The Cerrillos Turquoise Mines are

Ancestral Puebloan The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...

turquoise mines located in the Cerrillos Hills, southwest of Santa Fe,

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Archeologists believe that most of the turquoise found at

Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a large concentration of pre-Columbian indigenous ruins of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, betwee ...

was mined in the Cerrillos Hills. Many modern

Pueblo people The Pueblo peoples are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited Pueblos, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are some of the ...

claim to have ancient rights to these mines. In 1977,

neutron activation analysis Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a nuclear reaction, nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of chemical element, elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete Sampling (statistics), sampling of elements as it disregards the ...

linked an artifact from

Chetro Ketl Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began and was largely complete by 1075, with significant remodeli ...

to the Cerrillos mines.

References

;Bibliography * * Colorado Plateau Ancestral Puebloans Archaeological sites in New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub