Mesa Verde

“ About 1200 A. D., the Mesa Verde people began to move to the caves. Soon most, if not all, were living in cliff dwellings which were simply pueblos built in caves. This abrupt change evidently resulted from a need for defense against increasing enemy pressure.
During this last century, the people reached their highest level of development. Houses, pottery and all other arts and crafts except basketry were of the finest quality produced in the Mesa Verde. After thirteen centuries of steady development, the culture reached its peak. ”

“ Each storage bin is chinked with a farmer’s prayers for a bountiful harvest. In each plastered kiva wall is an ancient priest’s reverence for his gods. A pot is not just a piece of baked clay: it is an ancient potter’s moulded prayer for beauty and strength. Each solid wall is a testimony of success; each shattered human bone, each broken jar is an admission of defeat.
Cliff Palace stands today as a monument to the ancient people of the Mesa Verde. For many centuries they occupied the great, green mesa and finally, almost in its center, they built their greatest city. ”

“ Visitors who view the Mesa Verde from the automobile roads gain but an inkling of the weird beauty and surprises that this area holds for the more adventurous. Horseback and hiking trips along the rim rocks and into the canyons lead to spectacular ruins not seen from any of the roads. ”

“ View into Soda Canyon from the parapet of BALCONY HOUSE RUIN. The balcony in the foreground is more than 700 years old.
18 YOUR TRIP TO THE TOP OF THE “GREEN MESA”
LUNACHUKAI MTS. FROM PARK POINT (EL. 8,572) A VAST PANORAMA OPENS UP TO THE SOUTH AND WEST. THE LOVELY UNBROKEN FOREST-GREEN MESA-TOP, IN THE FOREGROUND, SUPPORTED AND PROTECTED THE CIVILIZED PEOPLE WHO ONCE LIVED HERE.
No trip to Mesa Verde National Park is complete without a visit to Park Point Lookout, 8,572-foot summit on the north rim. ”

“ The earliest culture so far definitely identified as having permanent habitation on the Mesa Verde is the Basket Maker III or the Second Agricultural Basket Maker first found in Step House cave on the west side of the park below the debris of the latter cliff-house occupation. ”

“ The complete archeological wealth of the Mesa Verde will never be known. The great mesa, which rises high above the surrounding country, measures fifteen miles from north to south and twenty miles from east to west. ”

“ If one enters a cave and counts the rooms that are in evidence it is usually safe to assume that many more have disappeared completely.
Another difficulty is that little of the Mesa Verde has been explored in modern times. The remote parts of the mesa, over half of which is Ute Indian Reservation, have had little exploration since the days of the cowboys. Hundreds of the ruins have not been entered in modern times. It is doubtful if any living person has been in one hundred of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. ”

“ The pressure of outside tribes, or what may be called human environment, probably had much to do originally with the choice of caves for houses, and the magnificent caverns of the Mesa Verde naturally attracted men as favorable sites for their houses. The habit of huddling together in a limited space, necessitated by a life in the cliffs, possibly developed the composite form which still persists in the pueblo form of architecture. ”

“ The principal interpretative activity is here overlooking Spruce Tree Ruin, the third largest and, perhaps, the best preserved of the classical pueblo cliff dwellings.
5 PLAN YOUR SIGHTSEEING
In the Museum, at Park Headquarters, ranger-archaeologists are on duty to provide maps and guide leaflets, and to advise how to make the best use of your available time. You could spend a week in Mesa Verde’s spectacular environment, seeing something new every day and absorbing the fascinating story of 2,000 years of pre-history of the Stone Age people who built these cliff cities. ”

“ Mesa Verde National Park protects over 700 years of history about my people, the Ancestral Pueblo people. Throughout the museum, you will discover how we learned to adapt to our environment in order to meet our basic needs of food, water, and shelter. ”

“ Fig. 32—Mesa Verde black-on-white pottery of the Great-Pueblo period. (Courtesy Mesa Verde National Park.)
The minor arts of Mesa Verde seem to have been much like those of Chaco Canyon, but neither material nor craftsmanship appears to have been as good. Again, the scarcity of burials has reduced the chances of obtaining much valuable information. In open sites they have been found occasionally in refuse heaps, but more often they occur in pits under floors of houses which continued to be occupied, or in abandoned rooms. ”

“ The boxes list items used by Ancestral Pueblo people at Mesa Verde. Read the items in each box, then use the blanks beside the box to write the name of the natural resource used to make everything in the box. One is started for you. (Hint: Answers are in the 10-up activity word list below.)
Bowl
Mug
Mortar
Plaster
Sandal
Rope
Mat
Shampoo
Needle
Basket
Food
Paintbrush
Feathers
Food
Bone tools and jewelry
Warm blanket
Pine nuts (food)
Timber for building
Pitch for waterproofing
Firewood
To learn more about Gentle Rain’s life in Mesa Verde, fill in the blanks to read the following story. ”

“ This upper section of Double House is typical of the small, high caves that are so common in the Mesa Verde. The rooms were very small and the roof so low that a person could not stand upright. Only a narrow ledge was left between the houses and the sheer cliff. The kivas were at the foot of the cliff and most of the activities may have been carried on there. ”

“ Archeological investigations have shown that the inhabitants of the Mesa Verde built compact pueblo-style structures on the open mesa land separating the deep canyons. Lacking natural protection of the caves and cliffs of the canyons, a closely knit and compact structure was necessary for defensive purposes. Not having to conform to the irregular contours of the cave as in the cliff-house type, the structure assumed a roughly rectangular shape in the open, with the kivas within protected by the adjacent outside living and storage rooms. ”

“ Some of our modern Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico and Arizona are their descendants. The Mesa Verde was never again occupied by farming Indians. After many silent, empty centuries, the cliff dwellings were discovered by the white man in 1874. ”

“ The canyon is lighted by the bright rays of a golden harvest moon and the cliffs echo the voices of the singers, not only from Cliff Palace but from all the other cliff dwellings up and down the canyons. The great green mesa is filled with happy, thankful people and troubles seem far away. The gods are pleased with the efforts of the industrious Indians.
As autumn fades into winter the people of Cliff Palace face it with confidence. Winter is always an ordeal but they are well-prepared. There is an abundance of food and there is ample clothing. ”

“ It is the same all over the Mesa Verde. In every cliff dwelling there is contentment. This has been a good year for the entire tribe and the people are enjoying the reward that has come from their labors. ”

“ Near Spruce-tree House, as elsewhere on the Mesa Verde, are found examples of those rock-etchings and other markings known as pictographs. Some of these represent human beings in various attitudes, and animals, as deer, mountain sheep, snakes, and other subjects not [52] yet determined. As seems to be true of the other rock-inscriptions just mentioned, some of those near Spruce-tree House are religious symbols, some are totems, while others are mere scribblings. ”

“ Sun Temple was not built by an alien people, but by the cliff dwellers as a specialized building mainly for religious purposes, and, so far as known, is the first of its type recognized in the Mesa Verde area. ”

“ For generations the threat has been increasing. So far the Mesa Verde has not suffered but the people know the danger is coming closer each year. There are so many villages on the great, protective mesa that they have always felt safe. In the caves are hundreds of cliff dwellings, all easily defended, and since each village is within shouting distance of the next, help could quickly be summoned. ”

“ The yucca plant, which grows wild in the canyons and level places of the Mesa Verde, furnishes a tough fiber which the prehistoric people of Spruce-tree House used in the manufacture of various fabrics. ”

“ During the season visitors are accompanied from the park museum to the various ruins by competent ranger naturalists. These men, well trained in the social and biological sciences, make it their duty to help the visitor understand the natural and archeological features of the Mesa Verde. Because of the need of protecting the ruins and the somewhat devious trails by which they are reached, no one will be allowed to enter any ruin except Spruce Tree House unless accompanied by a ranger naturalist. ”

“ Of all Mesa Verde’s cliff dwellings, Balcony House Ruin is the most dramatically situated and offers the most exciting personal exploration experience. National Park Service archaeologist-guides meet visitors at the designated parking space to lead the 11⁄4-to-11⁄2-hour trip over a half-mile ledge trail, up the famous approach ladder, and through the ruin. ”

“ As more and more of the ruins are entered and studied, one fact becomes increasingly evident. Of the entire population of the Mesa Verde, relatively few people lived in the larger cliff dwellings. For every cliff dwelling of more than fifty rooms there were scores of smaller villages. ”

“ The peculiar cliff-dwellings and open-air villages of the Mesa Verde are here shown to be typical of those found over a region many miles in extent. They indicate a distinct culture area, which is easily distinguished from others where similar buildings do not exist, but not [Pg 10] as readily separated from that of adjacent regions where the buildings are superficially similar but structurally different. ”

“ The Spaniards found our semiarid southwest dotted thinly with the pueblos and its canyons hung with the cliff-dwellings of a large and fairly prosperous population of peace-loving Indians, who hunted the deer and the antelope, fished the rivers, and dry-farmed the mesas and valleys. Not so advanced in the arts of civilization as the people of the Mesa Verde, in Colorado, nevertheless their sense of form was patent in their architecture, and their family life, government, and religion were highly organized. ”

“ In this ruin is found unmistakable evidence of a secondary occupation which has been definitely identified as a Mesa Verde settlement.
It is thought that certain of the present-day Pueblo Indians are descendants, in part at least, of the cliff dwellers. Many of these Indian towns or pueblos still survive in the States of New Mexico and Arizona, the least modified of which are the villages of the Hopi, situated not far from the Grand Canyon National Park. ”

“ Today the Mesa Verde looks much as it did when the Anasazi arrived. The birds and mammals you may see during your walk—mule deer, ravens, turkey vultures, jays—would have been familiar to the prehistoric people. The conspicuous hills you will see in several places along the trail are anthills. Modern Pueblo potters sometimes collect the small pebbles from these nests to grind up and use as temper, the material added to pottery clay to prevent the vessels from cracking as they dry. ”

“ The history of the Mesa Verde National Park began with the making of America. All who have travelled in the southwest have seen mesas from the car-window. New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Utah, the region of the pueblos, constitute an elevated plateau largely arid. ”

“ Who he was and exactly when it happened we shall never know, but it was the important first step in a long chain of events which led to the occupation of the Mesa Verde by Pueblo Indians.
There seems to be little doubt that the early inhabitants of North and South America came from Asia by that northern route. It is the only route by which men, traveling without artificial means of transportation, could have reached these western continents. Not a single insurmountable barrier, not a single impossibility lay in the path of those ancient men as they drifted with the line of least resistance. ”