Standing 140 feet above the Frijoles Canyon in modern Bandelier National Monument, the Alcove House offers a view of the entire canyon. The Alcove House, also known as Ceremonial Cave, sits at the top of 4 wooden ladders and a number of stone steps. Adolph Bandelier, who the National Monument is named for, and Edgar Lee Hewett originally excavated the Ceremonial Cave. After urging by Hewett, President Woodrow Wilson established Bandelier National Monument in 1916 to protect the ancestral Pueblo sites.

The Ancestral Puebloans, who inhabited the area from the early 1300s to the late 1500s, built the Alcove House. The cavate, a room dug into the soft volcano tuff cliff, includes a ceremonial room called a kiva and niches that indicate former homes. Unlike other remains in the area, the Alcove House would have only housed one clan, approximately 25 people.

The ancestral Puebloans most likely moved into the area after a drought in the mid 1300s caused the natives from the north to look for sites with a constant water supply. They found this supply in the Rito de los Frijoles, the creek that runs through the canyon valley. Although the ancestral Puebloans abandoned the canyon by the early 17th century, a number of the local pueblos claim ancestry of the people who built and lived in the Bandelier area.