Casa Rinconada is a Chacoan Anasazi archaeological site located atop a ridge adjacent to a small rincon

Rincon

Rincón, Spanish for corner, may refer to:* Rincon * Rincon * Rincon , a surf spot located at the Ventura and Santa Barbara County line in Southern California, USA-Places:Argentina...

 across from Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126....

 in Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park hosting the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash...

, northwestern New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

It is an isolated great kiva

Kiva

A kiva is a room used by modern Puebloans for religious rituals, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, kivas are square-walled and underground, and are used for spiritual ceremonies....

 (out of four in Chaco Canyon) with all typical element of great kivas: masonry firebox, inner bench, four roof-supporting large seating pits, masonry vaults and 34 (divided into two sizes)niches encircling the kiva. There is also an unusual 39 feet (12 meters) long underground passage, perhaps used in the ceremonies to allow performers sudden entry thus surprising the audience. It was dig out in the sandstone and shale that compose the ridge the kiva sits in.

Casa Rinconada was excavated in 1930-31 by archaeologists Vivian and Reiter and the University of New Mexico/School of American Research field schools, reconstructed in part by Vivian in 1933, while Richter of National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

worked on capping outer walls in 1955.

Casa Rinconada is accessible through the Canyon Loop Drive and 1/2 mile trail (round trip) off the Drive.