Casa Rinconada Ruins

The Casa Rinconada Ruins

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Be quiet and listen to me

Casa Rinconada is near the "South Mesa Trail" trailhead. Many of the community's building have been lost in time and are currently covered with dirt and rocks. You can look all around you from the few excavations that have taken place at Casa Rinconada and see dozens of overgrown earthen mounds. Each mound is likely another set of rooms, carefully built and now preserved by Nature. Many of the structures at Casa Rinconada are "type 1" masonry, which is the oldest of the defined styles. This style does not lend itself to tight 90-degree corners, instead it looks like it was constructed quickly, with big rocks and lots of mortar. Other buildings, possilby constructed later on, use type-2 and type-3 masonry, characterized by snugger-fitting rock walls and less 'mud' between the rocks.

Casa Rinconada has a unique characteristic: a "keyhole" kiva. Kivas of this shape are often associated with the Mesa Verde region in Colorado and other sites in southeastern Utah. Their presence here is significant in that it indicates these far-away cultures influenced the architecture here in Chaco. Casa Rinconada's excavation teams also found approximately 130 burials. These burials differed from the burials found at the other great houses such as Pueblo Bonito, both in their style and their contents.

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Casa Rinconada has a unique characteristic: a "keyhole" kiva. Kivas of this shape are often associated with the Mesa Verde region in Colorado and other sites in southeastern Utah. Their presence here is significant in that it indicates these far-away cultures influenced the architecture here in Chaco. Casa Rinconada's excavation teams also found approximately 130 burials. These burials differed from the burials found at the other great houses such as Pueblo Bonito, both in their style and their contents.