A Testament to Upper-Class Living in Ancient Times
The Aztec Ruins, New Mexico (Photography | Melodie Miller)
Reporting from Aztec, New Mexico
June 1, 2026 Updated June 11, 2026, 3:14 MDT
Did you know that…
You can visit a 12th-century community of Puebloan structures at the Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, near Durango, Colorado. If the Pueblos built the community, why is it named the Aztec Ruins?
“The Spanish are calling the Aztec ruins Aztec before non-Spanish Europeans show up,” Dr. Steve Lekson, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, said.
During the 19th century, scholars in Mexico City, Mexico, wrote that the Aztecs had built the 400-room community. However, most modern archaeologists accept that the ancestral Puebloans, a farming culture, built the dwellings, and the Aztecs, an elite class, lived there for a period of time.
“It’s a complicated story,” Dr. Scott Ortman, of the University of Colorado Boulder, said. One concern is “naming a site in one particular indigenous language” when many tribes view themselves as descendants of the area.
Thus, the 19th-century name took hold and remains.
Pueblo Indians, Tesuque, N.M. (1893) (William Edward Hook | Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Migration lies at the heart of the Aztec and Pueblo ancestral origin story. More than a record of movement, their ancestors’ journeys shape identity and belonging today.
According to Mexican scholars of the 1800s, the Aztec Ruins were the “first home of the Aztecs” before they migrated south to Mexico, Lekson, said.
The Aztec Ruins kiva replica, Aztec, New Mexico (Photography | Melodie Miller)
The 381-acre National Park protects the Ancestral Pueblo great house community and the kiva ceremonial room replica. Kivas are built with ventilation, a fire pit, and a sipapu — a spiritual gateway to and from the underworld. An important part of modern Pueblo and Hopi communities is sacred dances and rituals held in community kivas.
The Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico (Photography | Melodie Miller)
President Warren G. Harding used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the site as the Aztec Ruins National Monument on January 24, 1923.
Nathan Hatfield, Aztec National Park Ranger Supervisor of Interpretation, said, “I believe that by 1928 most southwestern scholars and archaeologists agreed that the Aztecs of Mexico were not responsible for building” the Aztec Ruins.
Consensus among archaeologists grew, accepting the continuity between the Ancestral Pueblo builders and the Aztec ruins.
Archaeologists have come to accept that “Aztec was built by ancestors of today’s Pueblo people,” Ortman said. “We didn’t need DNA. It was just recognizing the continuity and culture.”
Now the name is accepted as an artifact of history. A name change would require an act of Congress.
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The Aztec Ruins National Monument is located 40 miles (ca. 64 km) south of Durango, at 725 Ruins Rd, Aztec, New Mexico 87410.
Aztec Ruins National Monument Website
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Contact
Melodie Dawn Miller
- melodie.miller@colorado.edu
- http://www.melodiemiller.com
Melodie Dawn Miller is an apparel industry professional with expertise in design, development, and production.
She holds bachelor’s degrees in English Literature and Classic Civilizations.
She is currently studying History and Journalism at the University of Colorado.
Melodie Dawn Miller 
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