Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Bertha Dutton

Earl Morris

Florence Hawley Ellis

Frank "Boss" Pinkley

Sallie Pierce Brewer Van Valkenburg Harris

In spring 2011, the SCPN-NAU School of Communication collaboration began with a multimedia studies course focused on documenting park resources and resource projects. The class was taught by NAU professors Laura Camden and Peter Friederici.

Hopa Mountain, in partnership with the National Park Service, is pleased to announce the 2019 awardees of the Connecting with our Homelands travel grants. Twenty-one Indigenous organizations, schools, and nonprofits have been awarded travel funds for trips to national park units across 12 states/territories within the United States.

The beige women’s wardrobe is one of the most misunderstood National Park Service (NPS) uniforms. It’s also the uniform that usually gets the most attention—despite being worn for only three years. Many incorrectly believe it dates to the 1960s and featured miniskirts and go-go boots. The fact that it is the one least like the standard green ranger uniform wasn’t an accident.

When the climate changes enough, the vegetation communities growing in any given place will also change. Under an expanded bimodal climate zone, some plant communities in western national parks are more likely to change than others. National Park Service ecologists and partners investigated the future conditions that may force some of this change. Having this information can help park managers decide whether to resist, direct, or accept the change.

On my drive out west toward Grand Canyon this year, I had the chance to stop at a few Ancestral Puebloan sites – namely, Bandelier, Chaco Culture, and Aztec Ruins. Having worked and spent some time around these types of sites before, I felt like I was seeing and appreciating these special places on a much deeper level than even I realized was possible.

Interactive 3D Model Collected from Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico.

People in the past carved petroglyphs and painted pictographs to mark the cycle of the sun, moon, and stars; solstices; and the changing seasons. They tracked time by creating solar calendars that interacted with light and shadow as the sun moved across the sky. When unique astronomical events took place, they documented the moment in stone. Learn more about the purpose for these images.

Between AD 850 and 1250, Chaco Canyon was a hub of cultural activity for Native American peoples, a landscape of multi-storied masonry buildings, roads, water control and distribution systems, and petroglyphs, pictographs, and calendrical markings. Concern over the looting of artifacts and loss of irreplaceable information led to the designation of Chaco Canyon National Monument on March 11, 1907.