The high desert of northwest New Mexico is a windswept and endless landscape of rolling red hills and dramatic rock formations. These are ancient lands, home to some of the oldest civilizations in North America. For millennia, the Puebloan people thrived in this desert environment. They constructed massive settlements, built from mud and stone and supported by wood gathered from the surrounding mountain forests.
In Chaco Canyon stands the ruins of one of these settlements. Pueblo Bonito was a sprawling building that stood five stories tall and contained more than 600 rooms. At its peak around 1080 CE, Pueblo Bonito may have housed up to 1,000 people in a kind of ancient apartment complex.
For hundreds of years, Pueblo Bonito marked the cultural epicenter of the Desert Southwest. Then, the Puebloans disappeared. By the 14th century, Pueblo Bonito was abandoned. To
