River House Alcove
Remnants of Puebloan dwellings bathed in the light of the setting sun show their strategic placement in a south-facing alcove that allows sunlight to penetrate and warm the structures in the winter, but shades them in the summer. The alcove was first inhabited around 1100 years ago, with several iterations of rooms constructed over the next 300 years. The Puebloans grew the heroic triad of corns, beans, and squash on the floodplain of the San Juan River just to the south. By 1200 two-story structures had been constructed with two kivas (circular ceremonial rooms), indicating two clans lived together here. The Puebloans abandoned this alcove in the late 1200’s for unknown reasons. Note the snake pictograph on the wall above the ruins.
Not far from here a group of hardy and persistent Mormon settlers on their way to settle Bluff crossed Comb Ridge in 1879, carving a road over San Juan Hill in around a week with a very steep grade for their wagons to cross. To the east of the alcove are petroglyph panels carved 1000 years before the Puebloans constructed their rooms here (see earlier post of the “portal to the spirit world”).
River House Alcove
Remnants of Puebloan dwellings bathed in the light of the setting sun show their strategic placement in a south-facing alcove that allows sunlight to penetrate and warm the structures in the winter, but shades them in the summer. The alcove was first inhabited around 1100 years ago, with several iterations of rooms constructed over the next 300 years. The Puebloans grew the heroic triad of corns, beans, and squash on the floodplain of the San Juan River just to the south. By 1200 two-story structures had been constructed with two kivas (circular ceremonial rooms), indicating two clans lived together here. The Puebloans abandoned this alcove in the late 1200’s for unknown reasons. Note the snake pictograph on the wall above the ruins.
Not far from here a group of hardy and persistent Mormon settlers on their way to settle Bluff crossed Comb Ridge in 1879, carving a road over San Juan Hill in around a week with a very steep grade for their wagons to cross. To the east of the alcove are petroglyph panels carved 1000 years before the Puebloans constructed their rooms here (see earlier post of the “portal to the spirit world”).