring dating of the wood used in its construction. Ancestral Pueblo people built the main complex in AD 1129 and lived there for at least nine years. The Spanish explorers Escalante and Dominguez made note of this site in 1776 during their trek across the Southwest."

From this hilltop one can view the six directions significant to Native Americans - north, south, east, west, zenith(above) and nadir (below). It is a place to watch the sun during its yearly journey along the horizon, a place to gaze at the stars in the night sky, a place to observe and appreciate the diversity of the landscape that surrounds you.