Unearth the Wonders of Portales
THE PLAINS OF EASTERN NEW MEXICO begin bending into gentle hills and folds—grass-coated dunes, some of which are still “actively migrating,” says Brendon Asher. The archaeologist and director of the…
Read More
Take a Spin to See the Roto-Sphere
WHEN IT WORKED, the Roto-Sphere above the El Comedor de Anayas restaurant, in Moriarty, lured hungry motorists off I-40 and onto Old Route 66. Neon lights lined its 16 colorful spikes. The ball they…
Read More
What We're Reading: Girl Flees Circus
HOBBS NATIVE C.W. SMITH rolls out the inaugural novel in the University of New Mexico Press’s Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction series, Girl Flees Circus, which rockets readers into a 1920s…
Read More
A Brief Timeline of Native History
850: First great houses built at Pueblo Bonito and Una Vida in Chaco Canyon. 1050: Chaco culture reaches its height. 1068–1072: First Chacoan structures built at what is now called Salmon Ruins. 1105:…
Read More
Ancient Enigmas
IN THE 17TH CENTURY, the Four Corners region turned cruel. Chaco’s Ancestral Puebloan people had fled three centuries earlier, their elaborate social structure abandoned as the culture’s various…
Read More
Cultural Vocabulary Lesson
Navajo people use the name Diné to describe themselves. The Bureau of Land Management area with Navajo defensive sites is called the Dinétah by archaeologists. In the Diné language, Dinétah refers…
Read More
Protect Our Historic Sites
Volunteers donate time and gas money to monitor archaeological sites all across the state for erosion, vandalism, looting, and deteriorating conditions. The Salmon Ruins Museum’s team of site stewards…
Read More
Explore Archaeology
THE CHACOAN PAST enthralls visitors to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, southwest of Nageezi; Aztec Ruins National Monument, in Aztec; and Salmon Ruins Museum, in Bloomfield, which also tells…
Read More
The Stolen Smith Family Totem Pole
RISING A TRIUMPHANT 41 FEET INSIDE THE HIBBEN CENTER on the University of New Mexico’s Albuquerque campus, the Smith Family Totem Pole traveled a long and controversial route from the Tlowitsis Nation…
Read More
What We're Reading: Blind Eye
A DOUBLE MURDER ANCHORS MARTHA BURNS’S debut novel, Blind Eye (Atmosphere Press), but the mystery of its perpetrator fits into larger dramas of generational abuse and a community’s reluctance to…
Read More