Salmon Ruin is named for George Salmon who homesteaded the property in the late 1800s and is an Anasazi ruin that is also know as an ancestral pueblo. The initial construction phase of the Salmon Ruin has been dated during AD 1088-1090. This is the same period that the initial phase of Aztec Ruins started. This was toward the close of the Chaco Canyon phenomenon that ran from AD 850 to about AD 1100. Both the Salmon Ruin and the Aztec Ruins were two Chacoan apartment complexes apparently started at the same time. The Aztec Ruins were much larger and served as the spiritual center of the Chacoan movement after the spiritual center moved from Chaco Canyon near its abandonment. The Salmon Ruin was a smaller village as were many outlaying villages in and near the Aztec Ruins.

It is interesting to note that of the straight roads leading from Chaco Canyon, one road points to Salmon Ruin while another points to Aztec Ruins. The Great Kiva is pictured above and was the spiritual center of this village. It was said that when the middle point came together from the six directions, the middle point would be where the village would be situated. The six directions were, North, South, East West, Above and Below. The Anasazi believed all things were connected and that the land was sacred.

The initial inhabitants of this village abandoned the village in about AD 1130 which coincide with the beginning of a sixty year summer drought that probably dried up the San Juan river next to the ruin. The next group of inhabitants came in AD 1185 with the Mesa Verde style ceramic assemblages. This also came at the close of the sixty year drought. The final abandonment of this pueblo came in AD 1285 which was the beginning of the last major drought that forced the pueblo people southward. It was after AD 1285 that the Anasazi vanished from the Southwest. Speculation suggests that due to severe drought conditions the Pueblo people were absorbed into the Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo societies. The Navajo came about AD 1450 from Canada and were newcomers who probably learned how to farm and grow crops from surviving Anasazi who did not migrate during the drought conditions.

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