Navajo National Monument

Hidden deep within the sandstone cliffs of Northeastern Arizona, Navajo National Monument preserves some of the most beautiful and best-preserved ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings in the American Southwest. Built into enormous natural alcoves high above the canyon floor, these ancient stone villages seem to emerge directly from the rock itself.

Located near the Four Corners region, the monument protects three major cliff dwelling sites constructed during the 1200s by ancestral Puebloan people. The villages were carefully built beneath overhanging sandstone cliffs that provided protection from weather while overlooking the canyon landscape below.

It took great ingenuity to build these communities. Families carried stone, timber, food and water into these protected alcoves and created villages that included homes, storage rooms, ceremonial areas and gathering spaces. These were not temporary shelters, but thriving communities connected to a broader ancestral Puebloan world throughout the Southwest.

The monument also reflects the continuing cultural connections of Native peoples to this region. The surrounding land remains part of the Navajo Nation, and the ancestral Puebloan history preserved here remains deeply important to descendant indigenous communities throughout the Southwest.  

Recognizing the archaeological importance of these cliff dwellings, Navajo National Monument was established in 1909 by President William Howard Taft to protect the villages and their surrounding canyon landscape.