Taos Valley

[4] The valley was used for more than 9,000 years as a major route for travel and trade according to archaeological evidence.

[5] Pit houses and room blocks provided the first permanent housing for inhabitants beginning about 900 A.D.[5] Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have moved into the area of the Taos Valley and tributaries of the Rio Grande at that time.

[6] It was the home of the puebloan people of Taos Pueblo beginning about 1100[7] or 1200 A.D.[5] At that time, construction began on multiple dwellings.

[7] It was first visited by people of European descent in the 1500s, when Capitan Hernando Alvarado arrived on August 29, 1540.

[7] The Spanish brought modern methods for irrigation called acequias and introduced fruit and vegetables to the region.