Digging Deep: Top Archaeological Sites in Colorado

Chimney Rock Interpretive Association

Colorado is a hotbed of archaeological exploration, and spring is the perfect time to get out there and learn about the ancient cultures and peoples that once called West of 105 home. Some sites are only open for tours in late spring and summer, so now is a great time to plan ahead.

CHIMNEY ROCK | SOUTHWEST

Located at the southern edge of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, Chimney Rock National Monument is a protected archaeological site that offers visitors the chance to walk in the footsteps of the ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco Canyon and follow pathways that haven’t changed for 1,000 years. The site covers seven square miles which includes 200 ancient homes and ceremonial buildings, several of which have been excavated for viewing and exploration including a great kiva, a pit house, a multi-family dwelling and a Chacoan-style great house. There is no entry fee to the Monument, but there is a charge for tours. All tours begin at the visitor cabin where fees are collected. Guests then drive in their own vehicles to High Mesa. Only people on tours may drive to the mesa top. The drive is 2.5 miles up a steep and winding gravel road to the upper parking lot (7,400 feet elevation), where both guided tours and audioguided tours begin. The ancient structures are not visible from the mesa top. Tours do not climb Chimney Rock nor Companion Rock. All tours are first come first serve and have a 25 person maximum. No reservations required. Tours of Chimney Rock are only available between May 15 through Sept. 30.

Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

CROW CANYON | CORTEZ

The mission of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is to empower present and future generations by making the human past accessible and relevant through archaeological research, experiential education and American Indian knowledge.

Offering students, teens and adults the opportunity to explore the field of archaeology in the middle of the richest archaeological region of the United States, Crow Canyon offers a variety of educational and travel programs as well as the chance to work alongside professional archaeologists in the field and in the lab, travel domestically and internationally with scholars, earn college credit through field school and send children to summer camps.

An excellent resource and the perfect accompaniment to a trip through the archaeological heartland of the US, Crow Canyon is located on a 170-acre campus about four miles northwest of Cortez and 15 miles west of the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park.

Facilities at Crow Canyon include the Gates Archaeology Laboratory, a lodge, six cabins and 10 rustic cabins modeled after Navajo hogans. There are also two learning centers, one of which is a replica of an ancient pithouse and the other a reconstructed pueblo.

There are several tour options at Crown Canyon including a free half-mile walking tour, an hour-long tour and a day-long option.

Matt Inden / Miles

UTE MOUNTAIN TRIBAL PARK | TOWAOC & CORTEZ

The first, and most important, thing to note about the Ute Mountain Tribal Park is that you must have a Ute guide to enter Ute Tribal mountain land; self-guided tours are not permitted in order to protect the fragile resources. Dogs are not allowed either.

The 125,000-acre park offers a veritable library of pictographs as well as cliff dwellings, surface ruins and artifacts that are interpreted by Ute Indians with a broad knowledge of Ute and Ancestral Puebloan cultures. The full day tour visits four magnificent cliff dwellings and requires scaling ladders and a three-mile walk on unpaved trails. With so many sites, both historic and prehistoric, preserved in their original state, the park is an absolute must for anyone who wants to learn about the people who lived in the area long before the European settlers turned up.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the park is Jackson Butte (shown below). Named for photographer William Henry Jackson, the butte is also known as Chimney Rock (but don’t confuse it with Chimney Rock National Monument which is 100 miles or so to the east).

There are two-hour tours available at 9:30 am and 1 pm and one-hour tours at 10 am and midday. There is also an audio-guided tour of the kiva between 10 am – 3 pm.

EAGLE ROCK SHELTER | DELTA COUNTY

One of the less-visited sites in Colorado also happens to be one of the oldest. Located in Delta County in Gunnison Gorge National Recreation Area (GGNCA), Eagle Rock Shelter is around 13,000 years old.

Eagle Rock sits in an ideal location for hunters and gatherers and later on farmers thanks to the Gunnison River which meant no concerns about water. When the Gunnison River exits the Black Canyon, it bends slightly west before cutting through riverine sedimentary rocks that make up the gorge in which Eagle Rock is located. As the Gunnison River began cutting downward through the riverine deposits, it moved from side to side, cutting through softer sediments and leaving behind more consolidated rock. The river exposed the sedimentary rock that forms the roof and sides of the shelter at Eagle Rock.

Eagle Rock Shelter is accessed via Hwy 92 at a turnoff that is approximately 100 feet west of mile marker 14. The trailhead is located at the well-marked parking area in the GGNCA. Around 0.25 miles long, the trail leads to the site which is just off the Gunnison River (rafters may want to dock to check out the site as well). There is a wooden viewing platform where you can get a great view; there is no fee to access the site.

NPS / Jacob W Frank

HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT | SOUTHWEST

Created to protect and preserve six prehistoric Puebloan-era villages, Hovenweep National Monument is spread over a twenty-mile expanse of mesa tops and canyons along the Utah-Colorado border. Evidence of human habitation at Hovenweep, meaning Deserted Valley, dates back over 10,000 years with people settling more permanently in the area around 900 AD. By the late 1200’s the area was home to over 2,500 people.

The multi-storied towers on the canyon that are balanced on boulders are the stars of Hovenweep. Built by ancestral Puebloans, a farming culture that occupied the Four Corners area for 800 years from 500 AD, the towers share similarities in architecture, masonry and pottery styles with structures at Mesa Verde and other nearby sites. Most of the structures at Hovenweep were built between 1200 and 1300 AD. The reason for the construction of the towers remains a mystery although there is speculation that they might have been celestial observatories, defensive structures, storage facilities, civil buildings, homes or any combination of the above. By the end of the 13th century, the inhabitants of Hovenweep had left the area, but it would be over 400 years until reports of the abandoned structures were made in 1854.

YUCCA HOUSE NATIONAL MONUMENT | CORTEZ

One of the largest archaeological sites in southwest Colorado, Yucca House National Monument was an important community center for the Ancestral Puebloan people for 150 years from 1150 AD.

Located between the towns of Towaco and Cortez, Yucca House was created by presidential proclamation in 1919 after most of what would become Yucca House was deeded to the federal government by Henry Van Kleeck. Yucca House is doubly significant as one of the earliest examples of public/private stewardship of cultural resources.

First thought to have been built by the Aztec, Yucca House remains un-excavated and as such it can appear to the untrained eye as a cluster of rocky mounds, but with some guidance (and a little imagination) it holds the secrets of a large and active farming community that existed centuries ago, and has remained largely untouched ever since.

There is no entrance fee for Yucca House, but if you wish to visit please be prepared to follow directions carefully. The monument is surrounded by private land and there are no directional signs or facilities. Consider downloading the Yucca House Visitor Guide from the NPS.

SHAVANO VALLEY | MONTROSE COUNTY

Located on the eastern edge of the Uncompahgre Plateau, the Shavano Valley Rock Art Site is one of the most important concentrations of rock art in western Colorado.

Used from at least 1000 BC to 1900 AD by Archaic and Ute peoples, the Shavano Valley site includes a prehistoric rock shelter and thirty-seven rock art panels. Twenty-six of the panels are aboriginal in origin. The other eleven panels consist of more recent inscriptions and graffiti, though some of them may have historic value. There are also several areas with un-excavated artifacts. All major rock art research in western Colorado since the early twentieth century has used the Shavano Valley site to define different rock art styles and traditions and to trace cultural continuity and change in the region.

Among the most impressive panels on the cliff face is Panel 1, which measures 6.5 feet tall by 12 feet wide and depicts three bears climbing trees and is possibly the Ute Bear Dance legend.

In 2001 the Shavano Valley site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Self-guided tours are prohibited, but private (4-6 people, $100 total) and group (6 - 10 people, $10 per person) tours can be arranged through the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose. Tours last around 2-3 hours.

Bob Wick / BLM

CANYONS OF THE ANCIENTS | SOUTHWEST COLORADO

Encompassing 176,000 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is 12 miles west of Mesa Verde National Park. Only designated in 2000, the Monument contains the highest known archaeological site density in the United States with more than 6,355 recorded sites although it is estimated that there are up to 30,000.

The sites reflect life in a variety of ways with evidence of villages, field houses, check dams, reservoirs, great kivas, cliff dwellings, shrines, sacred springs, agricultural fields, petroglyphs and sweat lodges. Inhabited for at least 10,000 years by, among others, the Anasazi culture, the Monument is as breathtaking as it is interesting.

The canyons are accessible from various points along the Trail of the Ancients National Scenic Byway, but because archaeological sites in this “outdoor museum” aren’t apparent to the untrained eye, visitors should stop at the visitor center to get maps. The visitor center also doubles as the Anasazi Heritage Center, so be sure to spend some time inside perusing the museum displays and exhibits, many of which are hands on. Lowry Pueblo is the only developed recreation site within the Monument and is a must-see thanks to its 40 rooms, eight kivas and Great Kiva.

BLM

CAÑON PINTADO | RANGELY

Named by Franciscan priests Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and maintained by the BLM, Cañon Pintado National Historical District is a site of Native American archaeological significance and rock art near Rangely in Rio Blanco County. Cañon Pintado (which means painted canyon) is one of several heritage tourism attractions along the Dinosaur Diamond Scenic and Historic Byway.

Encompassing over 16,000 acres of public land along 15 miles of CO Hwy 139, the area was occupied by prehistoric people for as long as 11,000 years with the Fremont culture being one of the most significant with more than fifty sites in Cañon Pintado being from them.

There are eight sites between Rangely and Loma that together make up a selfguided auto tour. The sites contain hundreds of Native American Fremont and Ute pictographs with interpretive panels that explain their significance at seven locations. The Kokopelli Site is a well-preserved pictograph showing Kokopelli, the Hopi name given to the humpbacked flute player often used as a fertility symbol.

There are thousands of sites in the immediate area of Rangely, including numerous sites on Co Rd 23 and Co Rd 65.

TRAIL OF THE ANCIENTS NATIONAL SCENIC BYWAY

For lovers of archaeology, Trail of the Ancients is a great way to see some of these sites. Recognized for its intrinsic value to the region, the byway connects all of these ancient sites and also takes visitors to towns and cities in the area where you can discover more about the region through cultural and heritage centers, as well as find places to eat and sleep. The Trail of the Ancients extends beyond Colorado into Utah and Arizona where more sites of archaeological interest await.