Anasazi Heritage Center Dolores, CO - May 14, 1999 Home Pictures Questions Links Books <- Back | Next ->

Spanish Explorers, Domingues and Escalante, traveled all through the southwest trying to find a route to Monterey California. They met native people and discovered many ruins of the ancient ones. They discovered these Anasazi ruins in 1776. The BLM manages this site and the museum, which contains thousands of artifacts from the excavations. The Anasazi Heritage Center is near Dolores, CO, about 15 miles from the entrance from Mesa Verde. We highly recommend a stop here before visiting Mesa Verde. It will get you more acquainted

Dominguez and Escalante Ruins

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Amanda: "We hiked up to the Escalante ruins. It was about 1/2 mile to get there. It was hot, but fun. I got on my dad's shoulders to take a picture of the kiva." In Search of the Old Ones : Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest by David Roberts Harrison: "After the short hike, we saw a kiva. It was the first kiva I'd ever seen. I took a lot of pictures at the ruin and got a great shot of the kiva, too." Some archaeologists think that this kiva might have been the family room.

Anasazi Heritage Center Museum

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The museum has lots of "hands-on" activities. Amanda grinding corn.   Amanda learns to weave at a real working loom. "It was pretty easy and fun."   This is a replica of a pit house. We could walk down to the inside level and get a good feel for what it must have been like to be inside. Amanda learned that many families may have lived together in one pithouse COLOR ME! Click on this image of an Anasazi Family at the right for the full size picture, then print and color it! Amanda pasted them on a cereal box and cut out the figures to make paper dolls. (Image is rotated for printing) Harrison was looking at some seeds that were recovered from one of the excavations. Dendrochronology is the process of finding how old a tree is and when it lived by counting its rings inside the bark. Each area has a master ring pattern that is created by its local climate. By matching up the rings of the tree to the master ring pattern, you can find out when the tree was planted and when it died. (Harrison) Can you tell when this tree was cut down?

Web Links	Related Field Trip Pages
	Fremont Indian State Park We saw our first reconstructed Pit House on our Great Brain trip.

Resources Check these out from your local library, or buy them here. When you buy books here, you get the same great Amazon.com price, and help keep these pages going.	[ Top ]
Learn More! Find books about Anasazi at Amazon.com	In Search of the Old Ones : Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest by David Roberts