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Canyons of the Ancients National Monument protects over 8,500 archaeological sites in southwest Colorado.
Introduction to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was created on June 9, 2000. It consists of over 176,000 acres of federal land and has the highest archaeological density of any region in the United States. There are over 8,500 documented archaeological sites with an estimated yet to be recorded. According to the official website, the archaeological sites include “villages, kivas, field houses, cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and ancient roadways”.
Canyons of the Ancients is a glimpse into over 12,000 years of human history, mostly Ancestral Puebloan cultures and their descendants. The monument encompasses a few units of Hovenweep National Monument.
Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum
The best place to start your visit to the monument is at the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum It’s near the town of Dolores and just 17 miles from Mesa Verde National Park. Admission is US$7 for adults or free for kids under 16 and holders of any interagency pass (as of September 2025). The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from March through October and Wednesday through Saturday the rest of the year.
The museum contains excellent interactive exhibits. Displays include pottery, stone tools, and other artifacts excavated from archaeological sites in the monument .
One of the highlights is a replica pithouse showing how a typical Puebloan household would have been furnished. Two short films are also available to watch.
Dominguez Pueblo
Just outside the museum is the small Dominguez Pueblo, which was built around 1123. It was made up of four rooms and housed one or two families. The kiva, which was backfilled after excavation in the 1970s, was about 11 feet (3.3 meters) in diameter
The remains of the pueblo were rediscovered by Franciscan priests Francisco Atanasio Domínguez (c. 1740-1803/05)and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante (c. 1750-1780) during the Domínguez-Escalante Expedition in 1776. It was excavated and named in the 1970s.
Escalante Pueblo
The short Escalante Trail starts at the visitor center. It takes hikers up a ½-mile paved path to the top of a hill where you’ll find the ruins of the much larger Escalante Pueblo. It was built in 1129 and occupied for about 9 years. Another group briefly occupied it around 1150, and it was occupied for a third and final time around 1200.
The Escalante Pueblo has a rectangular layout with several rooms surrounding a kiva. The rooms are generally larger than in other local pueblos and some of the doors are T-shaped. About ⅓ of the pueblo was excavated between 1975 and 1976 by archaeologists from the University of Colorado.
From the top of the hill, you’ll also get fantastic views of the region, including the McPhee Reservoir.
Archaeological Sites at Canyons of the Ancients
As far as archaeological sites to visit, there are three major sites: Lowry Pueblo, Sand Canyon Pueblo, and Painted Hand Pueblo. There’s no admission to enter any of the site (as of September 2025).
Lowry Pueblo
We visited Lowry Pueblo, which is the most developed for visitors. It’s located about 25 miles from the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center. It includes several excellent interpretive panels and a picnic area.
Lowry Pueblo was built around 1060 and was inhabited for about 165 years. It may have been an early Chacoan colony or trading center. The original pueblo consisted of four rooms and a kiva. By the time it was abandoned, it had expanded to over 40 rooms, 8 kivas, and a Great Kiva. The structure was two or three stories high with rooftop entrances.
Lowry Pueblo is named for George Lowry, an early 20th-century homesteader. It was excavated between 1930 and 1934 by Paul Sidney Martin (1898-1974) of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The Bureau of Land Management and the University of Colorado stabilized the ruins in a 2-year project starting in 1965. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967.
A short path leads to the Great Kiva, which was used for ceremonies and as a community center. It’s 47 feet in diameter and was constructed starting around 1086, with the last construction phase in the 1160s. The stone features on the floor have been interpreted as winter people and summer people.
