Pueblitos of Dinétah

Banner image courtesy of the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management, via Flickr.

Visitors may explore a complex of 17th- and 18th-century Navajo structures that helped defend against threats from neighboring Spanish colonists. Many of the pueblitos (Spanish for “small villages”) are positioned on the top of steep slopes or along the edges of cliffs. Several structures are also visible to one another, suggesting that they may have belonged to a larger network for communicating early warnings of incoming raiders. In addition to masonry structures, visitors may also view several sandstone galleries of Navajo rock art. A guide to individual sites is available here (opens as a PDF).