KEYWORDS: CANYON DE CHELLY, ANASAZI CULTURE, CLIFF DWELLINGS, PUEBLO CULTURE, CHACO OUTLIER, NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE, NAVAJO NATION, AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY

CANYON DE CHELLY

An ancient Anasazi Archaeological Site

A short visit March 2020

CANYON DE CHELLY Panoramic view from the south rim, Spider Rock overlook

Canyon de Chelly, location map. Near Chinle, Arizona

The National Park Service and the Navajo Nation jointly manage Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The town of Chinle is located near the mouth of the canyon and serves as its access. 

There is no cultural connection between the present inhabitants of the area, the Navajo people, and the ancient Anasazi people that settled in the area in antiquity. The canyon’s natural water sources and fertile soil made it a favored habitat for four millennia, and the landscape holds the remains of early pit-house villages, farming villages, and cliff dwellings. Ancestral Pueblo people left the region in the mid-1300s. Centuries later, Hopi people maintained fields and orchards in the canyon historically until the Navajo reservation was created. The land has been home to Navajo people (Diné) for several hundred years who still farm the flat canyon floor. The monument has an altitude between 5,500 feet a. s. l. and 7,700 a. s. l.

Map of the Canyon rim drives.  Chinle is at intersection of H 191

In 1882, a Bureau of American Ethnology expedition led by Colonel James Stevenson recorded 46 archaeological sites in the area.

During the next 15 years, Russian emigrant Cosmos Mindeleff made the first accurate map of the Canyon de Chelly complex and discovered many new ruins, bringing the known total to 140, many of which he mapped, sketched, and photographed. Several clixff dwellings and “pueblo” style buildings are significant monuments. 

More recent archaeological surveys of the canyon have identified more than 600 sites of all types and sizes.

View of Canyon de Chelly from cliff overlook. 700 feet high cliff walls, valley floor is fully farmed.

Having explored most cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, and the main “Casas Grandes” or D style Pueblo buildings of Chaco Canyon, the archaeology observed at Canyon de Chelly seems directly connected to both. Because of its location in the flat valley of a canyon, the setting seems an outlier of the Chaco Canyon culture. The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are located high on the cliffs, facing narrow ravines where no agriculture was feasible in the valley. They planted on top of the mesa.  At Chelly, the cliff dwellings are in the lower parts of the almost vertical canyon walls, and clearly connected to the narrow, flat and well irrigated valley floor.

Canyon de Chelly, long view of winding road and stream

A cultural shift around c. 700 CE occurred when the Ancestral Puebloan peoples (Anasazi) began to build larger settlements of cliff dwellings within Canyon de Chelly. 

Abandoning their smaller pit houses, which were formerly located on top of cliffs in Canyon de Chelly, the Ancestral Puebloan people constructed compounds of apartment-like buildings made with adobe brick blocks or stone blocks. These complexes were called "Pueblos" by the Spanish explorers. They are also built on the valley floor, near the cliffs, using as little as possible of the agricultural soil.

The Ancestral Puebloan people constructed these cliff dwellings or houses in places where there were numerous overhanging cliffs within what is present-day Canyon de Chelly. It has been suggested that during the 1000s CE, there was a small migration of people from the San Juan Basin in what is present-day Colorado (Mesa Verde) and New Mexico (Chaco) who brought their own artistic styles and architectural models to Canyon de Chelly.

The cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly are composed of multi-storied and terraced units that were accessible via wooden ladders. Within a compound, access between floors was made possible by log rafters. Some walls had keyholes and quadrilateral shaped doorways, and a few cliff dwellings even had square windows. Certain spaces were left open, and the Ancestral Puebloan people dug kivas, which were used as ritual spaces for ceremonial events and social meetings.

Canyon de Chelly. View from the valley: A cliff dwelling and a "pueblo"

Canyon de Chelly, view of cliff dwelling inside wall horizontal crevice

Canyon de Chelly, cliff dwelling inside alcove created by erosion

There are three interesting activities that can be done in one full day, or two day visits to Canyon de Chelly. One day should be devoted to driving the rim roads. Although they do not cover the whole canyon, they provide excellent views of the canyon walls, its meandering stream with beautiful desert oasis habitat, and a few glimpses into the distant ruins. The walls rise about 700 feet above the canyon floor. There are several trails that allow access to go down from the rim. The south rim drive and the north rim drive can be done leisurely in one day, with stops and short hikes. The third activity is a tour of the main ruins driving along the stream and farms to the main structures.  Not all are accessible and the tours are only guided.

Canyon de Chelly, long view of valley floor and oasis habitat in the middle of the high desert

I only lament that there is no on-site museum or educational center. The Navajo people are in possession of the monument, but they have no cultural connection to the history of the canyon. They are the tour providers.  All the relics looted in the past by pre-archaeologists, or by expeditions by treasure hunters sponsored by “collecting” museums have emptied the site of its soul. The Smithsonian, The Brooklyn Museum of Natural History, The American Museum of Natural History in New York, The University of Colorado Museum in Boulder, and the Western Archaeological Center in Tucson, Arizona, hold the relics that they removed. The soul of the people of Chelly is fragmented, collecting dust in bins and drawers, out of public view, without any meaningful purpose. The soul of Canyon de Chelly needs to be returned to its body. The Navajo Nation would do well to show, not just talk, of respect to the ancient site. They could reclaim what was looted and lies unseen in far-away places. They could create a new magnet for visitors to their crown jewel by creating a one-of-a-kind Visitor Center and Museum. One example that could serve as the model is the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center & Museum in Dolores, Colorado. This would also be an investment into a major source of business to their people.  The Diné are sabby, and respectful.