In the more remote and isolated valleys of the Rocky Mountains, in the south-west of the United states and in the northern Mexico live the last descendants of the Pueblo Indians. The Pueblos are a peaceful but proud people, devoted to farming and the crafts, especially pottery and weaving. Their civilization reached its greatest peak in about the thirteenth century.

The Pueblo Indians are called after their villages (pueblo is the Spanish word for town). In about 1300 they moved south in search of more secure farmlands along the Rio Grande. They built their villages and created the way of life they had lived previously.

The Pueblo villages were built in two different positions: the first type was caved out of the rock of mountain sides; the second was built in the valley, shaped as a semi circular citadel or fortress. The cliff dwellings were the more impressive, built as they were out of the solid mountain rock. They often had three or four storeys built in stepped-back fashion so that the roofs of the lower rooms served as verandas for the rooms above. They were communal buildings, usually quite small, consisting of between one and fifteen domestic rooms, with one or two ceremonial rooms. The lower inner rooms were used mainly for storing crops, while the upper rooms were for sleeping and living and also for the grinding of corn. They were reached by ladders or, occasionally by staircases. The Indians built their villages in such remote places, which were uncomfortable and often far from water, for defensive reasons.

The Pueblo villages built in the valleys were more like the towns and villages we live in today.