The Bluff Great House Site

The Bluff Great House Site. . More than eight centuries ago, this hilltop was the location of an important, ancient Pueblo Indian site. Under the protection of the Southwest Heritage Foundation, the Bluff Great House Site is under investigation by archaeologists at the University of Colorado. The researchers' careful and strategically placed excavations have yielded information important for the site's interpretation., While much has been learned about this site, there is so much more for us to understand. Indeed, the answers we derive from the site are only as good as the questions that we ask of it. With time, research, and the keen human imagination, these queries, and therefore our interpretations, improve slowly. Thus, the Southwest Heritage Foundation, the community of Bluff, and Native Americans (whose ancestors once lived here) appreciate your consideration when visiting the site. Please stay on trails, please do not leave litter or other objects, and please do not take artifacts - arrowheads, broken pieces of pottery, or any other rare items - left by the ancient ones., The Great House , One of several prominent features on this site is the "great house." Time's natural erosional forces have reduced this large, impressive building to a mound of sandstone rubble, which is found just on the other side of the modern road (Figure 1). Situated on this hilltop, the two-story great house towered over the Bluff valley. Its roofs collapsed long ago and sand storms filled the building's rooms. But the structure's stone walls survive, buried deep within the mound, and its floors are on the same level as the ground on which you now stand., The walls of the Bluff Great House were masterfully constructed of sandstone from the cliffs behind the site. The building was basically two rows of rooms with high ceilings, two stories tall along the rear row and one story tall along the front row (Figures 2 and 3). Three round "kivas" were built into the front row of rooms (Figure 4). "Kivas" today are ceremonial rooms at modern Pueblos, but the small "kivas" of the Bluff Great House were probably associated with important families who lived in the building., The Bluff Great House was surrounded by a low ring of earth, called a "berm." You can see a part of the berm right in front of you, between the sign and the modern road (Figure 1). The function of this berm is a subject of debate. The berm seems too low to have been a defensive wall. It may have marked an important symbolic line or boundary between the Great House and the outside world., The Bluff Great House was built by AD 1100, and abandoned about AD 1300 - the same time span as gothic cathedrals in Europe, Great Zimbabwe in Africa, and the Toltec civilization of ancient Mexico. The "Four Corners" country had its own civilization, established by the ancient ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians who live today in New Mexico and Arizona., Captions , (Figure #1) Bluff Great House Site, General Site Map , (Figure #2) Bluff Great House , (Figure #3) This reconstruction of the Bluff Great House shows the basic architectural layout of the structure. Courtesy Dennis Holloway , (Figure #4) The archaeologist in this photograph has exposed the finely plastered interior of the great house's "East Kiva" (see Figure 2). , Reverse Side , The Great Kiva , A shallow 45-foot wide depression, to the southwest of the Bluff Great House, is all that remains of a huge round building called a "great kiva" (Figures 1 and 5). Much of this feature is still here, but is at least 6 feet below the ground surface. This structure was a round, masonry-walled room (Figure 6). Four thick posts supported a massive roof, which rose a few feet above the ground level - from the surface, the Bluff Great Kiva would have looked like a very low, earth-covered mound with a ladder projecting up out of a hatchway in the center of the roof. Above-ground masonry rooms were attached to the north, south, east and west points of the building., The Bluff Great Kiva was probably used for community ceremonies. Family houses (much smaller than the Bluff Great House) dotted the valley bottom and terraces along the San Juan River and the smaller creeks. These families probably looked to the Bluff Great Kiva as their community's center - perhaps as a combination church and town hall., Great kivas were built long before the construction of the Bluff Great House and long after it was abandoned. You can see modern versions of the great kiva today in the plazas of the Pueblos of northern New Mexico, and a reconstructed great kiva of about the same time as this one at Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico., Bluff and Its World , The river valley in which Bluff is nestled was an important place to ancient Native Americans, and still is to their descendants. Large villages were built in the area as early as AD 700 – the remains of one can be seen at the foot of the Twin Rocks to the east (Figure 7). Wonderful rock art can be seen at the Sand Island recreation area, about 3 miles west of Bluff. Collections of artifacts from these ancient times, and another great house site, can be seen at Edge of the Cedars Museum in Blanding, about 25 miles north of Bluff., The Bluff Great House Site was at the edge of the ancient region centered on the great 11th century "city" at Chaco Canyon, about 125 miles to the southeast. A series of "roads" – broad, straight, engineered pathways – ran out from Chaco Canyon like spokes on a wheel (Figure 8). Some of these "roads" connected distant communities, like the Bluff Great House Site, back to Chaco Canyon. Now only barely visible, 800 years ago several "roads" were built around the Bluff Great House (Figure 9). One goes to the north, linking the Bluff Great House with other sites in the area. Another road segment on the site points southeast, suggesting a possible link with Chaco Canyon., Captions , (Figure #5) Bluff Great House Site Great Kiva , (Figure #6) This photograph shows the deep interior wall of the Bluff Great Kiva. , (Figure #7) Bluff Area Map , (Figure #8) Map of the "Chacoan World", The discontinuous segments of one or more roads at the Bluff Great House Site are visible in this aerial photograph. One of these segments is viewable near this sign, immediately west of the parking area.