Dove Creek Country includes western Colorado routes and sites that connect remote canyon landscapes, mining and agricultural communities, and a dense concentration of Ancestral Puebloan history. The Unaweep/Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway passes through canyon country shaped by mining for copper, radium, vanadium, and uranium, while local communities remain ranching and farming centers. The Trail of the Ancients Scenic and Historic Byway crosses arid land once inhabited by Ancestral Puebloan peoples and links rock art, cliff dwellings, Hovenweep National Monument, and Mesa Verde National Park. Lowry Ruins began as an eighth-century pit house village and by the twelfth century had eight kivas, forty rooms, and some structures three stories high. Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, created in 2000, contains 164,000 acres with what might be the highest concentration of archaeological sites anywhere in the United States. Hovenweep National Monument preserves six Ancestral Puebloan villages dating to around A.D. 1200, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park protects numerous Ancestral Puebloan sites across 125,000 acres along the Mancos River. The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, formed in 1984, lets lay people assist professional scientists through hands-on archaeology. In Cortez, the Cortez Cultural Center holds Ancestral Puebloan artifacts, Ute beadwork, and interactive exhibits, while the Southern Ute Cultural Center in Ignatius presents the history, art, and culture of the Southern Ute people. Before the Dolores River was dammed to create McPhee Reservoir, archaeologists spent eight years recording places and artifacts that would be lost under water, and many of those artifacts are displayed at the Anasazi Heritage Center. The San Juan Skyway Scenic and Historic Byway also passes through a landscape shaped by a mineral rush in the 1870s and 1880s and by nearby historic districts, parks, and national forests.