Aztec Ruins National Monument ⓘ

Earl Halstead Morris, born October 24, 1889, is famous for his contributions and dedication to the field of archaeology, particularly at Aztec Ruins National Monument. His fascination with archaeology started at a young age, encouraged by his father who was an avid pot hunter. He recalls a particular event at the age of three and a half that inspired his future.

“One morning in March of 1893, Father handed me a worn-out pick, the handle of which he had shortened to my length, and said, ‘Go dig in that hole where I worked yesterday, and you will be out of my way.’ At the first stroke of the pick into the wall of the pit, there rolled down a roundish, gray object that looked like a cobblestone, but when I turned it over, it proved to be the bowl of a black-and-white dipper. . . . Thus, at three and a half years of age there had happened the clinching event that was to make of me an ardent pot hunter, who later on was to acquire the more credible, and I hope earned, classification as an archaeologist.”

Earl Morris’s passion for archaeology led him to the University of Colorado in Boulder where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology in 1914, and continued on to earn his Masters Degree in 1915, also in Anthropology. Then in 1916, at age 25, Earl Morris headed the first dig at Aztec Ruins with the purpose of understanding the past. Funded by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he spent the next several seasons excavating and stabilizing Aztec West, the Great Kiva, and a few rooms in Aztec East. In 1934, in association with the National Park Service, Earl Morris returned to supervise the reconstruction of the Great Kiva. Today, the reconstructed Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins National Monument continues to reveal a glimpse into the life and culture of the ancestral Pueblo that lived here nearly 1000 years ago.

In 1923, Earl Morris married Ann Axtell , who would become a famous archaeologist, artist, and author. Together, they had two daughters, Elizabeth Ann and Sarah Lane. Elizabeth studied Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and following in her parents footsteps, became an Archaeologist and Professor at Colorado State University.

For further information about Earl Morris and his work at Aztec Ruins National Monument, here are some additional resources available through nps.gov.

Aztec Ruins National Monument, Administrative History of an Archeological Preserve, Robert H. Lister and Florence C. Lister, 1990. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/azru/index.htm

Excavation of a Portion of the East Ruins, Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/wnpa/tech/4/index.htm

Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico, by John M. Corbett. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hh/36/index.htm

Aaron Theis (2013). Ann Axtell Morris: Art in Archaeology of the Southwest and Mesoamerica. Archaeological Institute of America, https://www.archaeological.org/events/10691 >>

Robert F. Burgh. Earl Halstead Morris, 1889-1956. American Anthropologist, Vol. 59, Iss. 3, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1957.59.3.02a00100/pdf >>

Ann Axtell, born February 9, 1900, was a prominent archaeologist, artist, and author. After graduating from Smith College, Ann met Earl Halstead Morris and they got married in 1923. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Ann and Earl worked together during extensive multi-year excavations throughout the American Southwest and in Mexico, including 5 seasons at Chichen Itza, Yucatan in partnership with the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Ann spent much of her time recording and painting architecture, petroglyphs and pictographs, landscapes, and expedition work. Many of her recording methods are still in use today by modern archaeologists, as they provide context within the sites history and represent the importance of color at a time when archaeologists were using black and white photography.

Along with her artwork, Ann wrote 2 books about her experiences as an archaeologist and the significance of her findings. “Digging the Yucatan”, and “Digging in the Southwest” show her extensive knowledge and skill as an archaeologist and provide us a glimpse into the vibrant world of Ann Axtell Morris.

Together, Ann and Earl Morris had two daughters, Elizabeth Ann and Sarah Lane. Elizabeth studied Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and following in her parents footsteps, became an Archaeologist and Professor at Colorado State University.

For further information about Ann Axtell Morris and the work of other women in the field of federal archaeology, check out “Implementing the Antiquities Act: A Survey of Archaeological Permits 1906-1935.” https://www.nps.gov/archeology/pubs/studies/study02C.htm

Aaron Theis (2013). Ann Axtell Morris: Art in Archaeology of the Southwest and Mesoamerica. Archaeological Institute of America, << https://www.archaeological.org/events/10691 >>

Robert F. Burgh. Earl Halstead Morris, 1889-1956. American Anthropologist, Vol. 59, Iss. 3, << http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1957.59.3.02a00100/pdf >>

In 19 th - and 20 th -century America, gender ideologies governed women’s employment opportunities. Once married, women were supposed to stay home to care for their families while their husbands worked. It was mostly single women therefore who entered the workforce. There, the concepts of “women’s work” and “men’s work” defined the few jobs that were ‘acceptable’ for them to perform. Women were viewed as “too delicate and small for many jobs.” [i] They often became teachers, nurses, or secretaries or worked on a factory assembly line. However, once they married or became pregnant they were often required to quit their jobs. In fact, marriage bar laws enforced from the 1800’s to the 1950’s within certain firms and school boards prevented employers from hiring married women at all. [ii] Starting in the mid-19 th century, before they even had the right to vote, women started to challenge these ideologies and enter traditionally male-dominated fields.

[i] Mandelson, Dayle A. “Women’s Changing Labor-Force Participation in the United States,” in Women and Work: A Handbook, eds. Paula J Dubeck and Kathryn Borman, 6.

Archeology is the study of material culture, such as objects and buildings, to know how people of the past lived. Archeologists divide their time between excavating historic sites, analyzing artifacts in the laboratory, and writing interpretations of their finds. Excavations require long hours spent outdoors performing manual labor. Because of this fact, archeology was traditionally viewed as a “men’s field” and unsuitable for “delicate” women. Around 1900, women started to “crash the gates” of archeology. [i] At that time, many excavations were carried out in cooperation with the National Park Service. Hearing that “the best way to get into the Park Service is to marry a Ranger,” [ii] several of the early NPS women did just that and labored alongside their husbands to preserve park resources as Rangers and archeologists. Some women, like Sallie Pierce Brewer, were referred to as “Honorary Custodians Without Pay.” [iii] This meant that even though they and their husbands performed the same work, the wives were not considered NPS employees and did not receive a salary. These women and other early female archeologists helped preserve thousands of archeological resources. However, their work often became overshadowed by that of their well-known husbands. As paid employees, these men were often the ones who led the excavations and whose names were atop the published reports. These factors meant that they, rather than their wives, became the public face of the excavations.

[i] Martelle Trager, as quoted in Kaufman, Polly Welts, Natural Parks and the Women’s Voice: A History, University of New Mexico Press, 1996, 87.

Florence Hawley Ellis (1906-1991) was one of these early female archeologists. She was born in Sonora, Mexico and her family moved to Arizona seven years later. Florence would spend the rest of her life in the area studying ancient peoples of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. Florence attended college at the University of Arizona, originally planning to study English. However at archeologist Dean Byron Cummings’s suggestion, she enrolled in an archeology course. Eventually she decided to keep her English major but added a minor in anthropology. She graduated in 1927, yet remained at the university and received her Masters degree in anthropology in 1928. In that same year, she began teaching at the school as a professor in the Anthropology department and trained under A.E. Douglass, the pioneer of dendrochronology . Starting in 1929, Florence attended the Chaco Canyon National Monument archeological field school run by Edgar L. Hewett, a professor at the University of New Mexico. Hewett was controversial for his time because he allowed, even encouraged, women to attend the field school alongside men. [i] For fifteen seasons between 1929 and 1942, and again in 1947, he taught his students excavation methods and artifact analysis at Chaco. Students lived in tents or hogans (traditional Navajo log structures), were given one gallon of water a day for washing clothes and taking bucket baths, and were dependent on supplies driven in from 100 miles away. Their time was spent excavating the ancient ruins, processing artifacts, visiting the nearby trading post, and attending Navajo ceremonies. [ii] Florence took part in 11 out of 15 seasons. As a student, she focused on the Chetro Ketl site, using it for her 1934 dissertation for the University of Chicago. Later on, she became an instructor and used the on-site “museum tent” to train students in artifact analysis. [iii] Florence was among the many female archeologists who began their careers at Chaco Canyon.

[i] Joiner, Carol. “The Boys and Girls of Summer: The University of New Mexico Archeological Field School in Chaco Canyon,” in Journal of Anthropological Research , vol. 48, no. 1. Spring 1992, 56; Kaufman, Polly Welts. National Parks and the Woman’s Voice: A History, University of New Mexico Press, 1996, 84.

[ii] “Biographical Sketch.” Florence Hawley Ellis Papers. University of New Mexico. 17 June 2015. URL: http://www.unm.edu/~toh/fhe/bio.html .

[v] Ellis, Florence Hawley. “Across Some Decades.” In Ethnohistory, Fall 1971, vol. 18, no. 4, 304.

[iii] Hawley, Florence. Tree Ring Analysis and Dating in the Mississippi Drainage. University of Chicago Press, 1941.

“It was not my new application of the formula for statistically significant differences in evaluating percentage variations of pottery types in successive levels of a deep dump at Chetro Ketl which brought the recognition. It was the dendrochronology. Tree ring dating was adjudged a proper science. Anthropology, with the exception of physical anthropology was not.” [i] At Chetro Ketl, the excavation team uncovered a midden , or trash mound, that contained layers of soil and artifacts that had built up over time. Florence noticed that the midden contained many different styles of pottery. She wished to know how these decoration patterns changed over time. Her method was simple yet groundbreaking. Florence first used statistics to understand how the amounts of each pottery type differed between the midden layers. She then used bits of charcoal found within the layers to date each one. Using this method, she could know how the ancient Chacoans changed their pottery decorations and exactly when they did so. Her work was “one of the earliest uses of form statistics…in American archeology” and was termed “a milestone” in archeological analysis. [ii]

Learn about ancestral Pueblo astronomy, and about astronomy-related events at Aztec Ruins.

Learn about local geology and how the ancestral Pueblo people used the area's geological resources.

Learn about the plants and plant communities at Aztec Ruins, and read the guide to the Native Plant Trail.

Learn about the natural resources available to the ancestral Pueblo people, and those for which they traveled or traded.

People have long made their living in the Animas River valley of northwest New Mexico. Aztec Ruins National Monument, bounded on the east by the Animas, preserves an extensive community of multi-story structures, smaller residential buildings, roadways, ceremonial kivas, earthworks, and artifacts left by the 11 th through 13 th century ancestors of today's Pueblo peoples of the Southwest.

Then, as now, the people took advantage of the year-round water from the Animas by constructing irrigation ditches to bring water to their cultivated crops of corn, beans, and squash. More recent settlers also constructed irrigation ditches, some tracing the paths of the prehistoric ones, to irrigate fruit trees and pasture lands. The Farmers Ditch, a major irrigation ditch built in 1892, runs east-west through the 320-acre park and transports precious water to users outside the park boundaries.

The Farmers Ditch supports a narrow strip of riparian vegetation and moisture-dependant animal life, despite the ditch's seasonal March through October use. Because its source is the Animas River, which begins its long journey in the Colorado San Juan Mountains and travels through many developed areas, it spreads seeds of exotic vegetation.

Along the Animas River, at the lowest elevation in the park of 5630 feet, riparian vegetation of cottonwoods, willows, and exotic Russian olive trees are home to a variety of birds and other animals. As the topography rises away from the river, lands historically irrigated for pasture and fruit trees surround the core area that preserves most of the large prehistoric structures. Since acquiring these previously cultivated lands in the late 1990s, the park has discontinued irrigation according to a long range plan of converting to Upper Sonoran desertscrub native vegetation. Within the core historic area, native vegetation already dominates the scene.

The riparian and pinon-juniper woodland areas, along with patches of once-cultivated grassy fields, orchards, and desert scrub all provide diverse habitats for birdlife in the park.

As part of the National Park Service’s Natural Resources Initiative, ornithologists conducted bird inventories in the park in 2001 and 2002. In addition, a multi-park grant from the National Park Foundation and Hawks Aloft provided for a survey in 2002 of neotropical migrant breeding birds. Prior to these recent inventories, volunteers from the local Audubon Society had compiled a bird checklist for the park that listed 74 species.

During the 2001 field season, a total of 53 species were detected. Of these species, 40 were in riparian habitats, and 14 of those were detected only in riparian zones. Thirty-seven species were detected in upland habitat, 12 of which were only found in uplands. Although no federally listed species of concern were detected, one State of New Mexico species of concern was detected, the yellow-billed cuckoo.

During the 2002 breeding season, a total of 58 species were detected, including six species previously undetected in the park. The yellow-billed cuckoo was not detected during this season. The two years of inventory yielded a detection of 63 species within the park.

Habitats within the park include pinon-juniper woodland, riparian, and abandoned farmlands. Together they provide homes for a diversity of mammal species.

As part of the National Park Service's Natural Resources Initiative, wildlife biologists conducted mammal inventories in the park during 2001 and 2002. During the first field season, they captured and released eighty mammals of 12 species, and observed one other species. They anticipated the occurrence of five additional species, but did not document them during the first field season. The park staff and the biologists have since documented additional species.

Biologists found that the pinon-juniper woodland on the mesa top provided the highest species richness for terrestrial mammals.

The most common mammals captured were the western harvest mouse and the non-native house mouse. Acoustic surveys and capture through mistnetting identified at least seven species of bats. Species richness for bats was highest at the irrigation ditch and great kiva, where five species were documented. Two federally listed species of concern, the western small-footed myotis and the spotted bat, were documented through capture and acoustic survey, respectively. A nesting colony of the pallid bat is present in the roof beams of the reconstructed great kiva, where visitors are sometimes puzzled by the faint chirping sounds that the colony emits at certain times of the year.

Bobcat--Sighted by an ornithologist early one morning in 2002. She reported that the animal had a domestic duck clamped in his mouth.

American black bear--An unusual occurrence, this bear had been sighted several times in the nearby City of Aztec and made the front page in the local newspaper.