Canyons of the Ancients National Monument gets a statewide spotlight in the latest issue of Colorado Life Magazine.

The March/April 2015 issue features the photo-heavy article "Canyons of the Ancients" by Dan Leeth.

The nearby Mesa Verde National Park is more famous, but the Canyons of the Ancients was a much bigger Puebloan settlement. "Mesa Verde would have been the high-rent district, but it held just a fraction of the total population," said David Kill, of the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the national monument. The stone pueblos built hundreds of years before Columbus are the remnants of a culture that once supported as many as 40,000 people in Colorado's southwest corner.

Colorado Life Magazine publishes six issues a year in celebration of the nature, history, wildlife and people of Colorado. The magazine is based in Estes Park.