Twenty-first century contractors enjoy the ease of ordering up ready-made building materials with a quick phone call. Rapid delivery of a wide variety of stock in the 21st century is a building supply company's hallmark. Early Ancestral Pueblo People had no such luxury. During the period when cliff dwellings were common, tools were made of stone and hardened volcanic rock. Building stone was painstakingly carved from cliffs and carried three miles to the site. Timbers, mainly ponderosa pine, spruce, fir and aspen, used for the roofs probably came from the mountains about 20 miles away.
   Early 10th century puebloan builders, working without today's modern tools and equipment, created some of the most fascinating and intricate stone dwellings and kivas in southwestern United States. Visitors marvel at the detailed stonework found at Aztec Ruins National Monument, built over a 200-year period. Here in northwestern New Mexico, the ruins are the largest Ancestral Pueblo community in the Animas River valley. After reconstruction of the Great Kivas was complete, visitors can now appreciate how stone bricks and door lintels were handmade, displaying great accuracy in consistent dimensions.
   A short hiking trail leads visitors through the West Ruin where an excavated great house details at least 400 interconnected rooms, all built around an open plaza. Some of the stone dwelling interiors offer an intimate look into the Anasazi's simple life at Aztec Ruins National Monument.

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