The dozens of monument fans who attended were served up speeches, cake, and coffee during the festivities at the Anasazi Heritage Center.
Vince MacMillan, the monument’s lead archaeologist, spoke of the early discoveries that led to the preservation of the monument’s 178,000 acres, which contain the highest-known density of archaeological sites in the nation.
In 1776, a Spanish expedition out of Santa Fe stopped in present day Dolores, and climbed the hill where the Anasazi Heritage Center is today.
They discovered a prehistoric pueblo, which they quite correctly assumed to be culturally linked to the living pueblos associated with along the Rio Grande, and at Acoma, Hopi and Zuni.
“Since that August day, almost 239 years ago, the landscape laid out before us in Montezuma County has become one of the most extensively studied archaeological landscapes in the world, one of the cornerstones of the BLM’s National Conservation Lands, and the scene of many more ‘firsts’ in the field of archaeology,” MacMillan said.
Many milestones followed, MacMillan explained.
In 1874 William Henry Jackson, a pioneer in early photography, took the first photographs of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings in the monuments Sand Canyon complex.
When Jackson’s work was presented at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia two years later, it “ignited massive interest” in the ruins of the southwest Colorado.
In 1889, Goodman Point Pueblo was the first site to be set aside by the U.S. government for scientific research.
In 1908, Cannonball Pueblo became the first site to be legally excavated after the passage of the American Antiquities Act.
In the 1930s, Paul Martin revolutionized the use of film and video for documenting the ruins of Lowry Pueblo.
Museum curator Bridget Ambler said the monument is special for researchers because it highlights the historic Neolithic transition into pueblo farming villages, a trend that continues.
Looking back 2000 years ago, what brought people to this place is much the same today: fertile soils that make dryland farming possible,” Ambler said. “Bean farms are still around.”
The ruins and artifacts are kept alive by their connections to modern Native Americans, she said, and the impressive archaeology gives the community a special identity.
“You can find solitude on the monument, and because it is self-guided it gives visitors the feeling they are discovering something new,” Ambler said.
Since the formation of the monument in 2000, the BLM has surveyed 25 percent of the landscape, documenting 3,000 new archaeological sites, adding to the 5,000 already identified.
MacMillan emphasized that the monument has preserved valuable lessons of Native Americans who were innovators in hunting, agriculture, geology, botany, ceramics, hydrology, astronomy, and architecture.
“Canyons of the Ancients is a landscape that has preserved these valuable lessons, not only for the studious academic, but also for the lone hiker, for Native Americans, for groups of school children, and for all of our descendants,” MacMillan said. “It is a landscape that holds many more undiscovered lessons for each of us if we are attuned enough to listen to its wisdom.”
Free copies of the anniversary poster featuring Saddlehorn Pueblo can be obtained at the Anasazi Heritage Center.
jmimiaga@cortezjournal.com