Dan Flores

The farming class suffered this gap between rich and poor as long as the elites delivered on their promise to make it rain. But when drought came and the priests were powerless to stop it, the lower classes attacked and killed many in the upper class. They also embraced a new belief, the Kachina religion.

By the year 1160, massive three-story public buildings like Chetro Kettle, a 400-room great house in Chaco that was built with 50 million sandstone blocks, 26,000 timbers, and extended for 450 feet beneath a canyon wall, stood completely abandoned.

By the year 1160, massive three-story public buildings like Chetro Kettle, a 400-room great house in Chaco that was built with 50 million sandstone blocks, 26,000 timbers, and extended for 450 feet beneath a canyon wall, stood completely abandoned.

By the year 1160, massive three-story public buildings like Chetro Kettle, a 400-room great house in Chaco that was built with 50 million sandstone blocks, 26,000 timbers, and extended for 450 feet beneath a canyon wall, stood completely abandoned.

As for animal life in the Chacoan region, diet studies in the collapse's aftermath imply that rabbits and rodents were almost the only huntable animals left. Their need for protein perhaps explains why some of the new villages were founded close to the bison plains.

As for animal life in the Chacoan region, diet studies in the collapse's aftermath imply that rabbits and rodents were almost the only huntable animals left. Their need for protein perhaps explains why some of the new villages were founded close to the bison plains.

As for animal life in the Chacoan region, diet studies in the collapse's aftermath imply that rabbits and rodents were almost the only huntable animals left. Their need for protein perhaps explains why some of the new villages were founded close to the bison plains.

One March afternoon in the early 2000s, I opened the passenger door of a pickup, stretched out a hiking boot to the ground, and had one of those small steps for man moments. Until I exited that pickup and began to walk on a surface that spoke, it crunched, it crinkled. I'd never had the kind of visceral understanding of America's ancient past I was now experiencing.

One March afternoon in the early 2000s, I opened the passenger door of a pickup, stretched out a hiking boot to the ground, and had one of those small steps for man moments. Until I exited that pickup and began to walk on a surface that spoke, it crunched, it crinkled. I'd never had the kind of visceral understanding of America's ancient past I was now experiencing.

One March afternoon in the early 2000s, I opened the passenger door of a pickup, stretched out a hiking boot to the ground, and had one of those small steps for man moments. Until I exited that pickup and began to walk on a surface that spoke, it crunched, it crinkled. I'd never had the kind of visceral understanding of America's ancient past I was now experiencing.

I was walking into a place known to Southwestern archaeologists as the San Lazaro Ruins. With every step, my boots were landing on broken shards of Indian pottery half a foot deep. That brought a profound realization. I was walking on ground that humans long before me had lived on for some 300 years.

I was walking into a place known to Southwestern archaeologists as the San Lazaro Ruins. With every step, my boots were landing on broken shards of Indian pottery half a foot deep. That brought a profound realization. I was walking on ground that humans long before me had lived on for some 300 years.

I was walking into a place known to Southwestern archaeologists as the San Lazaro Ruins. With every step, my boots were landing on broken shards of Indian pottery half a foot deep. That brought a profound realization. I was walking on ground that humans long before me had lived on for some 300 years.

In every direction, the ground underfoot was a thick, continuous surface of curving, angled, shattered pottery, the pieces set at all angles and drawing the eye with painted zigzags and designs in blacks and reds. This is how the people who lived here 700 years ago must have experienced a stroll around their town, I thought.

In every direction, the ground underfoot was a thick, continuous surface of curving, angled, shattered pottery, the pieces set at all angles and drawing the eye with painted zigzags and designs in blacks and reds. This is how the people who lived here 700 years ago must have experienced a stroll around their town, I thought.

In every direction, the ground underfoot was a thick, continuous surface of curving, angled, shattered pottery, the pieces set at all angles and drawing the eye with painted zigzags and designs in blacks and reds. This is how the people who lived here 700 years ago must have experienced a stroll around their town, I thought.

It's how the pioneers of archaeology in the West, the Adolph Bandoliers, the Alfred Kidders, and Edgar Hewlett, no doubt felt the first time they walked across the ruins of Chaco or Mesa Verde, or the country I was in now, the Galisteo River country south of Santa Fe. I was having this experience because I'd become friends with a remarkable Santa Fe character named Forrest Fenn.

It's how the pioneers of archaeology in the West, the Adolph Bandoliers, the Alfred Kidders, and Edgar Hewlett, no doubt felt the first time they walked across the ruins of Chaco or Mesa Verde, or the country I was in now, the Galisteo River country south of Santa Fe. I was having this experience because I'd become friends with a remarkable Santa Fe character named Forrest Fenn.

It's how the pioneers of archaeology in the West, the Adolph Bandoliers, the Alfred Kidders, and Edgar Hewlett, no doubt felt the first time they walked across the ruins of Chaco or Mesa Verde, or the country I was in now, the Galisteo River country south of Santa Fe. I was having this experience because I'd become friends with a remarkable Santa Fe character named Forrest Fenn.

Among many aspects of Fenn's world that seemed more than improbable was that he actually owned the ground where the ruins of San Lazaro stood. That's why we were here. He was proudly showing off his possession of the largest ancestral Pueblo village site in the Santa Fe area.