Taos Pueblo
The
oldest continously inhabited community
in the United States.
Taos is a town in "Taos County" in the north-central region of New Mexico in "the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, incorporated in 1934.
Taos is the county seat of Taos County. The English name Taos derives from the native Taos language meaning "place of red willows".
The Taos Pueblo,that borders the town of Taos on its north side, has been occupied for nearly a millennium. It is estimated that the pueblo was built between 1000 and 1450 A.D., with some later expansion, and the pueblo is considered to be the oldest continously inhabited community in the United States
Located in a tributary valley of the Rio Grande, it it the most northern of the New Mexico pueblos. The Pueblo, at some places five stories high, is a combination of many individual homes with common walls. The living quarters are on the top and outside, while the rooms deep within the structure were used for grain storage. The roofs are made from cedar logs, their ends protruding through the walls; on the logs are mats of branches on which are laid brasses covered with a thick layer of mud and a finishing coat of adobe platser. It is a massive system of construction but one well suited to the rigours of the climate.
The Taos pueblo was added as an UNESCO World Heritage Site
in 1992 as one of the most significant historical cultural landmarks in the world
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/492