Mesa Verde National Park
Cortez, United States
02.08.2013
Nestled in the high plateau country near Cortez, Colorado, in the United States, Mesa Verde National Park is an extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage site. It preserves spectacular archaeological remains, offering unparalleled insights into the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans who inhabited this region for over 700 years.
The Ancestral Puebloans' Legacy
From approximately 550 to 1300 CE, the Ancestral Puebloans (formerly Anasazi) developed a complex society here. They evolved from simple pithouses on mesa tops to elaborate multi-story villages, eventually moving into sheltered canyon alcoves. These unique cliff dwellings represent the culmination of their architectural ingenuity.
Iconic Cliff Dwellings
The park boasts over 600 cliff dwellings and some 5,000 archaeological sites. Among the most famous are Cliff Palace, North America's largest cliff dwelling, housing over 100 people in its 150 rooms and 23 kivas. Balcony House is known for its defensive entryway. These communities were self-sufficient, farming maize, beans, and squash on mesa tops, with sophisticated water collection systems.
Mysterious Abandonment
Around 1285 CE, after centuries of occupation, the Ancestral Puebloans abruptly abandoned Mesa Verde. Exact reasons remain debated: prolonged drought, resource depletion, or social instability. They migrated south, integrating with other Pueblo peoples, leaving behind their magnificent stone cities.
Preservation and World Heritage Status
The cliff dwellings gained wider attention in the late 19th century. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park, the first U.S. national park specifically to preserve human works. In 1978, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, recognized for its exceptional testimony to an ancient cultural tradition and human adaptation.
Further Links
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.
