Long before European exploration reshaped the Americas, the Ancestral Puebloans thrived in the arid landscapes of the American Southwest, engineering advanced solutions to thrive in one of the continent’s harshest regions. From around 750 AD, these innovative societies carved entire cities into cliff faces, creating dwellings that offered protection from extreme weather and potential invaders. Their resourcefulness extended to agriculture, as they developed sophisticated irrigation systems to cultivate corn, beans, and squash in unforgiving desert soils. Meanwhile, intricate trade networks connected them with distant communities, enabling the exchange of turquoise, obsidian, pottery, and even spiritual ideas across vast distances. As the inheritors of a deep relationship with their land, the Ancestral Puebloans’ legacy endures in the cultural and architectural marvels they left behind, embodying a profound knowledge of adaptation and resilience that has inspired communities and researchers for centuries.