Its straight side, which was the front of the complex, faces south and toward the river. As one faces this front side, the room constructions rise terrace-fashion like some great amphitheater to a height of four stories. In the center of the D is a huge open court, and the rooms of the lower terrace which open on this court are a single story high. A single line of rooms, one story high, connects the two ends of the arc of the “amphitheater” and forms the straight side the D and the front wall of the courtyard. The total structure measures about 160 meters (east-west) by 100 meters (north-south) and covers an area of 3 acres. There are over 800 apartment rooms.
Several large subterranean circular kivas are located in the Pueblo Bonito courtyard, the largest being almost 20 meters in diameter. These large kivas are believed to have served community functions while smaller circular kivas, built within the apartment mass of rectangular rooms at various points, may have continued to be the ceremonial chambers of kinship units or clans that had been brought together to form the town.
The masonry of Pueblo Bonito and other Chaco Canyon ruins is mostly of coursed stone, which is used as a facing to cover interior cores of rock and adobe rubble. Both sides of the walls were veneered with stone blocks. In one type, laminate sandstone of more or less uniform thickness was set with a minimum of mud mortar. In another, the veneer was made up of alternate bandings of large, semi-dressed sandstone blocks and thinner blocks or spallings. In still a third type of wall construction, thin sandstone slabs and spalls were layered between very thicks bands of adobe mortar.
Most of the rooms of Pueblo Bonito, presumably used for habitation or storage, are rather large-sized, averaging, perhaps, 4 by 5 meters. They were roofed with cross-beams laid over the wall tops, atop which were laid cross poles covered with woven mats and splints and a coating of adobe. These roofs were sufficiently sturdy to support the floors of the rooms above, and some of them are still intact today. Walls of the rooms were coated with adobe plaster. Rooms in outer tiers contained doors and windows facing toward the general direction of the courtyard, and these appear to have been living quarters. Interior rooms without such apertures were probably used for storage. Courtyard or roof terrace space adjoining the rooms was usually reserved for corn-grinding and cooking.
The absence of doors and windows opening to the outside of the compound is as noticable at Pueblo Bonito as it is in other Pueblo III ruins. Some apertures had been made at on etime, but these were sealed up, including even a front main gate on the south side. Entrance here, apparently, was over the wall by ladder. These obviously defensive features of Pueblo Bonito, and of other of the large Pueblo III towns, tend to support the explanation of warlike invasions for both the establishments of large town and for their abandonment at the close of the period. The Athapascans, who probably were invading the northern borders of the Southwest at about this time, may have been the casual agents. This explanation is not fully satisfactory, however, for a hunting collecting people, which the Athapascans must have been at this time, would have been few in number and probably not a match for most of the relatively populous Anasazi farming communities. Thus, while the appearace of the Athapascan might have been important in bringing small, isolated unit habitation together to form the concentrated towns of Pueblo III, it is less likely that these newcomes were responsible for their subsequent abandonment.
The Mesa Verde locality in the northern San Juan Region is also known for its Pueblo ruins, of which the most famous is Cliff Palace. It is a terraced masonry multi-roomed buildings, but it has been constructed within a great natural niche in a sandstone cliff overhang. The complex totals over 200 rooms and has 23 incorporated kivas. The kivas are mostly small and circular with an encircling bench and the standard six masonry pilaster supports rising from the bench to sustain the roof. In other words, this is the dominant Pueblo III kiva type which first came into being in the preceeding Pueblo II Period, as at Alkali Ridge. The Mesa Verde masonry differs from tha Chaco Canyon in having no rubble core walls and in being made of roughly dressed stone rather than tabular blocks. An odd and distinctive feature of Mesa Verde architecture are the towers. These towers sometimes were part of a compound, as at Cliff Palace.
Pueblo IV (ca A.D 1300 – 1700) is sometimes called the “Regressive Pueblo Period”. There was no general culture decline, but the former trend toward assembling the population into fewer and larger towns increased and the total subarea of Anasazi occupation shrank. The northern regions were abandoned during the late years of the thiorteenth century, leaving the Anasazi concentrated on the Little Colorado and the northern Rio Grande. It was in these locations that the Spaniards found the Pueblo Indians in the sixteenth century. The Pueblo IV towns were even larger than those of Pueblo III. Built of stone masonry blocks and adobe, they too were multi storied, terraced, planned apartment-house units grouped on or around plazas. The principal sites in the west are the Hopi and Zuni towns, some of which are still occupied today. In the east, the largest was Pecos at the headwaters of the Pecos river on the eastern edge of the northern Rio Grande region. Begun in late Pueblo III times, it continued as an important center until early in the nineteenth century.
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