After AD 700 some communities in the Southwest began to construct impressive free-standing structures consisting of many rooms built on to one another. Individual dwellings consisted of a living room and one or several storage rooms. In addition, these 'pueblos', as they are called, contained underground 'kivas', ceremonial rooms and meeting places to which access was by ladder from above.
The most spectacular pueblos, like that at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, may have been intended more for ceremonial activity than ordinary residence, providing a ritual focus for the surrounding region.
The inhabitants of smaller villages would spend some part of the year here engaged in religious celebrations, also storing their surplus grain, meat and gathered plants here under the control of a small resident elite.
Sophisticated irrigation and water conservation methods had by now greatly increased the productivity of agriculture.
From Chaco Canyon ran a network of impressive roads, up to 30 ft (9m) wide, a surprising investment of labour. They may have operated as pilgrim roads, linking outlying settlements with the great ceremonial centres. One also ran to the important turquoise mines near Santa Fe, source of a raw material that featured prominently in pueblo settlements for making and decorating ritual objects.
