Puzzle House

The Puzzle House Archaeological Preserve (5MT19095) is located near Pleasant View in Montezuma County, Colorado, includes four large precontact habitation sites: the Puzzle House Site, the Pigg Site, E-shaped Pueblo, and the Hilltop Site, as well as numerous smaller sites such as field houses, artifact scatters, specialized activity areas, precontact road segments, and an active spring. Together these form a residential agricultural community that was occupied between 650-1250 CE. From 1100 through 1200 CE. The community here is associated with Lowry Pueblo, which is a National Historic Landmark located adjacent to Puzzle House. The large masonry buildings and great kiva at Lowry Pueblo likely served as a ceremonial and political center for the surrounding residents, many of whom would have lived in the Puzzle House Archaeolgical District. Fertile, well-watered lands made this area one of the most densely settled parts of the Four Corners region at that time.

Puzzle House site was extensively tested, mapped, and excavated between 1992 and 1995 by Fort Lewis College archaeological field schools under the direction of renowned southwest archaeologist Dr. W. James Judge. His work demonstrated the magnitude and importance of the property’s archaeological sites and determined that Puzzle House is a complex, multi-component site that was part of a larger community of sites associated with adjacent Lowry Pueblo.