Mesa Village Trail Self-Guided Tour Preview

Welcome to Chimney Rock National Monument and the Mesa Village Trail. You’re about to take a trip back a thousand years in time when this mesa was home to the ancestral Puebloans. Along your walk, you’ll see and hear about the daily lives of these people: their homes, their food, and their traditions. They built extraordinary structures here. They watched the sky and studied the two rock pinnacles that dominate the horizon. They traded and intermingled with other villages up to 150 miles away. And they worked, played, and raised their children right where you’re standing.

You may have heard the term “Anasazi’ used to refer to the people who lived here and throughout southwest Colorado. “Anasazi” is a Navajo word that generally means “ancient ones who are not our people." Today we use the term ancestral Puebloans to refer to those who came before, and to show a connection to those who are here today.

While much is known about their lives, much more remains a mystery. Why did they come? Why did they leave? As you consider their lives, you’ll probably begin to make your own theories to answer these questions.

The Mesa Village Trail is ¼ mile long, paved, and accessible to people with wheelchairs. For your safety, please stay on the trail, carry water, and don’t forget the sunscreen!

You’ll begin your tour by walking along the sidewalk to the west. Please stop when you reach the interpretive panel entitled The Ultimate Outlier.

Chimney Rock was a substantial settlement in its time, with people living here between AD 925 and 1125.

But the residents of Chimney Rock were not an isolated people. Chimney Rock was part of a larger regional community with its hub at Chaco Canyon, nearly 100 miles southwest of here in what is now New Mexico. Chimney Rock has been called the “ultimate outlier” because it has the potential to tell us much about the golden era of Chacoan culture.

What did it mean to be an “outlier?” We think people may have traveled to Chimney Rock from Chaco Canyon or from other outlying communities to attend trade festivals where they could take advantage of the rich resources here at Chimney Rock – game animals, medicinal plants, pottery, corn, timber, and other goods. Or, they may have come for religious ceremonies centered around astronomical events with the sun and the moon- such as a solstice, equinox, or a rare lunar event that only happens every 18.6 years – the Northern Major Lunar Standstill.

There are two primary clues that tell us about Chimney Rock’s connection to the larger Chacoan community. The biggest clue by far is the architecture of the Great House, whose style shows a direct connection to Chaco culture. The second clue is pottery. Styles and materials of Chimney Rock and Chaco pottery appear to have been shared back and forth. Taken together, the architecture and the pottery point to a strong relationship between Chimney Rock and Chaco Canyon.

Although the Ancestral Puebloans are the most well-known people to live here, they were probably not the first. People may have passed through the fertile Piedra River Valley as early as 14,000 years ago. While archaeologist have no direct evidence for people in the Piedra River valley this early, as with many valleys, the Piedra River valley was a travel corridor for people and animals to move from place to place. People may have followed the lower Piedra River and San Juan River upstream to the Chimney Rock area.

Over thousands of years, the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle of these early people changed to one that was more farming-based. People started growing corn and beans, and in some areas squash. This meant that they needed to stay close to tend to their crops, rather than migrate with the seasons and animals.

As you gaze over the valley, imagine living along the river near your crops, ever watchful for opportunities to supplement your diet with the elk or deer that migrate through here. You may see travelers from other communities passing through. Perhaps they are heading to a festival or to trade their pottery for some building logs. As it turns out, this picture does not take a lot of imagination since it’s very similar what you’re seeing today! Perhaps our lifestyle needs and desires are not so different from those of the ancestral Puebloans.

Please continue along the trail about to the next interpretive panel on the right entitled A Livelihood in This Landscape.

As you can see for yourself, the people of Chimney Rock had commanding views of their neighborhood! From here you can see the Piedra River Valley and the valley where corn would have been grown. Also visible is Peterson Ridge, the long rock outcrop high above the valley floor.

But why would you build your home up here - far above the valley - when it was much easier to find water, food, and firewood down below? Maybe this is where people of a higher status lived? Maybe it was not inhabited year-round, but was used primarily as a ceremonial center? Or maybe it was all these reasons!

Look for evidence of unexcavated pit houses, sometimes called crater mounds. They look like round circles of broken rocks with a hole in the center.

Over 800 years ago, this mound of dirt and stone probably housed an extended family of 5 to 8 people. This was a common pit house structure, although at this location it wasn’t really in a pit but rather an above-ground home of sticks and mud. In other locations where the bedrock is lower, pit houses are partially below ground level.

There are clues to be found near the pit houses that provide a great deal of information about the daily lives of the ancestral Puebloans. These clues are found in “middens” - accumulations of discarded refuse that tell us about the food, clothing, pottery, and daily life of the mesa’s residents. The middens here have shown that the ancestral Puebloans ate fish, rabbits, elk, deer, and mountain sheep. Surprisingly porcupines were also a favorite food! Turkeys were domesticated for their feathers, eggs, and meat.

The ancestral Puebloans grew corn and beans, and gathered wild plants such as Indian Rice Grass, Goosefoot, Chokecherry, and Serviceberry.

What could people tell about you from the contents of your dumpster?

Please follow the trail to the next interpretive panel entitled Where is the Water?

The ancestral Puebloans were creative and capable people who made efficient use of the resources at hand to meet their daily needs. For example, have you seen any water sources along this trail?

How did they get the water they needed for farming, cooking, and drinking? Although we don’t know the answer for sure, it is likely that the ancestral Puebloans built small reservoirs, check dams, and other structures to catch and control this vital resource. It is also possible that they hauled water up from the Piedra River below – a monumental but necessary job.

Another resource that the ancestral Puebloans maximized is the yucca plant that you can see growing off to the side, a few steps back up the trail. It looks like a clump of pointy spears growing out of the ground. The people of Chimney Rock pounded yucca leaves into fibers that they could then weave into sandals. Yucca fibers were woven with feathers and fur into warm blankets and clothing. The list goes on: ropes, mats, and game nets to name a few. They could eat the flowers and seed pods of the yucca, and even make soap out of its roots!

As you drove into Chimney Rock National Monument, you probably noticed the pinnacles standing high above the surrounding landscape. The Monument is named for these amazing rock formations. These iconic pillars began their building process about 40 million years ago in a vast and shallow sea. They are the thickest and hardest portions of an ancient beach front, and so resisted weather, water, and glacial erosion more so than the surrounding rock.

But the people of Chimney Rock were focused on the pinnacles for reasons other than their geological history. Once every 18.6 years, the full moon would rise between the two pinnacles, a rare and significant event for the ancestral Puebloans. This alignment could be seen best from a location higher up on the mesa at the Great House Pueblo.

Careful watching and understanding of the earth and moon cycles were critical to the ancestral Puebloans for many reasons. They had to be able to predict when to plant and when to harvest. They needed to know when to travel to trade festivals or when to conduct ceremonial rituals. Those who were able to predict weather cycles, and interpret the mysteries of the heavens, would probably have achieved political and religious power and respect.

At this stop and the next, there is plenty to help you visualize the lives of the ancestral Puebloans – both the daily grind and the more exceptional events of community, ceremony, and tradition.

At the edge of the pit house near the largest pinon tree, take note of the three work rooms. Stand quietly and imagine the sounds of stones being hammered into axes, scrapers working leather, corn being ground into flour, and hand drills slowing pushing holes through stone beads and leather hides. Artifacts found in these rooms tell the tale of all these jobs! In fact, you can see the mano and metate on the ground that were used for the corn-grinding task.

These rooms also stored corn, pots, and ceremonial items. They were the workshop and the pantry of the pit house.

Now look toward the main part of the house. Here you will find some clever technology used in its construction. The lower walls were made of stone and mud mortar, while the upper walls used sticks instead of stones. The roof was supported by log posts and covered with smaller poles, sticks and mud. The front door was actually a hole, up on the roof, and accessed by a ladder. This hole also served as a chimney! Inside the pit house, on the south side of the wall there is a ventilation shaft for incoming fresh air. The residents would have had a stone in front of this opening to deflect air from going directly through the fire pit in the center of the house.

Please continue to your right to the Great Kiva.

As you gaze into the sunken circle of the Great Kiva, can you picture a community potluck? While we don’t know for sure how this kiva was used, it probably hosted social gatherings, meetings, and religious ceremonies. And it is indeed Great.

Archaeologists refer to any kiva over 35 feet in diameter as great – this one is 44 feet across! The structure in the middle may have been a fire pit but since there is no evidence of a fire ever burning there, we can’t be sure. The rectangular stone structures on either side of the fire pit may have been used as foot drums to keep time with songs and chants. Can you imagine the voices mingling with the drums?

Overall, the people of Chimney Rock led a relatively healthy and peaceful life here on this mesa. So why did they leave?

Perhaps they depleted their local plant and animal resources. Perhaps a period of drought and cooler weather made farming too difficult. Perhaps they left in search of better land with a more predictable water supply. Perhaps there was a collapse of the astronomy-based religion if leaders failed to predict events or adequately explain rare phenomena in the skies. Perhaps there was social unrest coupled with more attractive belief systems elsewhere.

Or perhaps it was simply time to go. The Pueblo people have a long history of migration, always on the lookout for signs that they had arrived at the Center Place- their homeland.

For modern Puebloans, the spirits of the Ancient Ones are still here. Chimney Rock is a place of cultural continuity for them. It is a place where their story continues. It gives life to the memory of their ancestors, their great, great, great, great, great, grandparents.

Along the Great Kiva Trail, you’ve peeked into the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans who lived here at Chimney Rock. You’ve seen some reasons why they came, learned about how they lived, and heard some thoughts about why they left. This is, indeed, a remarkable place, where geology, astronomy, archaeology, and living cultures intersect, bringing people together across time in a sense of wonder.

This concludes the Mesa Village Trail Audio Tour. Thank you for visiting Chimney Rock National Monument, on the San Juan National Forest. We hope you enjoyed your visit!

The music on this audio presentation was composed and performed by local Native American flute-player Charles Martinez.