If not for the first photo, I might call this a study in blue from Albatrossity. I think my favorite is the snowmelt pools reflecting the turquoise sky. Probably not a surprise coming from someone who calls herself WaterGirl!
This is a two-part story about other ancient Puebloan sites that you might want to visit. The first is a place called Hovenweep; the second is a so-called Chacoan outlier site in southwestern Colorado.
The Ancestral Puebloan culture center in Chaco Canyon was not the only center of civilization in the southwestern US a millennia ago. There were others, including the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde (which most folks have heard about and even visited) as well as some which are less well known. Hovenweep, which lies on the border between southwestern Colorado and Southeastern Utah, is one of those.
The canyonlands at Hovenweep were peopled by hunters and farmers for millennia, but in mid 9th century AD these people started construction of larger permanent structures. Sometime between AD 1200 and 1300, they built some of the most amazing buildings of the time, multi-story towers of stone. Some are round, some are square, and all are built in sandstone canyons on very irregular sites. Some are right on the canyon edge.
The function(s) of these structures are a mystery; speculation has centered on defense, storage, celestial observation, ceremony, or perhaps all of the above. We might never know, since, like the Chacoans, the people who built these edifices fled to the current Pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico and the Colorado River basin in Arizona, after a series of devastating droughts at the end of the 13th Century. The Hopi and Zuni People, as well as all the Pueblo people of the Rio Grande Valley, are thought to be the descendants of the ancient architects of Hovenweep, Mesa Verde, and Chaco.
This is a square tower at Hovenweep, still standing after centuries of wear and tear in this hostile climate, perched directly on an irregular outcrop at the canyon edge.
On The Road After Dark – Albatrossity – Hovenweep and Chimney RockPost + Comments (22)