Artifacts including stone tools and spear points were also found

The homes were built into the ground with walls made from

Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient village in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park that is 1,300 years old.

The settlement built by basketmaker people, which dates back to between 200 AD and 700 AD, is made up of pit-houses built into the ground with walls made from sandstone slabs.

Artefacts including stone tools, spear points, scrapers and knives, made out of petrified wood, shells and small early ceramics were also unearthed.

Last year, ruins of a multi-story house were discovered nearby that may have been part of a basket-making trade network.

Ancient: The settlement discovered in Arizona dates back to between 200 AD and 700 AD, is made up of pit-houses built into the ground with walls made from sandstone slabs

Discovery: The flags set up in the Petrified Forest indicate where items of pottery were found

The basketmaker community was discovered as part of a project which has increased since the National Park Service doubled the park's size after Congress passed the Petrified Forest National Park Expansion Act of 2004.

Bill Reitze, the park's archaeologist, told ABC News: 'There are not a lot of national parks that have the opportunity to get bigger like this to protect sites and produce future research.

'A lot of archaeology happens in response to development. What makes this unique is new sites are discovered, research [is] being done and all these sites are being protected, all at once.

'It's really interesting because it really allows us to see on a larger scale things we've noticed in other areas in the park,'

More than 600 archaeological sites have been found inside the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park. Evidence suggests that the earliest inhabitants of the park arrived at least 8,000 years ago.

The newly-discovered village dates back to the basketmaker period a post-archaic stage in American history that followed the Ancient Pueblo People.

Jewelry: One of the objects that was unearthed was a pendant (right) that seemed to have been carved from sandstone or siltstone

Violence: The archaeologists also found a stone with a serrated edge which could have been used as a weapon when it was thrown

The basketmaker people, or ancient Pueblo people lined in a large region including parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico in the U.S.

They lived in the region from around 1,500BC to 800AD.

The culture was named basketmaker because of the large number of intricate baskets found at archaeological sites of 3,000 to 2,000 years ago.

Some mummies have been found in dry caves and show that both women and men were only just over five ft tall.

They had long, narrow faces and were of a stocky build, which perhaps explains the broad-shouldered petroglyph style.

Men often wore fancy hairstyles, while women wore their hair short.

They also wore yucca plant fibre sandals and loincloths perhaps, but both sexes wore necklaces made of shell, bone and dried berries.