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About a thousand years ago, the canyon at Chaco in present day northwestern New Mexico was a major center of a widespread pre-columbian civilization in the southwestern desert. The different sites at Chaco contain dozens of kivas and hundreds of storage rooms. Most of the above ground walls are finely built with a rubble core and double-sided dressed rock veneer- construction of a quality practically unknown elsewhere in the region. The true purpose of Chaco has faded into history and tribal legends but, given its impressive dimensions and architecture, and its archaeology, it was certainly a significant religious and/or cultural center. Much else is speculation.