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 Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (the Monument) encompasses
165,000 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). The Monument is located in the Four Corners region
of southwestern Colorado, about 50 miles west of Durango, 10 miles
west of Cortez and 12 miles west of Mesa Verde National Park. The
Monument was designated on June 9, 2000 by Presidential
Proclamation to protect cultural and natural resources on a
landscape scale.
The Monument contains the highest known archaeological site density in the
United States, with rich, well-preserved evidence of native cultures.
The archeological record etched into this landscape is much more than
isolated islands of architecture. The more than 6,000 recorded sites reflect
all the physical components of past human life: villages, field houses,
check dams, reservoirs, great kivas, cliff dwellings, shrines, sacred springs,
agricultural fields, petroglyphs, and sweat lodges. Some areas have
more than 100 sites per square mile. The number of sites is estimated to
be 20,000 to 30,000 total. |
The Monument has been used or inhabited by humans, including the Northern
Ancestral Puebloan culture (or Anasazi), for 10,000 years, and continues
to be a landscape used by humans today. Historic uses of the Monument include
recreation, hunting, livestock grazing and energy development.
The planning process now
underway will determine how to protect objects of scientific and historic
interest identified in the Proclamation (i.e., archaeology, geology, biology),
and how historic uses will be managed. Until the plan is completed, three
sets of interim guidance have been provided by the Secretary of the Interior
and BLM National and State Directors. In brief, this interim
guidance directs the BLM to maintain existing policies, designations
and allocations, except where changes are necessary to comply with the Proclamation.
The Draft Resource Management Plan is now available and public comments will be accepted through January 30th, 2008. For a summary of the draft plan, download the PowerPoint file (14.7 MB).
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