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Wally Brown, Navajo Traditional Teachings.

Image: Pueblo Bonito: A Testament to Chaco Culture in New Mexico’s High Desert. Link.

It sounds like the AP's were slaves of the Mayan pyramid builders in Mexico, who migrated north sometime around 700 AD to escape the culture of human sacrifice and cannibalism that flourished south of the border, they were farmers and tillers of the soil and settled peacefully in Chaco Canyon where they enjoyed cordial relations with the Hopi, the Zuni and the Navajo, and where they used their building skills to erect the amazing constructions we see today.

Their escape from Mexico had not been forgotten and around 1200 AD or so the cannibal Anasazi came up from Mexico to catch their run away slaves, they raided the Puebloan towns and great houses murdering and eating those who would not survive the journey south, taking the rest back to Mexico as slaves. The Mexican cannibals did not stop at Chaco Canyon and progressed all the way into Utah seeking, searching and cannibalising as they went, a la Professor Turner finding evidence of cannibalism right unto the extent of the AP range.

Image: Puebloan Cliff Dwellings in Colorado. Link.

The surviving Ancestral Puebloans had never lost their building skills and built the very elaborate cliff dwellings we see today as places of refuge, however the Anasazi eventually located them and laid seige, as before they took the skilled workers back to Mexico as slaves and ate everyone else, the survivors still had the building ethic however their skill level had decreased exponentially.

Image: Ancient Indian Ruins. Video Link.

Thus the hilltop forts and lookouts they built are the rude dry stone constructions we see today in Arizona and New Mexico. The depredations appear to have continued until the Chaco Canyon culture per se was wiped out, where after the survivors were absorbed by the Hopi and the Navajo.