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Aztec Ruins National Monument preserves structures and artifacts of Ancestral
Pueblo people from the 1100's through 1200s. People associated with Chaco
Canyon to the south built and used the structures, then people related to
the Mesa Verde region to the north used the site in the 1200's. The monument
was established in 1923, and designated a World Heritage Site in 1987. Acreage:
319.47
Aztec's 200-year history of inhabitation was influenced by two centers of
Anasazi culture. Sixty five miles south lay Chaco, a narrow canyon whose
floor was filled with structures built over several centuries. During the
1000s and 1100s, Chaco exerted widespread influence as an economic and ceremonial
center throughout the 25,000-square-mile San Juan Basin. By the late 1000s
, Aztec joined many other outlying settlements which exhibited Chacoan style
architecture, ceramics, and connecting roads. Their residents participated
in what archeologists call the Chaco Phenomenon, an extensive social and
economic system which reached far beyond the canyon walls at Chaco. With
the collapse of this system in the mid 1100s, life changed at Aztec. A few
decades later, people culturally akin to the dwellers of the rugged Mesa
Verde country forty miles northwest occupied this area. This second group
remodeled the old buildings, using techniques characteristic of the Mesa
Verde region. They were farmers and hunters as were the earlier Chacoans,
and they prospered for a few generations. But by 1300 they moved on, as
did other inhabitants of the region. Today, the Puebloan peoples maintain
a rich culture influenced by their ancestors who once occupied this broad
expanse. |
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