Hovenweep National Monument is known for its prehistoric masonry structures clustered around small canyons along the Utah-Colorado border. To protect these unique archaeological resources, Warren G. Harding issued a Presidential Proclamation to establish the monument on March 2, 1923. The monument is composed of six individual units that encompass about 785 acres. Two of the units (Cajon and Square Tower) are located in Utah. The remaining four units (Holly, Horseshoe-Hackberry, Cutthroat, and Goodman Point) are located in Colorado.
Hovenweep was first known to Europeans in the mid- to late 1500s, when Spanish explorers came through the region marking travel routes. In 1854, W. D. Huntington submitted what may be the first published report on Hovenweep to the editor of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. William H. Jackson, a member of the Hayden Survey between 1874 and 1877, came through the area to map and photograph the lands. It is believed that Jackson was the first person to use the name “Hovenweep,” a word he heard from native peoples, meaning “deserted valley.”
A variety of structures and shapes of prehistoric masonry are represented at Hovenweep, including round and square towers, D-shaped buildings, and rectangular room blocks. Some of the buildings are found atop or within eroded portions of boulders. Others are located precipitously along the rims of the drainages. Some of the buildings are single-story, whereas others are multi-story. The variety and uniqueness of these prehistoric dwellings and storage facilities have attracted the attention of visitors over the years.
Archaeologists conclude that the Ancestral Puebloan people built most of these structures in the Pueblo III period (AD 1166 through 1277) based on tree-ring dates taken from roof beams. During this time, people in the Four Corners area gathered together into villages. Once these densely populated villages were formed, daily work tasks were likely assigned to specific groups of people. One of those specialized tasks would have been masonry work, resulting in the meticulous, durable construction of buildings in and around uneven surfaces. Some Pueblo III villages, like those at Hovenweep and at neighboring sites such as Sand Canyon in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, are built along the rims at the head of the canyon near a permanent spring. Other Pueblo III villages, such as those at Mesa Verde National Park, are constructed in large alcoves within the cliff walls of a canyon. Although the placement of the buildings is different, these people shared common building and pottery techniques and designs.
But the Pueblo III buildings do not represent the whole story at Hovenweep. These masonry structures represent only one period of time when Hovenweep was home to a group of agriculturalists. Archaeologists have found artifacts, rock art panels, and types of shelters that indicate these lands were also known to earlier nomadic Archaic people (6000 to 600 BC), horticulturalist Basketmaker people (600 BC to AD 750), agricultural Pueblo II Ancestral Puebloans (AD 950 to 1150), and the later Protohistoric and Historic groups (AD 1600 to 1840).