Una Vida is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

located in

Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote c ...

San Juan County, New Mexico San Juan County is located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 121,661 making it the fifth-most populous county in New Mexico. Its county seat is Aztec. The county was created in 1887. San Juan Count ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. According to tree rings surrounding the site, its construction began around 800 AD, at the same time as

Pueblo Bonito Pueblo Bonito (Spanish for ''beautiful town'') is the largest and best-known great house in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico. It was built by the Ancestral Puebloans who occupied the structure between AD 828 and 1126 ...

,http://archaeology.about.com/od/uterms/a/Una-Vida.htm and it is one of the three earliest Chacoan

Ancestral Puebloan The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, an ...

great houses. Comprising at least two stories and 160 rooms,. it shares an arc or D-shaped design with its contemporaries, Peñasco Blanco and

, but has a unique "dog leg" addition made necessary by topography. It is located in one of the canyon's major side drainages, near Gallo Wash, and was massively expanded after 930 AD.. The site is surrounded by rock art and petroglyphs that depict human figures, solar signs, and geometric forms. It was first recorded in the mid-19th century by US military that were surveying the area of modern New Mexico. The site was acquired after the war with Mexico and was only partly excavated in the 1950s and 1960s. Una Vida wall

Etymology

''Una Vida'' means "One Life" in the

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

Chaco Road

Chaco Road is a network of roads (for travel and trade) which radiated from great house sites, such as

, Chetro Ketl and Una Vida, leading to small house sites on the periphery of Chaco Canyon. Una Vida today is in a near-natural state of preservation, with minor excavations. A one-mile roundtrip trail is now in place so that tourists can come and explore the site as they please.

Citations

References

* . * Maestri, N. Una Vida, Chaco Canyon. web.2011. * Kantner, John, 2004, Ancient Puebloan Southwest, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. UK. * National Park Service, 2015. Una Vida & Petroglyphs. * Vivian, R. Gwinn and Bruce Hilpert, 2002, The Chaco Handbook. An Encyclopedic Guide. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

External links

Chaco Canyon
a Photo Gallery Buildings and structures in San Juan County, New Mexico Colorado Plateau Chaco Canyon Former populated places in New Mexico Pueblo great houses Ancient Pueblo peoples rock art History of San Juan County, New Mexico Chaco Culture National Historical Park Ancestral Puebloans Pueblos in New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub