Mesa Point Trail

Mesa Point Trail. Boca Negra Canyon. , Boca Negra Canyon , Mesa Point Trail , Several stacked rock structures like this one are found in the monument and are protected as archeological resources. This structure has naturally eroded to its present state. Local archeologists believe rock structures were constructed, repaired and used by several cultural groups over multiple generations for different purposes. The first inhabitants, the Ancestral Pueblo people, used them as hunting blinds and for temporary shelter. Structures with east-facing openings had special religious significance as they were used by the Ancestral Pueblo people as shrines and these spiritual places continue to have importance to present-day Native people., Early Spanish settlers introduced sheep and other livestock to New Mexico in the 1700s. Hispanic sheep herders would tend flocks of sheep that grazed along the mesa top. Spanish sheep herders used rock structures as holding pens to protect livestock from predators over night. They, too, probably used these types of structures as hunting blinds just as the Ancestral Pueblo people did before them.