How large is Petrified Forest National Park?
Petrified Forest National Park
During the Pueblo I Era, most sites were single-family homes, but as soils became exhausted many sites were abandoned by 1250CE in favor of very large multi-room pueblos close to more dependable sources of water.[23] The Pueblo Builders constructed two of these large pueblos, one called Stone Axe, about 0.5 miles (0.8km) east of the park, and the other at Puerco Pueblo, which overlooks the Puerco River near the middle of the park.[24] There they built about 100 one-story rooms around an open plaza.[24] The rooms had no windows or doors but each could be entered by climbing a ladder and descending through a hole in the roof. At its peak, perhaps 200 people lived in this pueblo.[24] Over time, however, a persistently dry climate led to out-migration, and the last residents abandoned Puerco Pueblo in about 1380CE.[25]