PUEBLO BONITO
CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK
NEW MEXICO
PUEBLO BONITO
PLEASE STAY ON TRAIL
PUEBLO BONITO
Chaco Canyon National Monument was established bypresidential proclamation in 1907, owing largely to the efforts ofEdgar L. Hewett, Director of the Museum of New Mexico and theSchool of American Research, whose first of many expeditionsinto the canyon was in 1902.
Pueblo Bonito, “the pretty village,” has been known by that namesince at least as far back as 1840, and was probably named by Spanish orMexican soldiers or traders.
Excavation of Pueblo Bonito was begun in 1896 by RichardWetherill who homesteaded in the canyon, and by George H.Pepper of the American Museum of Natural History. The workwas financed by two wealthy young brothers from New York,Frederick and Talbot Hyde, who formed the Hyde ExploringExpedition for the purpose. In four seasons 190 rooms werecleaned out. Research was resumed by a joint National GeographicSociety—U.S. National Museum expedition in 1921 under thedirection of Neil M. Judd, who in seven summers completed theexcavation of 600 or more rooms and 33 kivas, and made extensivetests in the large trash mound, and in the plaza.
The Bonito Trail is about one-third of a milelong.[1]Along it you will find numbered markers corresponding to numberedparagraphs in this booklet. Please keep off all ruin walls.
1
Pueblo Bonito, probably the largest single prehistoricIndian building in the Southwest at the time it was constructed,represents the highest development of Anasazi architecture. Mostof the construction was between the years A.D. 1030 and 1079.The bulk of the wall’s thickness was made up of rough, unshapedrandom stones laid in mud mortar. Then the walls were veneered,inside and out, with the carefully fitted stone you see here. Thestone used for the facing, a hard, dense sandstone, was quarriedfrom a narrow band of rock at the top of the cliff behind thepueblo. So much of this stone was used to build the great housesof the canyon that most of it has been removed for a mile eastand west of Pueblo Bonito, but in other places the signs of ancientquarrying are still evident.
West end of Pueblo Bonito during excavationby Wetherill and Pepper in the 1890’s
The small, rectangular openings in this wall were vents forair and light in the lower rooms. The round holes are sockets forvigas, ceiling beams.
2
The large, broken stones here and to your left are whatremain of Threatening Rock, a large vertical slab of native rockwhich once stood separated from the cliff by a wide crack. Thepeople of Pueblo Bonito felt the threat of its fall, for using posts,mud, and stone masonry, they attempted to