Ancestral Sites Tour - The Mighty Village

The mounds surrounding this plaza contain the remnants of the once-mighty Pecos Pueblo. In the 1400s a quadrangle of more than 600 rooms—four to five stories high in some places—would be towering over you. (The top of the present mounds are at about the second or third story level.)  

This map from Kidder’s Pecos, New Mexico: Archaeological Notes (1958) shows the fortress-like construction of the pueblo at its peak population. The numbered circles on the map represent kivas. A series of porches running along the second and third stories served as upper story passageways. “One can go over the top of the whole village without there being a street to hinder,” reported an observer in 1540 (Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution, 1892–93 by J.W. Powell, part 1). 

 Because the plan is so symmetrical, Kidder believed that the pueblo was “designed in advance and constructed as a unit.” The many kivas, however, were not all built or used at the same time. The now-roofless kiva before you (#7) must have been an important one. Evidence shows it was in use for at least 200 years.