The Awatovi Ruins, spelled Awat'ovi in recent literature, are an archaeological site on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States.

In the 1930s, Hopi artist Fred Kabotie was commissioned by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University to reproduce the prehistoric murals found during the excavation of the Awatovi Ruins.

A skirmish occurred when de Tovar arrived, but the inhabitants quickly sued for peace and offered presents of cloth, skins, turquoise, and maize.

Oñate visited the pueblos again in 1605, and Captain Gerónimo Marquez in 1614, but not until 1629 did the Spanish make any substantial missionary effort among the Hopis.

When Diego de Vargas, the reconqueror, arrived in 1692, the Hopis apparently reswore their allegiance to Spain, and he departed without incident.

By the end of 1700, the extreme hostility of most Hopis to Christian converts at Awatovi led to the destruction of the pueblo.

By the time the Peabody’s initial Department of the Interior permit ran out in 1939, the site, always on tribal land, was directly under Hopi control.

He joined the expedition as a volunteer during the 1936 season and became one of its most productive researchers, as well as one of the Southwest’s foremost archaeological scholars.

In this classic volume [9] of the Peabody Museum Papers series, first published in 1952, Smith reported on the remarkable painted murals found at Awatovi and other Puebloan sites in the underground ceremonial chambers known as kivas.”[17] “For several years, Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) researchers and associates have been studying the mural and pottery paintings of Hopi and other Pueblos, with an eye toward developing a traveling exhibit.