Lee and Elaine's RV Adventures: Mesa Verde National Park

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK

COLORADO

September 20 - 24, 2015

By the 1880's and 1890's, several of the cliff dwellings had been partially excavated. But, as in today's world, people began helping themselves to artifacts. Several prominent women started a campaign to preserve the history and partly because of their efforts, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill that created Mesa Verde National Park in 1906. It contains some of the best preserved sites of the Ancestral Pueblo People, formerly called Anasazi, who lived there from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1300. There are almost 5,000 sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.

In front of the Visitor's Center

View from Visitor's Center

From about A.D. 550 to A.D. 750, the people lived in pit houses, dug into the ground on top of the mesas or in alcoves in the cliffs. They were quite prosperous for their time, farming corn, squash and beans, hunting and gathering edible and useful plants and they were very good basketmakers. By A.D. 850, most people had moved to dwellings above ground but still used the underground kivas for ceremonies and other rooms for storage. By A.D. 1000, they had perfected their building skills and built houses of stone masonry. Their skills as potters also evolved. The cliff dwellings came back into fashion about A.D. 1190 and lasted until the Ancestral Puebloans disappeared from Mesa Verde about A.D. 1300. It is unknown why they left, but of course, there are several theories. Perhaps it was because of a long drought and crop failure, perhaps they depleted the soil of it nutrients by farming and did too much hunting or maybe there were political or social problems. It'll remain a mystery forever.

An underground ceremonial room called a kiva

Sunset House

Spruce Tree House

Morefield Campground

One of those old, dead trees I find so interesting!

Far View Community

Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling, has 150 rooms and 23 kivas

Balcony House, as seen from across the canyon

The stairs at the beginning of Balcony House tour

The ladder in the middle of the tour

The ladder at the end of the tour!

Balcony House

Wetherill Mesa, the "quiet" side of the park

Long House cliff dwelling

I cropped the picture (above) in my photos so it would show the dwelling but when I inserted it into my blog, it used the original picture. If anyone knows why and how to correct this, I would love to hear about it!