We recently visited Bandelier National Monument. I had been to Bandelier many years ago, but this was Barbara's first visit. Ancestral Pueblo people lived here from approximately 1150 CE to 1550 CE. When conditions changed, the inhabitants of this area joined other nearby pueblo communities along the Rio Grande. Many of these pueblo communities still exist.
Bandelier contains a valley with sheer cliffs of soft volcanic tuff.
The cliffs contain many natural erosion caves that the pueblo peoples enlarged.
Some built multilevel pueblos against the face of the cliffs.
One can clearly see where holes were carved into the cliff to support the timbers that formed the ceilings of one story and the floor of the next.
The monument has provided ladders so that visitors can view some of the rooms carved out in the cliff.
Above roof level there were some visible petroglyphs carved on the cliff.
(Can you find the turkey?)
Some villages were built on the valley floor with rooms surrounding a central plaza with a kiva.
An interesting dried grass seed head
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