Habitat & Natural History

The biologically rich mountain zone and habitat of Chimney Rock National Monument yielded a variety of wild foods and game to supplement the Ancestral Puebloan’s cultivated crops of corn, beans, and squash. Flora and fauna were used for food and tools. Many of these native species are still evident at Chimney Rock today.

Even the rocks did their part, providing shelter. The hard sandstone was an ideal building material that has stood the test of time. The stone pinnacles may have been the reason for building on this high mesa which stood at the northeastern edge of civilization a thousand years ago.