Nestled in northern New Mexico, about a half hour drive northeast of Farmington, lies the Aztec Ruins National Monument. This preserve seeks to protect a 900 year old Pueblo “Great House”. Thanks to the wonderful condition of the standing ruins, visitors are given a unique chance to walk through and get their own intimate experience with the style and intricacies of ancient Pueblo architecture. And remarkably, this national monument is free for anyone to visit.

Aztec Ruins National Monument

This incredible national monument helps to preserve and protect what is known as the Aztec West Great House in addition to several smaller structures. The Great House was built by the Ancestral Puebloans at around 1100 AD and was the largest building in their community. It is believed that the inhabitants may have been related to the Chaco culture community found at Chaco Canyon further to the south. They lived and worked here for around 200 years before leaving to join communities elsewhere. This expansive sandstone building once contained about 450 to 500 separate rooms of which the majority are still standing. Portions of the site were originally three stories high and were built around an open plaza. The people who lived here were the largest Ancestral Pueblo community in the Animas River valley.

Aztec Ruins National Monument was formally established in 1923. This helped to protect the site from potential looters. In 1987, it was listed as a World Heritage Site for its cultural affiliation with the Chaco Culture.

 

Aztecs?

The name is a misnomer as this great house was definitely not built by or occupied by the Aztecs of the great Mexican empire. Early settlers in the area had mistakenly taken the ruins for Aztec Ruins and over the years the name stuck.

Preservation

This structure is in wonderful condition thanks to the local climate. The arid conditions helped preserve a majority of the site. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that what you are seeing was built almost a thousand years in a different age long before the arrival of the Europeans. In approximately 20 of the rooms, many of the original wooden roofs are even still intact and in situ. In other places, portions of the original timbers stand stubbornly in place though the roofs have since fallen. Today, archaeologists are continually preserving and stabilizing the site to ensure its survival into the new millenia.

 

Where is it Located?

Aztec Ruins National Monument is located at 725 Ruins Road in Aztec, New Mexico, about a half hour drive northeast of Farmington, near the Colorado border.

Maps

A self-guided half mile trail weaves visitors throughout the site. You can see a map of the overall layout of the Aztec West Great House here.