From “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon on the Colorado Plateau – in the present-day Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah – thrived from AD 850 to 1250. Ancestors of the Pueblos of New Mexico constructed more than four hundred miles of roads radiating out from Chaco. Averaging thirty feet wide, these roads followed straight courses, even through difficult terrain such as hills and rock formation. The highways connected some seventy-five communities. Around the thirteenth century, the Ancient Puebloans abandoned the Chaco area and migrated, building nearly a hundred smaller agricultural city-states along the northern Rio Grande valley and its tributaries. Northern-most Taos Pueblo was an important trade center, handling buffalo products from the plains, tropical bird products, copper and shells from Mexico, and turquoise from New Mexico mines. Pueblo trade extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean, as far east as the Great Plains, and as far south as Central America.