Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico was named for him, as his studies established the significance of this area in the Jemez Mountains for archeological and historic preservation of sites of Ancestral Puebloans dating to two eras from 1150 to 1600 CE.

As a youth, he emigrated to the United States with his family, which settled in Highland, Illinois, a community established by other Swiss immigrants.

He became acquainted with the pioneering anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan of New York, who served as a mentor as Bandelier turned to scholarship.

In particular, he undertook archaeological and ethnological work among the Native Americans of the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America.

[1] In 1892, Bandelier left the Southwest to travel and conduct research in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, where he continued ethnological, archaeological, and historical investigations.