Pueblo Alto ("High Village" in Spanish) is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, 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 AD 1020 and 1050. 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

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-processing industry that influenced the development of all villages in the canyon;

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

tool production was also common. It shares its mesa with another great house,

Nuevo Alto Nuevo Alto is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, in the US state of New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestC ...

, both of which are now protected within the borders of Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Storerooms at Pueblo Alto opened to the outside rather than into the interior rooms and there was a huge midden of pottery. This and chert found in the midden came mostly from the Chuska area 70 km (43 mi) to the west.

Usage

Research suggests that as few as five to twenty families lived in the complex; this may imply that Pueblo Alto served a primarily non-residential role.

Notes

References

External links

Pueblo Alto
a Photo Gallery Colorado Plateau Chaco Canyon Former populated places in New Mexico Pueblo great houses Chaco Culture National Historical Park Ancestral Puebloans Pueblos in New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub