Pueblo Alto

Pueblo Alto ("High Village" in Spanish) is a Chacoan Anasazi great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, northwestern New Mexico, United States. The complex, comprising 89 rooms in a single-story layout, is located on a mesa top near the middle of Chaco Canyon; 0.6 miles (1 km) from Pueblo Bonito, it was begun between 1020 and 1050 AD. Its location made the community visible to most of the inhabitants of the San Juan Basin; indeed, it was only 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north of Tsin Kletsin, on the opposite side of the canyon. The community was the center of a bead- and turquoise-processing industry that influenced the development of all villages in the canyon; chert tool production was also common. It shares its mesa with another great house, Nuevo Alto, both of which are now protected within the borders of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Usage

Research at the site suggests that only a handful of families, perhaps as few as five to twenty, lived in the complex; this may imply that Pueblo Alto served a primarily non-residential role.harvnb|Fagan|2005|pp=10-11.]

Citations

References

* Harvard reference
Last1 = Fagan
Given1 = B
Year = 2005
Title = Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society
Publisher = Oxford University Press
ID = ISBN 0-19-517043-1.