303F Summer 2026 From Ancient to Modern Pueblo: the Great Archaeological Mystery

Chaco Canyon, in the Northwest corner of New Mexico, has stone ruins of building complexes four and five stories high, circular depressions 50 meters in diameter (called kivas), and hundreds of small rooms and smaller kivas. There are many of these complexes in the area including those built into cliffs in Mesa Verde. Archaeologists have determined these cities were built between 800 and 1250 AD. By 1300 AD all of them were abandoned. The peoples of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde are the ancestors of the current Pueblo tribes. After a century of archaeological work there is no consensus about why they were built, what purpose they served, and how a Neolithic culture accomplished such a feat. And most mysterious, why were they abandoned. This course will take a trip through this area, review some of the archaeological work about the diaspora, review the history of the Pueblos in the areas they went to, mostly along the Rio Grande River, and meet some of the current Pueblo tribes.

Richard Stillson has a Ph.D in Economics from Stanford. After a career at the International Monetary Fund, he retired and earned a Ph.D in History from Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Spreading the News: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush.