San buenaventura mexico

From about 1000 AD to the 1600s, three villages served as major regional centers of trade with Indians from the Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Great Basin. Archeological evidence indicates that by 1300 AD, the area overlooking the southern Estancia Basin was inhabited by Tompiro-speaking peoples who built the culturally distinct pueblo masonry architecture. Gran Quivira’s history began in about 800 AD with a sedentary native population who lived in pit houses. It encompasses the pueblo and mission ruins of San Buenaventura de Las Humanas that present an impressive physical record of the successes and trials of the people who once called this place home. Gran Quivira is a unit of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in central New Mexico.

Gran Quivira, New Mexico by Don Barrett, Flickr