Ansel Hall Ruin

About this property

The Ansel Hall Ruin, also known as Cahone Ruin, is located in Cahone, Dolores County, Colorado. A pre-historic ruins from the Pueblo II period, the Northern San Juan pueblo was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The Ansel Hall Ruins, previously called Cahone Ruins, were named for Ansel Hall, the property owner. He sponsored two excavations in 1949 and 1950. Ansel Franklin Hall was a naturalist for the National Park Service. It's said of him that "probably contributed more than any other individual to the formation and early growth of the interpretive work of the National Park Service (NPS)." He was a mentor to photographer Ansel Adams, formed the non-for-profit concessions organization Mesa Verde Company and in 1933 funded an expedition of Monument Valley to research and record information about the area. The Ansel Hall Ruin is located within the central Mesa Verde Anasazi region that spans southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah and northern New Mexico. Its boundaries are: the Colorado River in southeastern Utah, the San Juan River in northern New Mexico, and the Piedra River is the easternmost boundary in Colorado. Hunter-gatherers from 10,000 years Before Present hunted and lived in a difficult terrain, traversed deep canyons and areas of few animals and limited vegetation, and managed limited access to water - which made life difficult and limited the size of their hunt groups. They were adaptive to find sufficient food, supplementing their diet with nuts, seeds and fruit from wild plants. Artifacts were found firstly of Paleo-Indians who camped and hunted along the nearby Cajon Mesa of Hovenweep as early as 8,000 years ago and secondly from 20 sites with evidence of the Archaic people from about 6,000 BC. The people living in the Four Corners region were introduced to maize and basketry through Mesoamerican trading about 2,000 years Before Present Able to have greater control of their diet through cultivation, the hunter-gatherers lifestyle became more sedentary as small disperse groups began cultivating maize and squash. They also continued to hunt and gather wild plants. They were named "Basketmakers" for their skill in making baskets for storing food, covering with pitch to heat water, and using to toast seeds and nuts. They wove bags, sandals, belts out of yucca plants and leaves - and strung beads. They occasionally lived in dry caves where they dug pits and lined with stones to store food. These people were ancestors of the pueblo people of the Hovenweep pueblo settlement and Mesa Verde. The next era, Modified Basketmakers, resulted in the introduction of pottery which reduced the number of baskets that they made and eliminated the creation of woven bags. The simple, gray pottery allowed them a better tool for cooking and storage. Beans were added to the cultivated diet. Bows and arrows made hunting easier and thus the acquisition of hides for clothing. Turkey feathers were woven into blankets and robes. On the rim of Mesa Verde, small groups built pit houses which were built several feet below the surface with elements suggestive of the introduction of celebration rituals.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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