•According to a report published on its website, the pre-historic period of Native Americans dates back decades, and research suggests that most prehistoric people were in the Americas long before the majority of scholars believe. On Indigenous Peoples Day, seven regions in the United States stand out for their stories of Native Americans. 1. Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) This settlement, which was established many years ago, may have been named after the Spanish word for “Native,” and it was the center of the Old Pueblo people from about 850 to 1250 A.D. At its heart is Pueblo Bonito (“Beautiful Village”), a four-story stone structure with more than 600 rooms and 35 underground ceremonial chambers. Experts estimate that the builders transported more than 200,000 wooden logs from distant mountains to construct these complex structures; the logs were used to reinforce buildings made of blocks of sandstone. The town was once at the center of trade routes stretching more than 400 miles (640 kilometers), and excavations of imported Mexican parrots and cacao confirm that it traded with distant regions. 2. Cahokia (Illinois) Cahokia was the largest Native American settlement in Mexico and housed 40,000 people in A.D. 1100 — comparable in size to major cities in medieval Europe. Strobel, a historian and Native American historian at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told Live Science, “It’s an incredibly important site.”
There, people lived in “wattle and daub” houses — a frame of sticks plastered with clay or mud — along with large circular fields, wooden palisades, and dozens of ceremonial earthen mounds. The natives even carried a 5-ton (4.5 metric tons) tree and turned it into a marker known as the Mitchell Log. According to excavation studies, many people from distant places also visited to attend ceremonies. The area now includes a park and a “woodhenge” of wooden circles that follow sunrises and sunsets, along with a 100-foot (30-meter) stepped earth structure called Monks Mound. Strobel thinks Cahokia may have been the most important site in the United States before the colony.
This area preserves cliff dwellings built by the Kuzay Sinagua people between A.D. 1125 and 1250. People can reach the site by walking along a deep sandstone and sand dune canyon about 10 miles southwest of Flagstaff. The cliff dwellings were built in natural caves within the sandstone; this provided them with insulation from cold and heat, and their high locations on the canyon floor served as defense. Strobel said that Walnut Canyon is a lesser-known site, but it is an outstanding example of Native Americans who, despite relatively arid conditions, managed water with remarkable skill. Those living in the caves grew crops in the flat land along the canyon edge, but they drew water from the stream at the base of the canyon to fill their cisterns.
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