Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde National Park, established in 1906, is the only national park in the United States created specifically to protect archaeological sites and man-made structures. Spanning 52,122 acres in Colorado, the park is renowned for its well-preserved cliff dwellings, particularly the impressive Cliff Palace, which features around 200 rooms and is part of a larger complex that includes structures like Spruce Tree House and Balcony House. These dwellings were built by the Ancestral Puebloan people, who inhabited the area from approximately 550 to 1250 AD before mysteriously abandoning it around 1300 AD.
The park showcases a rich geological history, having evolved from a submerged marine environment to a high plateau, resulting in stunning rock formations and fossils dating back millions of years. While exploring Mesa Verde, visitors can engage with the history and culture of the Ancestral Puebloans through archaeological artifacts, guided tours, and educational programs, including traditional dance performances. Designated as a World Heritage Cultural Site in 1978, Mesa Verde continues to be a significant site for understanding the ancestral heritage of the Southwest and the complexities of human adaptation to the environment.
Mesa Verde National Park
Established in 1906, Mesa Verde is the only United States national park created to protect man-made structures. The 52,122-acre site is located on a plateau in Colorado covered by woods and canyons, and is most famous for its well-preserved ancient cliff dwellings. These dwellings are large structures built under overhanging cliffs in the canyons; the largest group of buildings is Cliff Palace, with a total of 200 rooms.
Land and History
Containing many towers, houses and religious gathering places called kivas, Cliff Palace is similar to Spruce Tree House, another of the best-preserved cliff house complexes. This structure originally had 115 rooms. The third large ruin in Mesa Verde is Balcony House. It is believed that these structures stretched as far as 1000 meters into the canyon walls, and were occupied by the Ancestral Puebloan people (historically referred to as Anasazi, a Navajo term considered offensive by some modern Pueblo people) between 550 to 1250 AD. Their sudden abandonment of Mesa Verde, around 1300 AD, is a mystery that is still being investigated today.
Situated close to Four Corners, where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet, Mesa Verde contains more than 4,000 historic ruins of cliff dwellings. Dotted with sagebrush, pinion pines, juniper and mesquite trees, Mesa Verde also displays brilliant, multicolored rock formations.
Geology
Approximately 65 million years ago, the Mesa Verde region was submerged underwater. The shifting of the sea over a period of millions of years sculpted the landscape, which evolved from a warm, wet region of lush vegetation to a high plateau rising 2,000 feet above the valley.
Today, Mesa Verde contains many interesting rock formations, formed at the end of the Cretaceous Period, during which the sea was drained and erosion began. Streams brought sand and mud to the sea, and these deposits are now known as the Dakota Sandstone along the shores below the Mesa Verde.
Other Mesa Verde rock formations include Point Lookout Sandstone, the Menefee formation, and the Cliff House Sandstone. The Cliff House formation contains alcoves formed by a layer of shale between porous sandstone, which allowed moisture to reach the canyon walls. Freezing and thawing of this water then created the alcoves by loosening the lower sandstone slabs and causing them to break away from the cave ceilings. The formation contains many fossils, dating as far back as 87.5 million years ago.
Ancestral Puebloans
Beginning in the second century, the Ancestral Puebloan people, a nomadic group of hunter-gatherers, wandered throughout the Southwest, and settled in the Mesa Verde region around 600 AD. They planted corn, beans and squash, and lived atop the mesas in underground pit houses. After about 500 years, the Ancestral Puebloans began building houses of sandstone bricks in the alcoves of the canyon walls. The houses were joined together in long rows, with nearly all of the dwellings facing the south or southwest. In front of each house was a small courtyard, which was used for performing religious rites. They lived in this manner for less than 100 years.
By the late thirteenth century, thousands of Ancestral Puebloans had left the region within a few decades. Experts speculate that their departure was due to famine caused by a severe drought, the depletion of resources such as firewood and game, or by a huge volcanic eruption that devastated crops. Some scholars believe that war broke out, supported by the discovery of evidence of massacres near several cliff dwellings. In 1997, the remains of a number of Ancestral Puebloans who appeared to have been cut up and eaten were discovered in Colorado. However, these theories have been heavily debated and there is no full consensus on why the dense, cliff-dwelling communities broke apart. Those who left the region eventually settled in Arizona and New Mexico, merging with other Pueblo cultures.
Park History
Mesa Verde, which is Spanish for "green table," probably derived its name from Spanish explorers who passed through the region during the late eighteenth century, in search of a route from Santa Fe to Monterey, California.
Gold was discovered in the Rocky Mountains in the 1800s, and many prospectors and settlers claimed land that rightfully belonged to Ute Indians. In 1868, Congress gave the Ute much of the land west of the Continental Divide, but when gold and silver were discovered west of the mountains, the treaty was modified in 1873, giving the Indians 15 miles of land including most of Mesa Verde.
In 1874, photographer William Henry Jackson of the US Geological and Geographic Survey received word of the cliff dwellings in the canyons of Mesa Verde, and set out to photograph them. He submitted his photos to Congress, recommending that the site be protected as a national park.
In 1887, a woman named Virginia McClurg began giving speeches and campaigning for the preservation of the Mesa Verde site. She published poems to support her cause, and created the Colorado Cliff Dwellers Association, rallying 250,000 people to her cause. The following year, Swedish Baron Gustaf Nordenskiold began an excavation of the Ancestral Puebloan ruins, and published a monograph about the site. In 1909, prominent archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes inspected the area, and soon the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde began to attract tourists and looters alike.
In 1906, efforts to preserve the ruins finally paid off, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation creating Mesa Verde National Park. The park was designated a World Heritage Cultural Site in 1978.
Today, visitors to the park can hike through many of the foot trails through Mesa Verde and the cliff buildings, or take guided bus tours. In addition, many Ancestral Puebloan artifacts are on display, and archaeological lectures and traditional dance performances are often held at the park.
Bibliography
"Ancestral Puebloans and Their World." Mesa Verde National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/education/upload/ancestral‗puebloans.pdf. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Mesa Verde." National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, 2017, www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Mesa Verde National Park." UNESCO Word Heritage Convention, United Nations, 2017, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/27. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Mesa Verde National Park Itinerary." Colorado Come to Life, Colorado Tourism Office, 2017, www.colorado.com/articles/mesa-verde-national-park-itinerary. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Palaces of the Past: Mesa Verde National Park." National Park Foundation, National Park Service, 2017, www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/mesa-verde-national-park. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.