Ancient Spaces

Great Kiva, New Mexico

The Chaco Anasazi of New Mexico constructed large, usually subterranean Great Kivas, a tradition started by their ancestors and maintained by their descendants, but one which the Chaco people mastered. These Kivas could measure over 20 meters in diameter and have roofs several meters in height. This earliest Great Kiva, Chetro Ketl II, was probably constructed sometime around A.D. 1062. A second Great Kiva at Chetro Ketl was built immediately on top of and inside the older one. Like its predecessor, this later Great Kiva exhibited a masonry style dating to between A.D. 1062 and 1090, but it also exhibited a style characteristic of the period between A.D. 1100 and 1116, suggesting rebuilding.