Canyon of the Ancients National Monument was home to the Anasazi people as early at 7500 B.C. For the past 8500 years, the Ancestral Puebloans, nomadic Ute and Navajo tribes have moved in and out of the region.
The area was once a spot for villages, field houses, check dams, reservoirs, great kivas, cliff dwellings, shrines, sacred springs, agricultural fields, petroglyphs and sweat lodges.
Now the highest density of archeology sites in the United States, the monument was designated a National Monument in June of 2000 by President Clinton. In the 164,000 acres the monument covers, there are 20,000 - 30,000 archeology sites.
In some places such as the Mockingbird Mesa, there are as many as 40 sites per square mile. Located in the 4 corners area, the park is 28 miles from Mancos, 10 miles north of Cortez, just west of Dolores.
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