Pueblo Bonito

One thousand years ago, in the desert of the Chaco Canyon, the Anasazi people built nine multi-storey buildings called ‘Great Houses'. They used stone for the walls and wood for the floors, doors and roofs. They transported more than 200,000 trees from forests almost 80 kilometres away. How did they move the trees? We don't know.

In some buildings there are huge circular rooms called ‘kivas'—the biggest one is under ground and it is about 16 metres wide. Why did the Anasazi build circular rooms? We don't know. Perhaps they used them for religious ceremonies or for storing crops. We know the Anasazi people abandoned the Great Houses. Why did they leave? Hunger? War? We really don't know.

Taken from Cambridge English for Schools, 2000