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Hi. I'm Alexandra and I'm Evan. And we're Within Hiking Distance
exploring Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico.
Aztec Ruins National Monument is located in northwestern New Mexico and is about an hour
and a half from Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado.
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Despite the name Aztec Ruins, the structures were not built by Aztecs, but by ancestral pueboan people.
When you arrive you'll park in front of the visitor's center.
The National Monument is actually a fee free park.
In the visitor's center there is a small museum
and short video about the ruins.
From there you'll gain access to the
half mile self-guided trail throughout the National Monument.
The National Monument was designated a World Heritage Site in 1987
and provides an opportunity to view well-preserved ancestral puebloan structures that date back 900 years.
One of the first stops on the Aztec West trail is the Great Kiva.
This is the Great Kiva.
Kiva's were public buildings with religious purposes
and this is the only reconstructed one in the US.
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We had a great time exploring the inside of it.
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Continue outside on the trail and view some of the 500 masonry rooms throughout the site.
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These ruins were public buildings and archaeologists have
found many well-preserved artifacts when excavating.
While this monument has been uncovered and reconstructed in some parts,
they estimate that 90% of the construction is still original.
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To make this building the Ancestral Puebloan people made a lot of
calculations so that the end of this wall would align with the summer
solstice sunrise, and the other end of this wall with align with the winter solstice sunset.
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The Hubbard Tri-Wall Site is one of the few tri-wall
structures in the southwest.
That structure had three concentric walls divided into 22 rooms encircling a kiva.
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