Hovenweep National Monument

If you wanted to see many excellent Ancient Puebloan Anasazi ruins in a concentrated canyon community, all stabilized but not otherwise reconstructed, then Hovenweep National Monument would be your place.

It must have been an amazing, vibrant community at one time. The long arm of Little Ruin Canyon is lined with mortared rock buildings of many shapes, sizes, and uses, all easily accessible along the upper mesa perimeter of the canyon itself. This community did not try for defensibility or obscure locations with difficult access, but instead built a pretty “town” that was walkable and very communal.

The Square Tower Group is the main Ancestral Puebloan setting in the monument, though there are five other sites as well. This group of buildings peered over the edge of the canyon and looked back and forth to buildings on both sides. There were buildings of many shapes and styles: rectangular, circular, D-shaped, single story, multi-story, tower, and under the overhang of sandstone. Most were built in the AD 1200s by farming Anasazi, who were more recently referred to as the Ancestral Puebloans.

Hovenweep was a national monument, part of the US National Park Service. So it included an informative visitors center with rangers, nicely maintained parks, and guidebooks with some signage. Tours of the ruins were provided in warmer months. You could spend many days exploring the area there.