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. Awanyu is a common figure in the ancient art of the southwest and is related to the Mexican Quetzalcoatl. It is generally thought to signify the presence of water. Indeed, the serpent and Tsirege ruins overlook a spring in lower Pajarito Canyon.