Field Trip: Bandelier
Welcome to Humanizing History™! Every month, we feature a central theme. Each week, we dive into different areas of focus.
This month’s theme: Summer Field Trip, Earth Etched
This week’s focus: Field Trip, where we highlight significant historic, archaeological, and cultural sites around the world
Today’s edition of Humanizing History™ is about 1,200 words, an estimated 4-minute read.
The Why for This Week’s Topic
Happy summer! This month, we’re embarking on an exciting journey of global field trips.
We’re exploring how people across time and place shaped land — carving or etching into earth, and arranging natural materials — to tell stories, honor beliefs, and leave lasting imprints of cultural identity. And how the shaping of land is a shared human experience — bridging time and geography.
Different questions will guide us:
How have cultures around the world shaped the land to reflect their values, beliefs, and practical needs?
What can we learn about a society by examining how they interacted with their environment?
Why do some societies build on top of the land, while others build into it? Essentially, how do different materials (stone, earth, cliff, desert, etc.) influence or shape people’s choices?
To dive deeper into this topic, consider our inaugural monthly theme, and its four corresponding newsletters: Land Shapes People and People Shape Land.
Today, for our first field trip, we’re heading to Bandelier National Monument in the southwestern United States, home to Ancestral Puebloans.
Here, people lived and carved unique structures into volcanic cliffs, and built villages like Tyuonyi, which housed a 400-room circular structure — a stunning example of how human ingenuity interacted with the natural environment to create lasting cultural legacies.
Bandelier and the Ancestral home of the Puebloans
Location: Northern New Mexico, U.S.
Time period: Flourished around 1150 to 1550 CE
Virtually visit Bandelier via Google Earth
Virtual Tour
When you first visit Bandelier National Monument, you’re greeted by a dramatic landscape — towering mesas, deep canyons, and sheer cliffs. Pine trees dot the basin, and Pueblo cliff dwellings carved into soft volcanic tuff still stand as reminders of human ingenuity.
The monument, designated a national site over a century ago and named after a Swiss-born anthropologist, preserves these stunning structures and their deep historical significance.
As you enter, a sign greets you: “You are standing in Frijoles Canyon, home to the Ancestral Pueblo People. In your imagination, can you smell the piñon-wood smoke? Can you see crops growing in the field? Do you hear children laughing and dogs barking as they run and play? Up the trail you will see Tyuonyi, Big Kiva, Talus House, and Long House. These places are not abandoned, just no longer lived in. The spirits of the Pueblo ancestors still live here.”
A Thriving Community, Carved from Volcanic Tuff
While Indigenous people have lived in this Southwestern region of the U.S. for thousands of years, the Ancestral Puebloans — the Indigenous people who lived (and continue to live) in what is now parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah — shaped a culturally rich and technologically complex society between 1150 to 1550 CE.
But what made it possible for the Ancestral Puebloans to carve their homes into steep cliff faces, some reaching several stories high — so high that ladders were required to enter?
The answer lies in the geological forces that shaped the region. Over one million years ago, volcano eruptions rained down layers of ash, pumice, and debris into the landscape. Two massive “pyroclastic flows” — fast-moving waves of hot gases, ash crystals, and molten rock — swept across the land, moving at speeds of up to 100 to 200 mph and incinerating everything in its path. The intensity of these eruptions altered the landscape in a matter of moments, leaving behind a durable, yet workable material.
But after this cataclysmic event, the land needed nearly 100 years to become hospitable again. When people eventually arrived, they discovered this soft, but resilient, volcanic tuff — a material that could be carved out, reshaped into bricks and restacked with mortar, smoothed into walls with a layer of plaster added, and blackened or “smoked” so the ceilings would be “less crumbly.”
Petroglyphs were also etched into the volcanic tuff, and often consisted of abstract geometric shapes, spirals, animals and human-like figures.
In the hands of Ancestral Puebloans, what was once volcanic ash and dust became a powerful tool that — with precision — was carved, shaped, and engineered into homes, communal spaces, places of worship, visual art, and devoted sites to meticulously map the stars.
Architecture as Environmental Adaptation and Cultural Storytelling
Incredibly skilled at shaping the land and local environment, Ancestral Puebloans developed large-scale communities in places like Bandelier.
According to the National Park Service, “Archeological surveys show at least 3,000 sites in Bandelier, but not all were inhabited at the same time.” One of the most significant of these sites is the village of Tyuonyi, which flourished in the 1400s in Frijoles Canyon, and represents what is often considered the height of Ancestral Puebloan development.
One of the best-preserved archaeological sites within Bandelier, Tyuonyi is both powerful and intentional. Broad and circular, the architectural design of Tyuonyi is arranged around a central, open plaza — a common choice of Ancestral Puebloan settlements. The plaza not only reflects community cohesion, but also symbolizes the cyclical nature of life, a theme central to Puebloan worldview.
During this time, Ancestral Puebloans also built multi-room structures on the ground, using stone masonry and wooden beams to support roofs. At the heart of these communities was the kiva, a spiritual and ceremonial space used for both religious ceremonies and social gatherings, including the governance of the community. Often built underground or partially subterranean, kivas were designed to remain cooler in the desert heat. Some even had small windows or openings that were aligned with celestial events, like the solstices, making them function as astronomical observatories as well.
While the main village of Tyuonyi was built on the valley floor, it was strategically positioned near the cliffs, where those additional dwellings were carved into the rock. With limited access points and the added advantage of height, these cliff dwellings served a defensive purpose — wooden ladders were required to enter, providing extra security.
In addition to complex architecture, Ancestral Puebloans were highly skilled in farming and water management — an essential skill for desert residents.
The National Park Service notes, “The Ancestral Pueblo People developed a number of farming techniques that allowed them to grow crops for four hundred years in this land of little rain.” One technique was the use of grid gardens, or waffle gardens. These gardens were cultivated in depressed landforms and carefully surrounded by earthen or rock walls, which acted as a natural storage system. The walls helped retain water and provided insulation, releasing heat at night to protect crops from extreme temperatures.
Ancestral Puebloans also used sophisticated farming techniques to grow their staple crops: corn, beans, and squash — the Three Sisters method, common throughout much of Native America. They carefully selected soil with large amounts of pumice, which acts like a sponge, absorbing water and releasing it slowly over time. Additionally, seeds were planted deeply to protect the roots from the harsh desert climate.
Homes in places like Bandelier, and Tyuonyi, were designed as sustainable ecosystems, where local resources were leveraged with great skill and minimal exploitation.
The architectural and agricultural ingenuity of Ancestral Puebloans is not only a remarkable historical achievement but also serves as a valuable lesson for us today — reminding us of the importance of living in harmony with the land.
Next week, we continue our exploration of global field trips, traveling to another place on Earth where people shaped the land and the land shaped them in return.
Stay tuned!