Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Stewart L. Udall, Secretary
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Conrad L. Wirth, Director
HISTORICAL HANDBOOK NUMBER TWENTY-THREE
This publication is one of a series of handbooks describing the historical and archeological areas in the National Park System administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. It is printed by the Government Printing Office and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. Price 25 cents.
by Kittridge A. Wing
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES No. 23 Washington, D. C., 1955 Reprint 1961
The National Park System, of which Bandelier National Monument is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and enjoyment of its people.
Ceremonial Cave, reached by a series of ladders extending 150 feet above the floor of Frijoles Canyon.
In the picturesque canyon and mesa country of the Pajarito Plateau, west of the Rio Grande from Santa Fe, N. Mex., are found the ruined dwellings of one of the most extensive prehistoric Indian populations of the Southwest. Bandelier National Monument, in the heart of the plateau, includes and protects several of the largest of these ruins, in particular the unique cave and cliff dwellings in the canyon of the Rito de los Frijoles.
The Indian farmers who built and occupied the numerous villages of the Pajarito Plateau flourished there for some 300 years, beginning in the 1200’s. By A. D. 1540, when historic times open with the coming of Coronado and his adventurers from Mexico, the Indian people had already started to leave their canyon fastnesses for new homes on the Rio Grande.
From all evidence it seems that modern Pueblo Indians living along the Rio Grande today are descended in part from the ancient inhabitants of the Pajarito area. Thus Bandelier National Monument preserves ruins which link historic times to prehistoric, and which further link the modern Pueblo Indian with his ancestors from regions to the west, whence came the first migrants to the Bandelier environs. The continuity of Pueblo life traces from origins in northwest New Mexico and the Mesa Verde country of southwest Colorado, through the Bandelier region, to the living towns of Cochiti to the south, San Ildefonso to the northeast, and other local Indian communities.