Salmon Ruins (Salmon Pueblo)
Salmon Pueblo · Salmon Ruins · Salmon Ruin · Salmon Site
Chacoan to Post-Chaco (Late Pueblo II to III)·Chaco Culture → Mesa Verde–San Juan (ancestral Pueblo)·🇺🇸 New Mexico, San Juan County – San Juan River north bank, Four Corners, United States
About
About Salmon Ruins (Salmon Pueblo)
Northern Chaco great-house outlier (c.1090–1280 CE) — 300-room 2-storey sandstone Chacoan great house built 1090 CE by Chaco Canyon elite as toll/ grain colony on San Juan, then reoccupied 1125–1280 by Mesa Verde–San Juan colonists with 200+ small house rooms and 1960s tree-ring burnt roof. Cynthia Irwin-Williams San Juan Valley Archaeological Program 1970–79 excavated 130 ground-floor rooms + 180 Middle San Juan small sites; famous for burnt roof with intact arrow shafts, loom, macaw feather sash, copper bells Mexican imports. Shows Chaco→post-Chaco transformation.
Why it mattersOnly great-house with tree-ring birth 1090 exact + 1280 reoccupation sequence — bridges Chaco to Mesa Verde; burnt roof organic warehouse.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why build 300-room great house 45 km north of Chaco — San Juan wheat surplus tax point?
- 02Arrow shafts cache — siege or ritual bundle
Theories
- 01Salmon as Chaco northern grain bank — Wilcox tributary model
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- Great house 1090–1094 CE (tree-ring); small sites 1125–1280 CE
- Period
- Chacoan to Post-Chaco (Late Pueblo II to III)
- Culture
- Chaco Culture → Mesa Verde–San Juan (ancestral Pueblo)
- Builders
- Chaco masons (stone+ mud core veneer) then San Juan reoccupiers
- Purpose
- San Juan tributary Chaco grain/ timber colony and great kiva centre
- Abandoned
- c.1280 CE San Juan drought and Little Ice Age onset, migration to Rio Grande
- Rediscovered
- Late 1800s George Salmon ranch preserves; 1970 Irwin-Williams 10-year San Juan project
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1090–94
Great house built — 4-year tree-ring core-and-veneer
1123
Chaco great house abandoned, San Juan reoccupation starts
1970
Irwin-Williams Eastern New Mexico University project begins
On the ground
Structures & features
36.7100° N · 108.0200° W · 1670 m · 3 mapped features
Salmon great house (Chaco core)
great house300-room Chaco veneer great house 1090
36.7101° N · 108.0201° WTower kiva
kivaIsolated tower kiva 8 m with roof intact burnt beams
36.7099° N · 108.0199° WGreat kiva (reoccupied floor)
great kiva15 m great kiva with San Juan floor features
36.7100° N · 108.0200° W
Gallery