Pithouse & Early Pueblos

The stone walls of a pueblo village overlap an older pithouse structure.

Quick Facts

Location:

Mesa Top Loop

Amenities

6 listed

Accessible Sites, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Parking - Bus/RV, Pets Allowed, Wheelchair Accessible

Here you will find the remnants of an evolving village and the beginnings of a new style of home. The original village was composed of both pithouses and above-ground rooms made of jacal—a wooden lattice plastered with mud with large stone slabs supporting the base. Later generations built single-stone-wide masonary walls. This innovation allowed for bigger rooms and larger villages.

When families started living in these above-ground room blocks, they continued to build pithouse-like structures nearby. Dug deeper into the ground, the pithouse began to resemble a kiva. Kivas are multi-purpose underground rooms that remain central to Pueblo community life today. A flat, ground-level roof of latticed beams covered the kiva. As with a pithouse, an opening in the roof provided entry via a ladder.

Architectural and technological innovations occurred hand-in-hand. Plain grayware ceramics were replaced by painted black-on-white pottery and stronger corrugated vessels that could be set in fires for cooking.