Photo credit: National Park Service

Discover petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls that show the early days of the Ancestral Pueblo people’s culture and the diversity of habitats that supported these people.

At more than 33,000 acres Bandelier National Monument protects the natural beauty of canyon and mesa county. More than one million years ago, huge volcanic explosions in New Mexico rained ash and cinders over 1500 square miles. As the hot ash cooled it formed a sloping layer of tuff, a type of rock, called the Pajarito Plateau where Bandelier can be found. Bandelier has almost a mile of elevation change in just under 12 miles; this gradient creates a diverse environment specific to Northern New Mexico. This diversity made the area livable for the Ancestral Pueblo people, providing them with food, medicine, clothing, and supplies. The Ancestral Pueblo people lived at Bandelier from approximately 1150 CE to 1550 CE, but moved on to the pueblos along the Rio Grande when the land could no longer support the people, but this culture still survives in surrounding communities.

https://www.nps.gov/band/index.htm