EL MALPAIS NATIONAL MONUMENT, NEW MEXICO—Archaeologists have explored an Ancestral Pueblo village in northwest New Mexico that dates to 900 years ago and was built amid lava fields. Surrounding the village, called Las Ventanas, they found a detailed array of trails, whose purpose is unclear. The trails totaled 62 miles in all, and some had no apparent destination other than the lava itself. “What this means is the trails were built, primarily, as ritual features themselves, to access different points in the lava,” Paul Reed of Archaeology Southwest told Western Digs. Goods including ceramics and stone tools were also found along many of the paths, adding further evidence that they had a ceremonial purpose. The people who lived at Las Ventanas used the local black volcanic rock in their buildings, along with sandstone, which was traditionally used by Pueblo to the north at Chaco Canyon. The village comprises more than 100 separate sites, including a two-story great house with up to 85 rooms that is estimated to have been built between 1075 and 1125. For more, go to “Early Parrots in the Southwest.”