Archaeology

Bears Ears National Monument is one of the best places in the world for visitors to gain a tangible sense of the cultural sites of the early inhabitants of North America . Hundreds of remarkably preserved structures are tucked away under ledges, which provide glimpses of life there hundreds of years ago, and thousands of images pecked and painted on canyon walls remain. With over 100,000 archaeological sites, the area has at least 14,000 years of history. Most of the archaeological sites on the mesa were left by Ancestral Puebloans between the late centuries BCE and the late 1200s CE prior to their migrations to areas in New Mexico and Arizona where many of their descendants live today.