May 4, 2010 -- Somewhere on the west bank of the
Rio Puerco lies earthen mounds which were once the home to at least three different pueblos, some of them apparently three to four stories high. Significant erosion and time have leveled the site and all that remains on the surface today are incredible amounts of pottery shards, obsidian and some bone fragments.
I've wanted to find the site (which will remain nameless to protect it's identity) since discovering pottery shards on the banks of the Rio Puerco about a mile downstream. You can't access the site by vehicle because the only road with access is private so I had to hike in from opposite side, forge the river and tried to get as close as possible without trespassing. Using GoogleEarth, the internet, Normon Oppelt's
Guide to Prehistoric Ruins of the Southwest, and Photoshop I located what surely was the site.
From investigation I learned that the site was once built on a flat-topped pyramid-shaped mound suggesting possible influence from cultures in Mexico. Today, all that is left is the incredible amounts of pottery shards which litter the ground. Of course, I took only pictures and wearing my
Vibram Five-Fingers I barely left any footprints.
The site is incredibly fragile and parts of the ruins are slowly eroding into the river. The CCC tried to build a causeway to the north to protect the site from erosion. Significant excavation and study was done on the site in the 1950's and beautiful murals were discovered and moved to the University of New Mexico. It was awesome to finally discover and see the site for myself even if today all that is left are a couple of mounds of earth and some eroding reminders of a distant time long past.
