Mesa Verde National Park was the first national park to be designated as such to protect and preserve archeological sites. The park is indeed rich in archeological sites, containing 4700 sites including the famous cliff dwellings. Who lived here?
Mesa Verde and the entire Four Corners area was inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans for 700 years from around 600 AD to 1300 AD. Popularly known as the Anasazi, the Navajo name means Ancient Enemies. Their descendants object to that term and have their own language names for their ancestors. Modern scholars use the term Ancestral Puebloans. The Ancestral Puebloans first emerged as a culture around 700 BC. They lived mostly in pit houses in the early years which remained popular throughout their culture, especially in higher elevations. Later, they began to build the pueblo room blocks, which were made of stones.
The Cliff Dwellings, many built into precarious rock overhangs sometimes hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, are the most famous of the sites, but they were only built and inhabited in the last 100 years of occupation. Why did some people move to the cliff dwellings? The answer has proved elusive. It was not a complete shift. During the Cliff Dwelling phase pueblos on the mesa tops continued as well. But Cliff Dwellings proved popular, there are over 600 in Mesa Verde alone. Defense is one theory because some of the dwellings are very hard to access. But others are not.
Women were the main corn grinders, doing so together in large communal grinding areas. Corn was ground using a hand held metate, the mano was the grooved area, which was created by repeated grinding. The fact the woman did the grinding is evidenced by shoulder wear in skeletons. Western History Department, N-127, photo taken around 1926.
One advantage is that most face south. This would be advantageous during the different seasons. In the hot summer the sun would be higher up and not penetrate the cliff overhangs, providing a cool place in the summer heat. During the winter the sun was lower and penetrated the alcove, providing warmth on cold winter days. Colorado’s Mesa Verde and the adjoining Montezuma valley, which hosted many sites as well, had a population around 30,000 people. Today the population of the valley is around 26,000.
The three staple crops, corn, beans and squash were introduced from Mexico, coming north through well established trade routes. Also probably being introduced from the south was pottery. Before pottery, baskets were the main vessels, giving name to the first two eras of the Ancient Pueblo culture, Basketmakers. Life revolved around the crops. Men would plant and cultivate the crops, women and children would help with the harvest. In addition to the crops, wild plants, yucca, juniper berries and various other native plants were harvested to add to the meals. Men hunted deer, sometimes bighorn sheep and other small animals, such as rabbits and pack rats.
Towers were a common thing in the Mesa Verde region. But the reason remains unknown. Some towers were above canyons like the one pictured above. Others were in the middle of the village, not providing any value in defense. In the Mesa Verde region especially they were frequently connected to kivas by underground tunnels. Towers are especially abundant in Hovenweep National Monument, near Mesa Verde. This tower is in Mesa Verde, at Cliff Canyon or Fewks Canyon. Western History Department P-662, taken about 1916.
Water was important for farmers and despite being in the semiarid southwest the Ancient Puebloans were able to get enough water through natural springs and controlling runoff. The cliff dwellings are often built with a spring, either in the alcove or very close. One of the best examples of runoff control is Fairview Reservoir, now dry, in Mesa Verde. At the time it would have provided enough water for the crops of the Fairview settlements, a mesa top settlement. Another technique of runoff control was check dams, small dams to pool runoff near crops. Some of the cliff dwellings have ruins of check dams on the top of the alcoves. The sandstone was porous so the water, pooling behind the dam, would drain through the sandstone and drip into the alcove below. Villages were of the same makeup. Living quarters, pit house or stone room blocks, and kivas, ritual spaces shared by close relatives which developed from pit houses.
Daily chores were done outside. Often either on the roofs of the pit house or kivas, other times under the shade of a wooden structure called a ramada in Spanish. The average village was made up of a group of people with a common ancestry. The fields were kept close by the village, and in the case of the Cliff Dwellings either above or below depending on the terrain.
Domesticated animals consisted of turkeys and dogs. Little evidence shows dogs being eaten. But turkeys were occasionally eaten. Clothing for men consisted of a breechcloth and an apron for women. Both wore sandals woven from yucca fibers. Woven feather robes, from turkeys, and leggings were worn in the colder months. Cotton products such as leggings came by trade from New Mexico and Arizona to Colorado.
An excavated and partially restored kiva. The Kiva served as an underground ritual space that developed from the pit house. The kiva was covered with a thatched roof and had an entrance through the roof by a ladder. Smoke either went out the entrance or a smoke hole. Western History Department GB-5405, taken between 1910-1930.
Personal adornments were kept to jewelry. No evidence of nose, lip or ear piercing have been found. Instead they wore necklaces and bracelets. Oftentimes these were items from trade, such as shells from the Sea of Cortez. Trade networks were well established and even Macaw feathers have been found in the Four Corners area, showing that Native America was a very well connected place.
Violence was not unknown, but not common. Skeletons with trauma have been found, arrows embedded in bones and skulls crushed. Sand Canyon Pueblo, one of the largest in the area west of Montezuma, showed signs of having been attacked and destroyed and many of the inhabitants killed. Today the descendants of this culture live throughout the United States, being centered along the Rio Grande and the Hopi and Zuni pueblos.
Featured illustration at top: Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde. Cliff Palace is the largest Cliff Dwelling in Mesa Verde and in the Southwest. All the buildings were living quarters, called room blocks. Room blocks could reach several stories, especially in the Cliff Dwellings, housing multiple families. They were entered by the openings. Each room block was large enough for several people to sleep. Western History Department Z-1069, photo taken between 1900-1910.
Contributed by Brian Johnson, Hampden Branch Library