Chiles and Sherds

Chiles and Sherds is one of two major fundraising events that Friends of Archaeology organizes each year as part of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. The cost for the tours (including a sack lunch) is $95 for FOA members and $105 for non-members. The money raised supports the education and research programs of the NM Office of Archaeological Studies.

Each tour is 3 hours long (roughly 1.5 hours at the Rock Art and 1.5 hours at Pueblo). The hike through the rock art is strenuous, equivalent to climbing six flights of stairs. There is an optional 1 hour long very strenuous hike (equivalent to another 12 flights of stairs) to the "watch tower" following the main 3 hour tour. All hiking segments will be over uneven ground, with all of the normal risks of encountering dangerous plants and animals in the undeveloped back-country.

Participants should check in at least 15 minutes before their scheduled tour time and will be asked to sign a San Cristobal Ranch waiver on site, as a condition of participation.

One tour at 9:20 to 11:20 a.m. will be led for only the Pueblo. This is to accommodate our guests that are mobility challenged. That tour will still be a hike over uneven ground, with all the normal risks in the undeveloped back-country. To sign up for that tour please follow the below link. Tour space is very limited and intended for mobility challenged folks. This tour is not wheelchair accessible and will still require participants to be able to walk and stand for nearly 2 hours.

Chiles and Sherds registration, click here.

Pueblo Hike only registration, click here.

About Pueblo San Cristobal

The village of San Cristobal Pueblo grew out of a pre-AD 1400 settlement, expanding over the next three centuries to include more than 1,600 rooms arranged around at least 14 plazas. A Spanish mission and convento were established at the Tano-speaking Pueblo in the early seventeenth century, and portions of the mission walls still stand. A reservoir adjacent to the Pueblo was created prior to Spanish colonization and was rebuilt at least once after colonization. San Cristobal Pueblo residents participated in the successful Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but by the time of the Spanish Reconquest in 1692-94 the village was abandoned. During the period of the revolt, San Cristobal residents are credited with contributing to the construction of a new pueblo at the site of the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe and with establishing other late seventeenth century villages north of Santa Fe.

In addition to being one of the most dramatic and best defined of the Galisteo Basin Pueblos, village residents took advantage of the local geology to create one of the most remarkable rock art sites in the Southwest. Literally thousands of petroglyph images were carved into weathered sandstone surfaces overlooking the pueblo, and in a few protected places multi-colored pictographs have survived. Although there are some images believed to predate the fifteenth century, most images were created within the AD 1400-1700 period.