Pecos Pueblo
A Brief Overview
The most prominent feature of Pecos National Historical Park, east of Santa Fe, Pecos Pueblo lies in ruins, the remains of Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula, a Spanish mission church, perched on a nearby ridge. The site not only attests to Pecos Pueblo’s former eminence and its complex relations with Spanish invaders, but intimates the myriad reasons for its eventual downfall and abandonment by the Ancestral Pueblo. Though uninhabited today, Pecos Pueblo is a site with much to reveal.
Once referred to as “Cicuye,” or the “village of 500 warriors,” Pecos Pueblo was built around the end of the prehistoric Pueblo II era, circa CE 1100, one of several rock-and-mud villages in the area. Though a modest size to begin, Pecos Pueblo gradually expanded over the course of 350 years, eventually reaching as high as five stories and hosting as many as 2000 occupants by the end of the Pueblo IV era. Pecos Pueblo served as a significant hub for trade and commerce among other pueblos. Despite Pecos Pueblo’s considerable impact on Native American culture and history in this region, however, the area has been occupied by indigenous peoples as far back as circa 11,500 BCE. Moreover, the area remained occupied until the mid-nineteenth century, when remaining residents fled to the nearby Jemez Pueblo to join fellow Towa-speaking people. By this time, the area’s…
