Salmon Ruins facts for kids
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Salmon Ruin
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Salmon Ruins, central room block
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| Nearest city | Farmington, New Mexico |
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| Area | 19 acres (7.7 ha) |
| Built | 1089 |
| NRHP reference No. | 70000406 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | September 4, 1970 |
Salmon Ruins is an amazing ancient site in northwest New Mexico, USA. It was once a large village built by people from Chaco Canyon around the year 1090 CE. The original village had about 275 to 300 rooms spread across three stories. It also featured a special tower kiva and a large kiva in its main plaza.
Later, starting around the 1120s, local people from the Middle San Juan area moved in. They changed the building quite a bit. They reused many rooms and divided the large Chacoan rooms into smaller ones. They also added more than 20 small kivas in the rooms and plaza. Ancient Ancestral Puebloans lived here until the 1280s. Around that time, much of the site was damaged by fire and then left empty.
Salmon Ruins sits on the north bank of the San Juan River. It is near the modern town of Bloomfield, New Mexico. The site is about 45 miles (72 km) north of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. It was built on a raised area of land above the river.
Contents
Exploring Salmon Ruins
The ruins of Salmon Pueblo were carefully dug up and studied between 1970 and 1979. This big project was led by Cynthia Irwin-Williams from Eastern New Mexico University. They worked with the San Juan County Museum Association. During this time, they excavated about one-third of the ground floor rooms.
More than 1.5 million artifacts and samples were found at Salmon Ruins. These finds helped scientists learn a lot about the people who lived there. The main goal was to understand the history of this important ancient village.
Continuing the Research
In 2000, a group called Archaeology Southwest teamed up with the Salmon Ruins museum. Their work at Salmon began in 2001. Archaeologist Paul Reed led this new research effort. They worked to organize and publish all the information from the earlier digs.
They also did new research in specific areas of the site. This led to new reports and a summary book called Chaco’s Northern Prodigies. This ongoing work helps us understand the history of Salmon Ruins even better. They also worked to properly store and care for all the artifacts found.
Building and Living at Salmon
Scientists used tree rings from wood found at the site to figure out when it was built. The first and second stories were likely built between 1090 and 1095. The design of Salmon's great house is much like other large buildings from the Chaco Canyon area. It is similar to Hungo Pavi in Chaco Canyon and nearby Aztec Ruins.
The Chacoan people stopped living at Salmon by 1125. But the site was not left empty. Other local Puebloan groups lived there from 1125 until the 1280s. After 1200, more people lived at the site. They also traded with other Puebloan groups from the Mesa Verde region.
The End of the Village
At the end of its time, in the 1280s, much of Salmon Pueblo was burned. Some rooms on the western side of the village had large amounts of corn. This corn was destroyed in the fire.
In the Tower Kiva, remains of nearly 20 children and several adults were found. These people were there when the site was left empty. At first, some thought this was due to a battle. But later studies showed a more complex situation. There was little proof of warfare.
How Salmon Ruins Was Built
The walls of the Salmon great house were made from thin sandstone slabs. This was a common building style in Chaco Canyon. The building is shaped like a rectangle. It runs mostly from east to west. The long back wall on the north side is about 400 feet (122 meters) long.
The ground floor had 150 rooms. These were arranged into 25 groups, usually with four rooms each. These groups were likely used by families. This shows that Salmon Pueblo was a main home for people during the Chacoan period.
Two sections of rooms stretch south from each end of the back part of the building. These sections create a large open area called a plaza. The plaza has a large kiva, like the one rebuilt at Aztec Ruins. There is also a special "tower kiva" in the middle of the main room section.
Building Materials
The roofs of the rooms were made with large wooden beams and smaller poles. These are called vigas and latillas. This is a common way to build roofs in ancient and modern pueblo structures. The logs used for beams came from large trees like ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and spruce. These trees had to be brought to the site from as far as 40 miles (64 km away).
The great kiva is about 58 feet (18 meters) across. Its roof was held up by four large columns. These columns were built with layers of stone and wood. They supported the huge roof beams. Salmon Pueblo also had other special rooms. These included four rooms for grinding corn. There were also two rooms with features related to the sun and stars. Two other rooms were workshops for making and fixing metates and other stone tools.
