Homesteading began soon afterward and continued until the land was acquired in 1943 by the War Department. Today, this site is used for environmental testing of nuclear weapons systems, and is the home of the new Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility. Development and testing of high explosives, plastics and adhesives, and research on process development for manufacture of items using these and other materials, are accomplished here. NM-501 Bandelier is named in honor of Adolf Bandelier, the great ethnologist who arrived in the Santa Fe area in 1880 and explored the Southwest for 11 years. The pueblo, called Tyuonyi, was a multi-room structure built on the canyon floor close to the stream.
Cliff dwellings line the canyon beyond the pueblo.
Tsirege Ruins Pajarito Road Tsirege is the largest ancient Native American settlement on the Pajarito Plateau and is located on Laboratory land on the north bluff of Pajarito Canyon. The row of cave dwellings are part of the original Tsirege complex. Tree ring dating indicates the complex was constructed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It contained a total of about six hundred rooms. The site is best known for the petroglyph of Awanyu, the plumed serpent.