Mesa Verde National Park
Cortez, United States
02.08.2013
The National Park Mesa Verde is located in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the United States. It was established in 1906 and is famous for its well-preserved cliff dwellings built by the ancient Pueblo people. These dwellings were inhabited between the 6th and 12th centuries and are a testament to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of these early inhabitants.
The park covers an area of over 52,000 acres and is home to more than 600 cliff dwellings. The most famous of these is Cliff Palace, which is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. It consists of more than 150 rooms and 23 kivas, which were used for religious ceremonies by the Pueblo people. Other notable dwellings include Balcony House and Spruce Tree House.
The Pueblo people lived in the area for more than 700 years, but by the end of the 13th century, they had abandoned their cliff dwellings and moved to other areas. The exact reason for this remains a mystery, but some theories suggest they were driven out by drought, famine, or conflict with other tribes.
It wasn't until the late 19th century that the cliff dwellings were rediscovered by European Americans. In 1888, two cowboys, Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason, stumbled upon Cliff Palace while searching for stray cattle. Their discovery sparked public interest and led to the establishment of the National Park Mesa Verde.
Today, visitors to the park can explore the cliff dwellings and learn about the history and culture of the Pueblo people through guided tours and interpretive programs. The park also offers hiking trails, camping, and scenic drives, making it a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts.
Further Reading:
A great concentration of ancestral Pueblo Indian dwellings, built from the 6th to the 12th century, can be found on the Mesa Verde plateau in south-west Colorado at an altitude of more than 2,600 m. Some 4,400 sites have been recorded, including villages built on the Mesa top. There are also imposing cliff dwellings, built of stone and comprising more than 100 rooms.
Mesa Verde National Park is a national park of the United States and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, and the only World Heritage Site in Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan ancestral sites in the United States.
Established by Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52,485 acres (212 km2) near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. With more than 5,000 sites, including 600 cliff dwellings, it is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States. Mesa Verde (Spanish for "green table", or more specifically "green table mountain") is best known for structures such as Cliff Palace, one of the largest cliff dwellings in North America.
Starting c. 7500 BC Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex. The variety of projectile points found in the region indicates they were influenced by surrounding areas, including the Great Basin, the San Juan Basin, and the Rio Grande Valley. Later, Archaic people established semi-permanent rock shelters in and around the mesa. By 1000 BC, the Basketmaker culture emerged from the local Archaic population, and by 750 AD the Ancestral Puebloans had developed from the Basketmaker culture.
The Pueblo people survived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming of crops such as corn, beans, and squash (the "Three Sisters"). They built the mesa's first pueblos sometime after 650, and by the end of the 12th century, they began to construct the massive cliff dwellings for which the park is best known. By 1285, following a period of social and environmental instability driven by a series of severe and prolonged droughts, they migrated south to locations in Arizona and New Mexico, including the Rio Chama, the Albuquerque Basin, the Pajarito Plateau, and the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
