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Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
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Chaco Culture National Historical Park & Aztec Ruins National Monument. NPS Photo
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Chaco Culture preserves a very special chapter
in human history and is comprised of several sites - Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins
National Monument and five units administered by the Bureau of Land Management: Twin Angels, Casamero,
Kin Nizhoni, Pierre's Site, and Halfway House.
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Chaco Culture National Historical Park & Aztec Ruins National Monument. NPS Photo
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Between AD 850 and 1250, Chaco Canyon was a major center
of ancestral Puebloan culture. Many diverse clans and peoples helped to create a ceremonial, trade, and
administrative center whose architecture, social organization and community life was unlike anything before
or since.
Chaco is remarkable for its monumental public
and ceremonial buildings and its distinctive architecture. The Chacoan people combined pre-planned architectural
designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center
of spectacular public architecture. Chaco was connected to over 150 communities throughout the region by
engineered roads and a shared vision of the world. After 1250, the people migrated from the area, moving
south, east, and west, to join relatives living on the Hopi Mesas, along the Rio Grande, and around Zuni
Mountain.
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Chaco Culture National Historical Park & Aztec Ruins National Monument. NPS Photo
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Inscribed in 1987 as a Cultural site, under Criteria C (iii).
Links
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
World Heritage Convention
