In 1880, a 40-year-old self-taught anthropologist-historian named Adolph F. A. Bandelier came to New Mexico Territory under the sponsorship of the Archeological Institute of America with the ambitious goal of tracing the social organization, customs, and movements of southwestern and Mexican peoples. He traveled and studied throughout the region, tramping the canyons and mesas, speaking with many Native Americans, and delving into the archives for knowledge about the indigenous peoples. Looking back after his first 18 months in the field, Bandelier tallied visits to 166 ruins in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico.

“I believe this a fair work,” he wrote in his journal. “But do not let me become proud. I may fall at any moment.”

Men from Cochiti Pueblo guided Bandelier to their ancestral homes in Frijoles Canyon in 1880. With its sheer cliffs, year-round stream, and distinctive cave-room architecture, the Canyon captured his imagination.

In 1890 he made the canyon and dwellings the scene of his novel, The Delight Makers, depicting Pueblo life in pre-Spanish times. Bandelier left New Mexico in 1892 and went on to studies in Peru and Bolivia. In his seventies, he went to Seville, Spain, to study early Spanish records of the Americas. He died there in 1914.

Although now relatively unknown to the public, Bandelier’s pioneering work laid the foundation for much of modern southwestern archeology.

Edgar L. Hewett, a prominent southwestern archeologist who directed several excavations in Frijoles Canyon in the early 1900s, saw the need to preserve the ancestral Pueblo sites and was instrumental in establishing Bandelier National Monument in 1916. It is a fitting tribute to Bandelier’s pioneering contributions that the monument was named for him.