Everywhere You Go, An Ancient One Was There – Mesa Verde National Park

 Most of us lack the acceptance that others are as broken as we are. 

Anthony Bourdain

Narrow pathway on Petroglyph Point Trail

With cliffs soaring 2,000 feet above piñon and juniper covered knolls and golden grassy plains undulating below, the 25-mile-long Mesa Verde offers a celebration for all senses. In its many scattered canyons are hundreds of pueblos, cliff dwellings, stone towers and pithouses attesting to a time when a prehistoric people called the great mesa home.  You’ll find the ruins of Mesa Verde National Park frozen in time, much the same as they existed when their ancient denizens abandoned them many centuries ago. 

The Mesa Verde plateau is between 7,000 and 8,500 feet high, the main road to it snakes upwards for twenty slow, splendid, miles, through switchbacks and past sheer drops, with a spectacular view of the Four Corners (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah) from the top, especially on a clear day like today.  

In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park for ‘preservation … of the sites and other works and relics of prehistoric man…’ the first national park of its kind. Today, the continued preservation of both cultural and natural resources is the focus of the park.  Mesa Verde is the only national park in the United States created to protect cultural and historical sites rather than natural features. 

Today’s inescapable dryness and harsh temperatures of the southwestern United States help us better understand the people who lived in the area, without air conditioning, surviving off the meagre offerings of a very lean land. 

Mesa Verde has over 5,000 archaeological sites (sediments and vegetation may still hide others, often discovered after fires or erosion caused by heavy rains) including 600 cliff dwellings and the mesa-top sites of pit houses, pueblos, towers, and farming structures. These were organized communities. The Mesa Verde world-famous cliff dwellings represent only the last 100 of the 750-year-history (from about 550 CE to 1300 CE) of the Ancestral Pueblo People who occupied the area. 

The Ancestral Pueblo People built their dwellings under overhanging cliffs to protect them from the elements. Using blocks of sandstone and a mud mortar, they crafted some of the world’s longest standing structures.  There was no formal plan or design for these stunning buildings. They were simply constructed to match the topography of the great alcoves. Thus the dwellings are similar, and yet, each is different.

These were people with no known written language or number system, an average life span of 32 years, with rotten teeth and a fifty percent infant mortality rate, working with wood, clay and mud. Yet their structures have survived 900 years of harsh desert weather, leaving viewers, like me, with feelings of complete admiration and wonder! 

The park is thought to contain the largest cliff dwellings in North America.  Built near springs, the naturally enclosed sites offered protection against both the elements (rain, snow, wind, fires, cold, hot) and intruders (humans or animals).  

If attacked by neighboring tribes, the structure could prevent access because the ladders on the bottom floor of the dwellings could simply be removed.  Similar to European castles, the people could easily defend themselves from above. 

The dwellings were a more comfortable living space. Because they were recessed into the cliff face, they provided protection from the south sun inside the cooler stone. The temperature of the rooms built into the cliff can be 10-20F degrees cooler than atop the mesa. 

Petroglyph Point Trail

The canyon trail to this petroglyph is as beautiful as the petroglyphs themselves.  Though quite small compared to others in the region, it is still very interesting and powerful.

The Hopi see petroglyphs as part of an identifiable legacy
Purposefully made and left behind by ancestors
They are considered sacred to the park’s 25 affiliated tribes

Desert Varnish 

These dark stains form when iron or manganese, a mineral found either within the rock or in windblown dust, is fixed to the cliff face by bacteria. The bacterial action often occurs on the portions of rock that are wet from runoff water, which causes the streaking effect. It can become a great media for petroglyphs.  It is chipped away to show the lighter colored stone below.  

Ancient Baby Boom 

In a study analyzing burial plots, Tim Kohler and his colleagues found that from 500 CE until about 1300 CE, the ancient southwest experienced a prolonged baby boom. During that period, each woman had an average of more than six children in her lifetime, a higher fertility rate than is seen anywhere else in the modern world. A shift from a nomadic existence to a settled agricultural lifestyle, and specifically plumper, more easily cultivated maize, may have led to this surge in population, the researchers hypothesized.  That baby streak, however, ended a little before the Spanish colonized the Americas.

Pueblo culture flourished in the Mesa Verde region for centuries and the population grew to more than 25,000 in southwestern Colorado by about 1250 CE, only to be abandoned in 1285 CE. Staff members from Colorado’s Crow Canyon Research Institute offer insights into the mystery. 

‘Birthrates were as high, or even higher, than anything we know in the world today,’ said study co-author Tim Kohler, an archaeologist and anthropologist at Washington State University.

The growing populations spawned more complex, sophisticated and specialized societies around the northern Rio Grande, in what is now New Mexico. The Rio Grande dwellers shifted from kin-based social networks to affiliating with everyone from their pueblo. Larger pan-pueblo associations, such as medicine societies, also flourished. The ancient inhabitants, likewise, developed a specialized expertise in crafts, such as shaping obsidian arrow points, which allowed them to trade across larger pueblo networks.  Around the Rio Grande, the population boom may have ushered in more peaceful ways of living, because people in the specialized society were more reluctant to wage war. If the arrow maker, the beer brewer, the weaver and the potter all need each other's goods to survive, it doesn't make sense to fight,’ the researchers said. 

Nomad vs. Agriculturalist 

The shift to agriculture could have spurred a baby boom in multiple ways.  A nomadic lifestyle could mean picking up camp and trekking long distances every month, no easy feat for a woman if she had more than one child to carry. At the same time, hunter-gatherers tend to breastfeed their children longer because they have few appropriate ‘weaning foods’. The high-caloric demand of the lifestyle, combined with prolonged breastfeeding, may have suppressed ovulation in women, leading to fewer children, Kohler said.

In contrast, a woman who had to walk only a small distance to tend the fields could take care of multiple dependent children, and could also wean her children sooner by feeding them a maize porridge, Kohler said.

More People, More Problems

But further north, in what is now modern-day Colorado, people didn't adapt well to the denser population environment. Few people developed specialized skills, which meant that each person likely looked out for him or herself.

‘When you don't have specialization in societies, there's a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing,’ Kohler said.

A wave of settlers from further south didn't help matters. People who lived in the Chaco Canyon civilization attempted to expand into the Mesa Verde region following a drought in the mid-1100’s.  ‘They were resisted,’ Kohler said in a statement, ‘but resistance was futile.’

Tree rings tell us that a severe drought occurred in this region
between 1130 and 1180 CE

Between 1140 CE and 1180 CE, about nine out of 10 skeletons from around the Mesa Verde region in Colorado show signs of head trauma or blows to the arms, according to a new study published in the journal American Antiquity.  

Researchers are unsure why society in this region took a turn for the worse around this time, while ancient inhabitants further south in New Mexico lived relatively peacefully. The new findings shed light on perhaps why the ancient settlers around the Mesa Verde region mysteriously ‘vanished’ over the course of only three decades in the late 1200’s. 

Words from Laguna Pueblo Ranger

‘When I enter a modern-day kiva, I ask permission out of respect and cultural tradition,’ says T.J. Atsye, who is Laguna Pueblo and ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. ‘I do the same thing when I enter a cliff dwelling. I ask permission to pass by.’ Atsye, who often calls Mesa Verde the place ‘where the ancestors whisper to you,’ explains that Pueblo people believe their ancestors are all around them, like many people feel the presence of their departed family members at a cemetery or maybe in a loved one’s favorite spot. Atsye understands not everyone has the same beliefs, but she suggests taking a quiet moment to address those who have passed on but whose spirits can still be felt in these sacred places. ‘Be sincere, be genuine, be respectful,’ she says. ‘Let them know you are here to see their beautiful homes. They will listen to you, and you might feel their warmth wrap around you.’ 

To Pueblo People, this is still a living place.  We make pilgrimages back to Mesa Verde to visit the ancestors and gather strength and resilience from them.  I ask you to please visit with respect.  If you are genuine, and true, and respectful, the ancestors will welcome you. 

TJ Atsye, Laguna Pueblo

The Disappearance Myth 

The retelling of human history is never flawless, mostly because people aren’t perfect. Yet it’s difficult to overstate how hurtful the conclusions, by some early US archaeologists, by the National Park Service (NPS), and by the media, have been for the Pueblo People. The story that Mesa Verde’s original inhabitants lived in the area for more than 700 years and then suddenly ‘disappeared’ likely stemmed from poor assumptions, ignorance, and the appeal of a good mystery; however, that doesn’t absolve anyone who has perpetuated the myth.

‘The dialogue of the ‘vanishing Anasazi’ probably came about in a few ways,’ says Dr. Scott Ortman, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies the long-term histories of Indigenous peoples. One is that after the end of the Civil War, Anglo settlers in the region incorrectly surmised area dwellings were of Aztec origin, muddying things from the start. Another is the manner in which archaeologists tried to track the movements of ancient peoples, often relying on the presence of material items; many of those possessions were simply left behind at Mesa Verde, buttressing the disappearance story.

The National Park Service, for its part, found that the vanishing-act narrative was compelling to visitors and promulgated it. The media pounced on it as well. On top of all that, archaeologists in this country have long neglected to speak to Native Americans about their histories, which are often carefully handed down through oral tradition. ‘As a result, interpretations were ignorant of those histories,’ Ortman says, ‘and it became another form of colonialism to deny their own understanding of their history.’

The issue, of course, is that good tales have staying power. ‘People assume that these people don’t exist anymore,’ says Acoma Pueblo Governor Brian Vallo. ‘That cannot be the narrative. What gets missed is that there is a direct connection to cultures that still exist today.’ In fact, it is now widely acknowledged that Pueblo tribes in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas trace their heritage back to the Mesa Verde region. While DNA evidence is meager because many Pueblo people oppose invasive testing on ancestral remains, archaeologists, ethnographers, and anthropologists say genetic sequencing is mostly unnecessary. Many aspects of Ancestral Pueblo culture persist in today’s Pueblo communities, including farming methods, religious practices, craft-making, and architecture. ‘Plus, nearly all Pueblo languages have their own names for Mesa Verde,’ Ortman says. ‘Pueblo people also have stories about having ancestry in the Mesa Verde region, sometimes even about specific sites their families built.’

Ancient DNA used to track the mass exodus of Ancestral Pueblo People from Colorado’s Mesa Verde region in the late 13^th century indicates many wound up in the northern Rio Grande area north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, inhabited today by the Tewa Pueblo people.

Here’s the twist: The DNA came from domesticated turkeys that had been kept by Ancestral Pueblo People in both places, according to Scott Ortman, one of four lead study authors. The study indicates DNA from turkey bones unearthed at Mesa Verde matched the turkey DNA in the northern Rio Grande area after the Mesa Verde society buckled.

In the time after they moved into the center of Mesa Verde, they developed pottery and the bow and arrow. The adoption of the bow appears to have increased their hunting proficiency, resulting in some game animals, like deer, eventually becoming overhunted and replaced with domesticated turkey.

‘What we found was good evidence of a substantial influx of turkeys into the northern Rio Grande region that had the same genetic composition as turkeys from the Mesa Verde region,’ said Ortman of the anthropology department. ‘This is a new line of evidence suggesting a strong connection between contemporary Tewa Pueblo people in New Mexico and the Pueblo people who lived in Mesa Verde country before its collapse.’

While the research team also looked at mitochondrial DNA from what were thought to be domestic dogs buried at Mesa Verde and in the northern Rio Grande area, it did not pan out for an interesting reason, Ortman said. While the remains of most of the Mesa Verde canids were genetically dogs, almost all of the canids buried in the northern Rio Grande, traditionally thought to be dogs, were actually coyotes. ‘It’s an interesting puzzle as to why the northern Rio Grande people buried so many coyotes,’ he said.

Acoma Pueblo Governor Brian Vallo is one of them. His word for Mesa Verde, in his Acoma dialect of Keres, is Kash’ka’trati. ‘My clan originated in Mesa Verde,’ he says. ‘They built certain structures there. I am tied to that land.’ T.J. Atsye is culturally bound to the 8,000-foot mesas, too. Her family is Laguna Pueblo, but her time as a park ranger also proffered a special bond with the ‘ancient ones,’ as she calls them. She understands the allure of a good mystery but wishes people would reconsider their notions of America’s past. ‘There are pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico that have been continuously inhabited since the 1100’s,’ Atsye says. ‘This is where the Mesa Verdeans migrated to. We are them.’

This place was never really abandoned.  It’s still occupied by the spirits of our forefathers,
so we come here to do pilgrimages to essentially connect with the spirits of our ancestors.

Peter Pino, Zia Pueblo

Sun Temple and the Golden Ratio

Sun Temple is a never-ending source of speculation for scholars and visitors alike.  Its D-shaped outline; no evidence of roofing; few doors or household artifacts; and massive architecture is unlike any other structure in the park.  Of the few similar D-shaped buildings found in the region, it is the only one not built within a pueblo?  Could it have had social, ritual, or even symbolic functions?

Recently researchers found evidence that the people at Mesa Verde had sophisticated mathematical knowledge, using the golden ratio, a mathematical ratio also used at the Giza Pyramids, to help construct a Sun Temple.  

‘Given that the Ancestral Pueblo People had no written language or number system, the precision of such a layout would be a remarkable feat,’ Dr. Sherry Towers wrote. ‘It is unclear why the ancients potentially felt the need to employ these constructs in the Sun Temple site. Perhaps the specialized knowledge of how to construct these shapes with a straight edge and a cord formed part of the inherent mysticism of the ceremonial nature of the site.’ 

Some experts suggest that the walls of Sun Temple may have been used by observers in Cliff Palace as a marker for astronomical events like the winter solstice sunset.  Perhaps the builders intentionally left Sun Temple unroofed, as an observatory for such events, or perhaps it was never finished.  Many questions remain. 

‘This is what I find especially amazing,’ Dr. Sherry Towers, Professor at Arizona State University says. The genius of the site's architects cannot be underestimated. If you asked someone today to try to reconstruct this site and achieve the same precision that they had using just a stick and a piece of cord, it's highly unlikely they'd be able to do it, especially if they couldn't write anything down as they were working.’

During her research, Towers discovered that the site was laid out using a common unit of measurement just over 30 centimeters in length – equal to about one modern-day foot. She also found evidence that some of the same geometrical constructs from Sun Temple were used in at least one other ancestral Puebloan ceremonial site, Pueblo Bonito, located in New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historic Park.  

Spruce Tree House

One of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in the park.  Most of the walls, wood, and plaster are original.  Archeologists identified at least 120 rooms and eight kivas, making this the third largest cliff dwelling in the park.  By the late 1270’s, up to 19 households (60-80 people) lived here.  Unfortunately, temporarily closed to the public for safety reasons.  

Could only be seen from across the canyon due to unstable rocks above
Spruce Tree House 

Doors 

What most parkgoers see as windows are really doors. Archaeologists have noted that in several instances, large stone slabs were used to seal the doors, and that in other spots, the Ancestral Puebloans hung yucca fiber mats over the openings for privacy or to keep cold air out.

Many tree skeletons left from previous fires

After the Fires, Park’s History Gets Exposed 

Fire is common in Mesa Verde. The Park Point fire lookout receives more lightning strikes than anywhere else except one location in Florida, according to Will Morris, chief of interpretation at Mesa Verde. Much of the vegetation in the park is Gambel oak, piñon and juniper forests. Piñon-juniper forest tends to be fire-resistant. Typically, one tree ignites, less than one acre burns, and the fire puts itself out. However, if conditions are right, the fire will spread, especially if the wind kicks up and tree crowns ignite. Interspersed Gambel oak is very flammable. 

Since 1906, small fires have been suppressed by humans, probably contributing to the intensity of recent fires by creating an abnormal amount of fuels such as dense forests and tall undergrowth. 

Major fires occurred in the park in 1934, 1959, 1972, 1989 and 1996, all started by lightning, and two in 2000.  With over 50 percent of the park burned by the 1996 and 2000 fires. 

‘After a fire, the number one culprit is erosion,’ said Morris. ‘Any rain can erode walls and wash away artifacts taking them out of historical context for archaeologists. Rain can loosen roots of burned trees, which can fall over and knock down dwelling walls.’ 

An additional 35 archaeologists have been hired to assess damage, document exposed sites, and enter data into a database. After the 1996 fire, 372 new sites were found. The park anticipates 1,000 new sites may be found after the fires of 2000. Luckily, the famous prehistoric cliff dwellings and pueblos suffered very little damage.  The Ancestral Pueblo People seemed to have known how to protect themselves from fires as well. 

It’s a place where you can see for 100 miles and look back in time 1,000 years. 

Vintage slogan of the park

Knife Edge Trail

Beginning in 1914, it used to be the park’s historic entrance road with breathtaking views of the Montezuma Valley.  Difficult to maintain and unsafe for vehicles, it was abandoned when the Morefield-Prater Tunnel was completed in 1957.  It is still common to have rock falls so don’t dawdle too much, be aware, on this now converted hiking trail.

Montezuma Valley from Knife Edge Trail

Point Lookout Sandstones

Point Lookout, great hike from Morefield campground
Created 65 million years ago by a series of uplifts followed by erosion

Inland Sea

During the late Cretaceous period (about 90 million years ago) much of North America, including SW Colorado and what is now the Rocky Mountains, was covered by a shallow inland sea.  Thousands of feet of marine and shoreline sediments were deposited, the first step in forming today’s geologic landscape.  

How this area looked during Cretaceous period

More recently, wind-blown soil (called loess) covered the region.  On Mesa Verde, it is several feet thick in places.  Even today, this deposition continues as dust storms frequently leave behind a film of sticky, reddish silt.  (Akin to WA Scablands / Palouse I previously visited). 

Kodak House

How does one get there?  So many of these cliff dwellings
are nearly impossible to reach easily

Large cliff dwelling that contains 60-70 rooms, eight kivas and 14 communal areas.  It was first surveyed and documented by Gustaf Nordenskiöld in 1891.  Named Kodak House because his expedition cached its Kodak camera in one of the rooms.  Ancestral Pueblo People often constructed numerous check dams across ravines to capture soil and form moist, fertile terraces.  Centuries later, a 50-foot-long check dam across the Kodak House ravine still holds over three feet of soil behind it, a testament to the success of this dryland farming technique. 

Terraced gullies hold more runoff water and soil
Keeping soil from eroding and crops prospering is essential to survival
Much greener where you still find these ancient terraces

Long House

With about 150 rooms, 21 kivas, and a large dance plaza, it is the second largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde.  From 1150 to 1300 CE, several generations and families lived here, constituting a ‘clan’ which was probably matrilineal.  If the comparison with current Hopi practice is correct, each clan had its own kiva (early example of public architecture) and rights to its own agricultural plots.  

Imagine being protected by such a large natural covering

Walls laid just inside drip line of the protective alcove
Well protected from fires as well

How do you get to that top storage or living area? 
There actually are ladder marks to the right of it
Every nook and cranny is used

Other view of same high living or storage area?

Dwarfed in size by the alcove itself

Even with this small agricultural community, there unquestionably were persons more skilled than others at weaving, leather working, or making pottery, arrow points, jewelry, baskets, or other items.  Their skills gave them surpluses, which they shared or bartered with their neighbors.  This exchange went on between cultures too.  Seashells from the Pacific Coast, turquoise, pottery, and cotton from the south were some of the items that found their way here, passed along from village to village or carried by traders on foot over a vast network of trails.  

It is thought that many of the stones used in the construction of the Long House came from Mesa Top dwellings that were abandoned, like Badger House (Which I visited but don’t have pictures of).

Multi-layers following the natural slope of alcove
Very sculptural in nature

Kept cooler in summer, splendid view of the valley

Natural Seeps and Springs 

The water is within the rock.  Water from rain and snow slowly percolates downward through porous layers of sandstone until it reaches a non-porous layer of shale.  Prevented from moving further down, the water travels sideways along the shale surface.  Water can travel for years through the rock until it emerges through a canyon wall and forms a seep spring (which over thousands and thousands of years can become an alcove).  Without permanent lakes or streams on Mesa Verde, seep springs are as essential to life today as they were to the Ancestral Pueblo People who lived here for over 750 years.  

The Ancestral Pueblo People likely knew the location of every seep spring on Mesa Verde.  Here, water has made its way downward through the Long House from the surface above, emerging onto this shale ledge.  The Ancestral Pueblo People often managed the flow of water by carving small depressions into the shale pools from which to collect water.  

The area receives an average of 18 inches of precipitation annually.  It has a 150-day growing season, which hasn’t changed much since then to now.

The all too important water seep
When lived in, the Ancestral Pueblo People wouldn’t have
let plants grow there – they would’ve kept all the water
for their consumption

How they collected that precious water
Shale ‘bowls’

Marks left behind from sharpening tools on a rock surface

Preserving timber from that long ago

Park’s way of holding a rock along the path to Long House
Do you feel safe?

Nordenskiöld #16 Overlook Trail

See how difficult the cliff dwellings are to locate?

Gustaf Nordenskiöld, a Swedish nobleman and geologist, visited this area in 1891. Working with a 25-men crew, Nordenskiöld photographed and documented this and many other archeological sites.  The cliff dwelling named after him contained 39 rooms, seven kivas, one tower and ten communal work areas.  Although archeology was not a well-developed science at the time, he brought with him the observation skills, scientific training, and field experiences necessary to successfully excavate, map and photograph many of the area’s cliff dwellings, carefully describing his findings in an 1893 report, ‘The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde’.

The many rooms in this ‘hidden’ cliff dwelling

Far View Community – Mesa Top

Grinding corn next to one another
Each with their own grinding ‘box’

Located on the mesa top, this site is more exposed to wind and weather damage than the alcove sites such as Cliff Palace, Long House and Spruce Tree House.  It commands stunning views of the canyons of Mesa Verde and nearby mountains in four states.  

This is the first place where I see towers and tunnels.  How were they used?  The commanding location of some towers suggest they may have been built for defense or for communications; signal fires visible from tower to tower would link settlements across the mesas.  The tunnels (longest found at Mesa Verde was 41 feet) would have allowed people to move from one location to another unseen.  Or perhaps the tower and kiva combination had a ceremonial purpose.

Towers (with kiva below) are scattered across Mesa Verde
What were they for?  Special observation?  Ceremonial sites?
Communication?  Safety?  

Never to Return 

But for all its elegant simplicity and function, these ruins highlight one of the biggest mysteries in the history of the culture. The indigenous people lived at Mesa Verde for 750 years, and in this time, they spent the first six centuries living in simple pit houses tending their crops on the top of the mesa. Then, in the early 1200’s, in what seems a quantum leap forward in building skill, they ducked under the sheltering protection of the ledge, and began constructing and occupying the multi-story cliff dwellings that we see today.  But then comes the mystery: over the next 75-100 years the people abandoned their new homes and left the area … never to return.

Although Chaco Canyon might have exerted regional control over Mesa Verde during the late 11th and 12th centuries, most archaeologists view the Mesa Verde region as a collection of smaller communities based on central sites and related outliers that were never fully integrated into a larger civic structure.  Several ancient roads, averaging 15 to 45 feet (4.6 to 13.7 m) wide and lined with earthen berms, have been identified in the region.  Most appear to connect communities and shrines; others encircle great house sites.  The extent of the network is unclear, but no roads have been discovered leading to the Chacoan North Road, or directly connecting Mesa Verde and Chacoan sites.  

Ancestral Pueblo People shrines, called herraduras, have been identified near road segments in the region. Their purpose is unclear, but several C-shaped herraduras have been excavated, and they are thought to have been ‘directional shrines’ used to indicate the location of great houses.

Compared with most of the Chacoan Anasazi, the Mesa Verdans lived in a more dissected country. They had to mold their multi-storied, multi-room pueblos, with the typical room blocks, plazas and kivas, into the landscape. 

Those who built the famed cliff dwellings within the alcoves of the deep canyons in what is now Mesa Verde National Park conceived of their structures as an integral part of a monumental sculpture by nature, not as an edifice on the floor of a canyon. In his essay ‘Learning From Mesa Verde’ in Anasazi Architecture and American Design, architect Anthony Anella said, ‘…the great palaces of sandstone are inconceivable without the protective alcoves of the surrounding rock. Here, architecture is given meaning by an order established by geology.’ 

Mesa Verde’s Cliff Palace ruin, said Anella, is particularly special because ‘…the plan of the building conforms to the pre-existing order of the cliff rather than to a preconceived order of human intervention. The dry-laid masonry walls run either parallel or perpendicular to the natural slope of the alcove floor. Further, the walls are laid just inside the drip line of the protective alcove overhead… The architecture of the Anasazi at Mesa Verde achieves a compelling balance between the human program and the geological circumstances and topographical idiosyncrasies of the site. A tangible sense of place develops in the architecture because it is premised on a powerful sense of belonging to a larger natural whole.’

Cliff Palace (closed when I went there – only saw from across the canyon)
Night picture from www.travelsandcuriosities.com
Not sure how they got permission to do this but it’s beautiful

I have found it very interesting to witness the evolution of the buildings and living conditions of the various Ancestral Pueblos in the four-corner area. 

A few of the ‘new’ things (after visiting Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, Aztec, etc.) I saw or read about in Mesa Verde were towers and the mystery of their function(s).  Observation? Ceremonial?  Communication?  Safety?  Beauty?  

Also the presence of stockades (juniper posts in the ground) around small mesa top pueblos.  Were they used for protection? As windbreak? To keep domesticated turkeys inside? 

As well as tunnels going from Kivas to towers or from homes to Kivas.  Explanations for those are all over the place.  Protection from enemy?  Ceremonial?  Ease of travel during bad weather?  One of the VIP guides even said he thought certain tunnels were so small, they could’ve only been used by children.  He thought that some pueblos didn’t allow any children to be outdoors (I personally don’t believe this one, but it’s one of the theories).  Why would you forbid children to ever be outdoors – sacrificial intent, ceremonial?  

Ancestral Pueblo People preferred to build in the same locations and often lived for several generations in one place.  In the immediate vicinity of this site, archeologists have detected evidence of more than 200 years of continuous occupation.  Subsequent generations of builders modified the structures and the village layout based on their needs and current styles.  Upper layers have different wall construction and pottery from the layers below.  

Finally, nine kilns were discovered, some as long as 12-13 feet and as wide as 5 feet.  There was a lot of clay turned into pottery in those days.  The park service believes many more are to be discovered within the park.  

It is quite amazing to see the progression of the various construction styles over time in the various pueblos/parks.  Mesa Verde is by far more advanced than Bandelier was for example.  I slowly make more and more connections between these sites, their histories, their struggles, their lives.  It’s quite captivating.  Thank you for coming along with me.

Cactus foursome growing in a rock hollow