Navajo National Monument is located within the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The site is composed of three prehistoric cliff dwellings and their surroundings, set into the natural sandstone canyons of the region. The sites are located on the Colorado Plateau and are each set slightly apart. Each site is named for its primary ruin.

Keet Seel is the largest of the three structures, containing one hundred sixty rooms and five ceremonial houses, or kivas. Betatakin, the second largest, has one hundred thirty-five rooms, and the smallest, Inscription House, has seventy-four rooms and one kiva. Keet Seel and Betatakin are made of sandstone, mud, mortar, and wood. They mean “Ledge Horse” and “Broken Pottery,” respectively. Inscription House is made of adobe bricks and derives its name from the graffiti located in its interior.

Ancestors of the modern Puebloan peoples constructed the site, and from 1250 to 1300 CE the site was home to the Kayenta Ancestral Pueblo. Structurally, the dwellings protected grain from rodents and provided an easily defensible living space in the face of intertribal warfare.

Due to drought and soil erosion, the original inhabitants left the site at the end of the thirteenth century. These native peoples left behind a rich cultural footprint at the site, including pictographs and petroglyphs.

The government designated the site as a national monument as a result of Anglo-American settlement in the Southwest in the late nineteenth century. As new inhabitants came into the region, the dwellings and artifacts faced destruction at their hands and the government established the site in 1909 to preserve its history and culture. Visitors can take guided hiking tours of Keet Seel and Betatakin with a park ranger, but Inscription House is closed to the public. The surrounding area contains a visitor center, hiking trails, and a campground.