Also in the southwest part of Colorado is a national park called “Canyons of the Ancients”. It’s a large and spread out park containing several areas where ancient Puebloans built structures and lived. Much of the area is only accessible by 4-wheel drive, but we visited one spot called Lowry Pueblo where there is a great house with over 100 rooms and it’s estimated that several hundred people lived there at one time. Like most of the other ancient puebloan sites, it was occupied in the 1100-1200s and was abandoned in the late 1200s. It was previously thought that the abandonment of all the ancient puebloan sites in such a short timeframe had extra-terrestrial roots (ET came and took them) or that there were wars among the native tribes, it is now thought that they simply felt it was time to move along to a new area. There could have been a drought and the resources may have been used up. Modern natives who can trace their ancestry, through oral history, to these sites feel that’s what happened – they decided to move along. Modern natives still visit many of these sites to speak to their ancestors and hold ceremonies.

At Lowry Pueblo some of the walls were reconstructed and some were dug out partially. The interior section of the great house where all the rooms are connected and at least 2 stories high, is protected by a modern roof against further wind and rain erosion. The pueblo is built on a small hill with great 360 degree views!

Here are some pictures we took: