Navajo National Monument

Perched high in their matchless settings, the three great cliff dwellings of Navajo National Monument are the most striking remains of ancient occupancy of the canyon country of northeastern Arizona.

From about A. D. 300 until about A. D. 1300 there lived in the San Juan River drainage near the “Four Corners” of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, Indians we now call the Anasazi (a Navajo word which means “The Ancient Ones”). Before A. D. 300 the Anasazi probably existed as small bands who wandered over the colorful plateau country hunting and trapping and gathering nuts and seeds; it is possible that they also did a little haphazard farming.