section_path: North America/Ancestral Puebloans
section_name: Ancestral Puebloans
paragraph_text: Ancestral Puebloans
  
  The Ancestral Puebloans thrived in what is now the Four Corners region in the United States. It is commonly suggested that the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans emerged during the Early Basketmaker II Era during the 12th century BCE. The Ancestral Puebloans were a complex Oasisamerican society that constructed kivas, multi-story houses, and apartment blocks made from stone and adobe, such as the Cliff Palace of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The Puebloans also constructed a road system that stretched from Chaco Canyon to Kutz Canyon in the San Juan Basin. The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as "Anasazi", though the term is controversial, as the present-day Pueblo peoples consider the term to be derogatory, due to the word tracing its origins to a Navajo word meaning "ancestor enemies".