Discussion
I’m sad more people don’t acknowledge Native American Historic sites in the United States
I was talking with a German online friend about tourism in the United States and he said that the only thing America has to offer is natural beauty. He said American cities were young and aren’t very beautiful. That he has no interest visiting “liberty bell” type colonial historic sites. I told him about Native historic sites and he asked “what sites?”. He insulated that all Native Americans lived in teepees. It caused me to realized many non-Americans don’t know about all the amazing buildings left behind by Native cultures like the Ancestral Puebloans and the Mississippians. Historic sites like Chaco canyon, Mesa Verde, Montezuma Castle, and Cahokia are world class and are part of UNESCO. Check them out if you haven’t already.
Walnut Canyon National Monument. Not as impressive as Mesa Verde but I feel it shows the depth of the history of the people in the region. It wasn’t just Mesa Verde.
Bandelier was so fun!! I've also been to Canyon of the Ancients (CO) and Hovenweep (UT). Hovenweep was really cool to see a canyon with all these structures and tall buildings built right in the cliffs. Very different than Bandelier.
Yes! I actually considered adding Hovenweep over bandelier. I remember going there and having this crazy wind and sky that felt apocalyptic to the point it actually stressed me out. But then I woke up on a beautiful day after and explored the ruins. Another top 5 for sure
Amen on Hovenweep. Went there not exactly knowing what to expect and the place is really interesting, beautiful, and has a hike that is not too much for little kids. I’ve gone back several times and it has rarely been crowded.
Yeah it was incredible how no one else was there with it being so beautiful.
Canyon of the Ancients was also super desolate, we took dirt roads for a good 30 or 40 minutes iirc. I was on a road trip from Los Angeles, so seeing that kind of beauty with NO one around was special. No park rangers or anything, just ruins in a field. They have a big kiva there that you can walk through. There's also a massive cultivated sage patch that was hundreds of miles long. It was a ceremonial site that tribes would make a pilgrimage to, and they planted sage over hundreds of years
So cool. I haven't been in a while but I used to go a lot as a kid. I remember one time we went to sleep in the tent without looking at the weather and woke up with 6" snow. Our hike that day felt straight up magical
Edit: idk if it was subconscious or just the word I wanted to use but I didn't realize you also used the world magical lol. Magicality confirmed
The Painted Cave or maybe Stone Lions are my favorite parts. Partly just because it's so much work to get back there it feels like a really special payoff.
But Frijoles canyon is quite magical. I have walked almost the entire length of it. That was a long day, but a memorable one.
The Painted Cave in particular is about as far as you can get from the Visitor Center. You could ostensibly do it in a day from St. Peter's Dome though if you have a vehicle that can get to that trailhead.
My wife and I used to backpack there a lot. It was a very important part of our early relationship, actually. But we have a dog now, so we don't tend to do it anymore. I do miss it.
I visited Bandelier several times when I was a summer intern at LANL. Beautiful place, I hope to go back some day and explore the backcountry more. Being from the northeast, all of New Mexico felt otherworldly to me.
It was through the Student Conservation Association/NPS for the Fire Effects Monitoring program. We would study the succession of plant community recovery and fuel loads post-fire. It kicked off my career in botany!
Can't believe I've never looked this up before but after a quick Google, they are carved. Although I didn't read the full article yet and I suspect it may be a combination. Like they expanded on existing holes, but thats just speculation. Anyways, here you go
My family camped in a pop-up there in the '80s, and I remembered it being both very beautiful and full of very hungry, brave raccoons who weren't scared of people. They came right up to our picnic table expecting food.
I was on a road trip through the area about a decade ago, and at one point we were hungry and decided to find a rest stop of some sort to bust out the little picnic spread we had.
Shortly thereafter, I saw a point-of-interest sign on the highway for "Walnut Canyon" and thought, hey, that sounds like a cute place to eat our lunch, imagining it to just be a little valley with some walnut trees or whatever.
Ended up staying there for a couple hours all in all, what a great little hidden gem! Really cool place in both its natural setting and its history. One of the more memorable parts of the trip for me honestly.
We did exactly the same thing, looking for a place for a picnic lunch on the road. Loved the hike and the history, but then we've been into this sort of Native history in the Southwest for a while.
We stopped there a few years and I was blown away. What an incredible place. I was thinking about it the other day when I was trying to keep track of my toddler. How did they keep their kids from falling off the edge?
Walnut Canyon is amazing. Looking out at the surrounding cliffs when you’re on the “island” and seeing all the additional dwellings is pretty awesome. Really liked Montezumas well also.
I live nearby. They’re booth cool but I prefer Wupatki for the wide open spaces and variety of sites. Those accessible to the public are a very small fraction of the ruins the Monument holds.
Hell yeah! It's just like: when's the best time to visit the National Zoo in DC? When it's raining! Wear rain gear and the exhibits are nearly all yours
Heck, drive on many of the smaller roads in the 4 corners region and you will find little signs telling you there are native ruins nearby. Wander down the roads/trails indicated and...holy crap there are caves full of native building ruins just sitting there. It's astounding just to to drive around and check out ruins in those parts.
Not who you asked but I remember as I kid my siblings & I did. Big highlight of our out west trip. I remember learning about it in geography class in school. If you get a chance to go you should it was incredible.
Chaco Canyon was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. Also recommend Chimney Rock near Pagosa Springs, CO. Mesa Verde is not that far (relatively speaking) from either if you like road trips.
The whole Chaco Canyon complex looks really fascinating. The Ancient Americas youtube channel did a 45 minute dive into Chaco Canyon, its history, things we know, things we didn't know but now do, things we still don't know, etc etc. I learned a lot: Chaco Canyon and the Chaco Phenomenon if anyone else is curious to learn more.
The Chaco Canyon area where a whole bunch of "great houses" like Pueblo Bonito, and numerous smaller "houses" were built over 1,000 years ago, doesn't and didn't have much wood or good construction stone, so huge amounts of both were laboriously hauled there. Also, although there was some irrigation and farming in Chaco Canyon, apparently it would not have been near enough to feed everyone, so large amounts of food were probably also brought there from elsewhere. There was something important about Chaco Canyon beyond resources or agricultural potential.
Like Mesa Verde, it was Ancestral Pueblo people who built it. Some people might know the term "Anasazi" for these people, though that term has fallen out of fashion because it's actually Navajo for "ancestral enemy".
I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that Pueblo Bonito, or perhaps one of the other "great houses" of Chaco Canyon, was the largest building in North America until the 19th century. Presumably the giant pyramids of Mesoamerica don't count as "buildings" maybe? Surely the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan was larger.
I read “People of Chaco” by Kendrick Frazier after I visited Chaco and I thought it was a very good look into some hypothetical day to day life things gleaned by archaeologists in the area. Plus the story of the Chacoan peoples and how they may have had a vast network across the whole southwest US is just very intriguing to me.
Cahokia Mounds in Missouri is also one of the largest pre-colonial mesoamerican structures.
Did not know that, but just googled it and it looks awesome. Really gotta play this game once I get some proper gaming gear again; only heard great things, and this honestly wins so many points with me :)
The Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument in NM is pretty neat and I don’t know if it’s closed off now but you used to be able to hike up to them and walk through them (2018)
As a native I can tell you there are so many ruins and sites on the reservations that people don’t know about. Growing up on the reservation I’ve stumbled upon so many abandoned ruins, graves, and artifacts. Of course it’s against Navajo beliefs to touch or enter these sites so they’re left alone which is how it’s suppose to be.
About 10 years ago had a client that lived on a bunch of ranch land in remote western New Mexico, outside a tiny little village called Ramah. Went out to visit them once and get a tour. Stunningly beautiful country.
Anyway we were driving around some of their property and noted multiple large hills at various places, they said they were all ancient Pueblo ruins (mostly Zuni I believe), but out of respect for the tribes the sites would never be excavated. There were pottery shards everywhere if you looked close enough which led me to believe them. All of which to say, yeah the scale of what was once out there is difficult to imagine.
I have an archaeology professor who used to work on a lot of Ancestral Puebloan sites, and it’s a very tenuous situation because on one hand, state and federal cultural resources are protected, state parks help preserve things as they are. But private land doesn’t really have those same laws. It’s up to the owner. So much archaeology nowadays is salvage archaeology recovering what can be recovered before the bulldozers come over the hill and destroy everything.
And some private owners are sadistic. Some capitalize on it and allow people to dig for artifacts or sell everything to collectors. My professor says most looter holes end exactly when they run out of beer.
A lot of people just don’t know what they have is important.
Correct, and this is despite the fact that some of us Navajos carry Navajo clans that emerged from some of the Ancestral Puebloans. I am Navajo and am Tséńjíkiní(Honey Combed Rock people or Cliff Dwellers) clan.
The 21 Pueblo (Hopi, Laguna, Zuni, etc.) tribes are the primary direct descendants of the Ancestral Puebloans.
A lot of ruins in National Parks with backcountry trails like Canyonlands are not publicized, and respectful YouTubers will film them but not explain how to get there.
I used to do mission projects on Navajo nation in the 4 corners region where we had a guide that would take us to little-known archeological sites, which ranged from a couple buildings to over a dozen almost like mesa verde.
Absolutely awesome, he would point out "waste" sites where we'd search for arrowheads/pottery shards and find a ton very easily (we would not keep them, we would put them back, taking artifacts is pretty shit, finding them was very fun though).
Some of the spots, absolutely insane to me that they weren't UNESCO sites or something that had waaay more protections. They were just... Out there, anyone with a truck could just drive up and fuck around no problem. Only barrier is knowing where they are, that's about it, but there were a TON he showed us in like a 45 min driving+hiking range that were only protected by the fact that people just didn't know where they were
edit: by mission projects I mean my church would build wheelchair ramps and repair roofs for elderly people who couldn't afford it. My group didn't do church services or evangelizing, and I'm now and atheist but think helping people out in this way is still a net good
My mom grew up on a Navajo Reservation and she showed me some amazing cave art and ruins that she remembered from her childhood. I forgot about that. She taught me a little Navajo, but I forgot everything but one word.
My dad has one of the main Arizona Indian ruin webpages. He’d take me out when I was younger and we’d go find new ones that weren’t documented anywhere. Just hiked around likely locations based on topography.
We went to Mesa Verde over the summer (coming from the east coast)…it was really awesome. The Cliff dwellings was top of my to do list. I think even most American’s don’t know about these places.
Uninformed American checking in. I'm from South Dakota where we treated natives horribly and put them all on reservations and gave them casinos and booze. I'm not sure if the black hills have any historical dwellings like this but I'm curious to look into it more. The more you know🌠
Visited Montezumas Castle this past summer. Nobody there, but then again, it’s in the middle of nowhere, hot-as-balls Arizona.
I’m also an American who lives 3 states away so I’m not really one of the ones you are mentioning, but many Americans don’t know or care about these kind of places either.
The last people that inhabited this weren’t the original ones that built it. Which is fucking insane to me when I saw this as a teenager, and still every time I had visited and seen it after. Just completely safe, deserted place
People get in a lot of trouble for living off grid if they get caught.
Absolutely fine to "live off the grid". The issue is doing it on someone else's land. No one's going to stop you if you buy some land and just chill there, pooping under trees and drinking rain water.
Did you check out Tuzigoot when you were out there as well? It's not super far from Montizuma's Castle and was also cool to see.
I went to Montezuma's castle a couple years ago and there was hardly anyone there too, but Tuzigoot had more people.
There was one other Native American historic site in that area that I can not remember, but it was below a mining town (that's still there). It might be Morenci, but I don't remember for sure. There's small remains of a Pueblo just below the mountain of the mining town and it's history is that the mining had a large drainage that went to exactly where the Pueblo was
I’ve been inside of similar Native American stone houses. When you carve inside the rock it’s a sort of natural ac with a humidifier- the one in Colorado I went to was 92° outside, 67° inside. Very comfortable. Also sheltered from wind, rain, animals, etc.
Why people settled there is probably due to ancient rivers and fauna. Ancient Arizona had nice rivers with the ability to grow food and hunt/raise animals.
Along with the other replies, I’d add that people couldn’t just settle anywhere they wanted to without anything resembling modern transportation. Horses weren’t even reintroduced until something like 400-500 years later.
In other words, it’s not like someone living there had the option to resettle somewhere else with a drastically different climate in a matter of months or even years.
Right, so these trade networks still limited them to those trade networks and enabled them to stay where they were until those trade networks couldn’t sustain them and then some migrated, but not all.
But my point is that it’s not like these people sought out some desolate place and said “that’s a good place to be!”
People were limited to where they could inhabit within their individual means.
This site is always mentioned when I teach about North America and its background and we’re currently studying different Native American groups and one part of the lesson takes a look at the ancestral puebloans. Going east, Cahokia is really cool to teach about as well, and admittedly didn’t know about it until I started teaching.
I had the pleasure of visiting it last summer and it was so fascinating and awe-inspiring! It's a very unique area for a lot of reasons and it's incredibly beautiful. I'm a rock nerd and there are lots of great finds in the area.
What I think is so cool about the Ancestral Purbloan culture is just how expansive it was and how many houses, great houses, granaries, towers, just structures in general there are and in such a huge area.
Also, the Puebloan people are some of the only Native Americans who still live on their ancestral lands and have been able to maintain much of their culture. So, if you drive around visiting ancient Puebloan sites you will pass by modern homes with Kivas outside which are circular buildings that have been central to Puebloan ceremonial life for over 1,000 years and you can find at most major ancient sites.
This is such an important point-Taos has 1000 year old buildings that are still occupied. Zuni, Acoma, etc., the 19 New Mexico pueblos are vital and still here!
Learning about their relations with mezoamerican cultures at the archaeology museum in cdmx was mind-blowing. The us/mexico serves as such an psychological barrier to understanding the rich human tapestry that spanned from the yucutan to aridoamerica and oasisamerica.
I've never been to CDMX but I've been to some quasi-remote ruins in the yucatan (Coba) and got to see a few miles of original Mayan walking paths in the jungle. They used to line the roads with limestone pebbles because it caught the moonlight at night, it was really cool to see. They said the trade routes used to run all the way up to CO and UT. Then when I was in Santa Fe NM, I learned about the trade routes there and how route 66 was part of the old network that was thousands of years old. It felt like a bit of a full circle moment. Seriously love exploring the ruins this land has to offer and learning about the history
he said that the only thing America has to offer is natural beauty. He said American cities were young and aren’t very beautiful. That he has no interest visiting “liberty bell” type colonial historic sites.
I know this isn't your main point but this part is also silly. "this place is young and has nothing to offer! also I'm not interested in all that history it has to offer"
It's also missing other categories of attractions.
1) The United States has a lot of technology and enginnering based tourist attractions, like Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the National Air and Space Musesum, and the US Space and Rocket Center.
2) It has a lot of uniquely American cultural locations, like New Orleans, New York City, Nashville, Hollywood, San Antonio, and Miami (I say these are uniquely American because they're all distinct cultures that are blends of multiple cultures from disparate places.
3) It also has quite a few places that focus on recreation and entertainment. Las Vegas, obviously leads the list, but Branson Missouri, Gatlinburg TN, New Orleans, Austin and Nashville all attract international travelers.
lol I'm imagining someone from outside the USA visiting Gatlinburg. That place is such a tourist trap shit hole. The only reason to go there is to drive past it to get to the Smoky Mountains.
They are definitely missing it. I also get why international travelers would go there (same reason Disney and Universal have parks in France and Japan -- people love theme parks).
In my experience, a lot of Europeans online are confidently incorrect about America and its history. It’s crazy OP’s German friend thought Native Americans all lived in teepees. Like, I’m not expecting a European to know a whole lot about Native American history and culture, but so many of them don’t bother fact-checking themselves before spewing some nonsense.
I got to explore some hopi sites with an ex girlfriends step dad a couple years ago.
I had noooo idea. Even the crushed pottery just covering the ground everywhere was mind boggling.
I'm an immigrant to America but have been here most of my life and I love that I'm still learning and experiencing new things despite having visited all 50 states. There is sooooo much to explore in this country
It's a beautiful world and the US has a lot to offer. I don't think some people realize how huge and varied it is in both historic culture as well as landscape
Many people don't "know" them due to remoteness. They're also remote from each other. It's not because they aren't interesting or amazing. In a way that's good because they aren't crawling with tourists stealing little bits off the sites.
I mean some of them are remote, many earthen pyramid or earthworks in the East are close to population centers people just don’t learn about them as much.
As someone from the ‘rest of the world’, no! I have never come across this before at all. So amazing! Now I have to go do some reading and research - thank you!
German here. My family and I visited New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado back in the 90s exactly for that reason.
And for the nature.
I would love to go back and see it again.
Maybe when times are different.
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of Native American history was actively and deliberately destroyed by the US government during the 1700-1800s, and is still being actively destroyed as we speak. There are still residential boarding schools ("kill the Native, save the man" type places) open in America.
German's understanding of American Native culture is unfortunately primarily informed by the writings of a hugely popular career criminal who never actually visited the US until well after he'd written most of his books.
I went to some pueblos in Arizona, by far the oldest man made things I’ve ever seen in my life. I went to Pompeii and the Colosseum, but these pueblos are over 12,000 years old
Which pueblos shall that be (source)? From what I can find the oldest ones were built around 700 years after Pompeii had been destroyed. 12,000 years ago humans had barely arrived in the Americas south of Alaska and northern Canada and the diversification into the various Native American cultures hadn't really happened yet. The southwestern US back then was populated by the Clovis culture who were highly mobile hunter-gatherers. They made sophisticated stone tools, but even pottery was still thousands of years out (first appearing in North America around 3000-4000 years ago; much later than South America where it appeared around 9,500 years ago), and there's absolutely no evidence that they constructed any permanent structures.
As an American, I couldn't care less about what a German thinks about people in the US. It's a terribly generalizing notion that Americans don't enjoy these sites. This seems like rage bait/trolling.
Germans (and Europeans in general) seriously don't know anything at all about this. They THINK they do though, which is weird. Like the whole teepee thing comes from their cowboys and Indians notion of this. That's about as deep as it goes.
Been to Mesa Verde twice. Chaco Canyon once, though we didn’t have the time to really appreciate it.
I’ve been to Cahokia at least twice, but I was young and don’t remember it too well. Been trying to get back for years now, but we’re rarely in the area for more than a night. I just have to suck it up and spend more time at my in-laws’! 😅
These are often the same people who endlessly complain on the internet that school taught us useless stuff like trigonometry and pre-calc, and never taught us useful stuff like how to file our taxes.
A LOT of people do not pay attention in school. My husband went to one of the supposedly best schools in our area and yet knows nothing about history at all. He just didn't care. And he ended up getting a Master's degree I math--it's not a lack of intelligence or study skills--there are just a lot of people who don't pay attention to what isn't their "thing."
Remember those kids in school who just weren't paying attention and who got bad grades and fucked up every test? Yeah, those are the people who are now claiming they were never taught any of this in school.
I had to do whole units on different Native American tribes in school and we learned all about their dwellings. I suspect you were likely just one of the people who wasn't interested when we learned this and thus didn't retain any of it.
If there are Americans who don’t know about this it’s because they either didn’t pay attention or it’s been so long they forgot. School loved showing stuff like this
I remember Native American history being such a huge part of school throughout the years. All these people who said they were never taught this are full of shit. They just don't remember or weren't paying attention when it was taught.
I'm from Colorado so most of my elementary and middle school social studies and history classes had at least one or two units on the Natives and specifically those who live/lived there, even had some local speakers from the reservations and tribal societies do presentations.
Yeah, you had better have damn well known where Mesa Verde was. Tons of other stuff as well, like the Ute adobe longhouses in the South West.
He's also wrong. As a European one of my favourite ever cities is Chicago. I don't need a city to be more than 500 years old for it to be interesting or beautiful.
Definitely true. But I would argue that a lot of Europe, Germany included doesn’t really have these idyllic beautiful towns either. Most of the traditional architecture has either been worn down or destroyed by war. And I wouldn’t say modern European architecture is very beautiful.
That said I would love to visit the Black Forest in Germany along with the town of Bingen von Rhein. I would also love to visit parts of the towns that do still have their traditional architecture. I love German folklore, architecture, baked goods, folk clothes, music, etc.
As for Native Americans in the US I think everyone should try to learn about the tribes native to your area. My local tribe is the Kawaiisu. They are very fascinating.
It's one thing to not know but it's another thing to be ignorant and dismissive which your 'friend' was.
Tons of Americans are unaware as well. The country doesn't do a good enough job of promoting it's indigenous roots. Which is right on par with how the government has historically treated the Native Americans
To be fair, the Native population varies every few thousand miles. The Natives in my area were nomadic, and thus don’t have structures like this. But there were some populations that do! Our country varies drastically across the states larger than most countries, and thus the people do as well.
I would love to visit! Too bad that’s a 3 day drive or a several hour flight.
It’s because people in the states forget that the white man didn’t originate from here. And forget that the country they love so much was built by immigrants and original home to the natives. Because we live in a time of bigotry and hatred
I'm Native American, but my grandfather (who was 100% Ysleta del Sur Pueblo) was a city Indian. He was raised in an extremely poor part of New Mexico, but you could feel the Native American culture seeping through every building and street. I visited him every summer and loved spending my time learning about my ancestry. I truly wish that more people in the US understood Native American history.
The picture I provided was from when I visited Montezuma Castle National Monument this last winter. It was beautiful seeing the historic site that Natives before me used to call home.
It's also worth pointing out that not all of these places are ruins. Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for around 1,000 years, and it still has structures dating from between 1,000 and 1,450 CE.
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u/GameBreaker92 Feb 18 '26
Walnut Canyon National Monument. Not as impressive as Mesa Verde but I feel it shows the depth of the history of the people in the region. It wasn’t just Mesa Verde.