Mesa Verde's Ancient Pueblos - Part I

It's summer, and we're on the road again, this time in the Southwest en route to Creede, Colorado. Not much to report from the hot desert of inland California and Arizona, although we did stop briefly to see cousin Ilene and her daughter, Skyler, in Phoenix, before heading north to Flagstaff for a picturesque afternoon/evening camping at Fort Tuthill County Park.

I was particularly thrilled by our return to Mesa Verde National Park, outside Cortez, Colorado. We had tried to visit in February, but the park was closed because of a snowstorm. Weather was stormy this time, too, but the cliff dwellings didn't disappoint. In fact, the thunder, lightening and rain made us appreciate even more what it must have been like to live outdoors year-round in this challenging climate and terrain.

A bit of history: the Ancient Pueblo people originally lived in underground pit houses on top of the mesa from about 500 AD, where they were the first Americans to settle and live in one place, at least for the growing season. With only minimal tools and no irrigation, they managed to plant and grow corn, beans and squash (the three sisters) to supplement their diet of wild game and berries.

The pit houses were built around a central kiva, which contained a fire pit for cooking and ceremony. Smoke was vented through a hole in the roof, which also served as ingress/egress on a wooden ladder. Above you can see into the kiva, which would have been topped by a roof of birch and pinyon pine timber. A short stone-wall deflector helped keep ventilated air from blowing out the fire.

After hundreds of years of living a semi-nomadic life on the mesa, people moved into cliff dwellings, building homes in naturally occurring alcoves in the sandstone cliffs below the mesa. Hundreds of these cliff dwellings still exist today, and they are absolutely spectacular.

One of the largest of the cliff dwellings, at 150 rooms, is Cliff Palace, which we toured with a park ranger. To access it, we had to climb down the cliff (on stairs), walk across its edge, and then use ladders to access various levels inside the structure. Look for the people in the photo below to get a sense of the enormity of the place.

All of the stone bricks were hand-carved using stone tools. Mortar was made from mud. Despite these "primitive" building practices, thousands of years after they were built, the walls remain straight and true with relatively little renovation needed.

More to come in the next post...