Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Approximately 4500 archaeological sites are located within the boundaries of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado (State Motto: “Nothing Without Providence”), the most famous of which are the cliff dwelling sites. These ruins were built and inhabited by the Ancient Puebloans, who were previously referred to as the “Anasazi”, which means “smokes while wearing feathers” (not really, “Anasazi” actually means “enemy ancestors” or “ancestral foreigners”). In recent years the term “Anasazi” has fallen out of favour and the names “Ancient Puebloans” or “Ancestral Puebloans” are preferred. Just so you know, next time you bump into one.

It is a common assumption that the Ancestral Puebloans lived only in the cliff dwellings, the sandstone brick houses built under the mesa's cliff edges. This assumption, like many assumptions, dear reader, is incorrect. Originally, the Ancestral Puebloans lived on top of the mesas where they grew their crops. The cliff dwellings were probably built around the turn of the first millennium and lived in for 200 or 300 years.

It is thought that sometime in the late 1200's or early 1300's, the Ancestral Puebloans moved away from Mesa Verde. Their reason for doing so is not known. These people left no written records and archaeologists cannot find a conclusive answer from the relics left behind. It is thought that perhaps drought drove them away, but there is evidence that they had survived longer droughts before. Perhaps it was overuse of the land's resources. Perhaps it was political strife. Perhaps it was alien abduction. We may never know, but I'm going with the alien abduction theory. When the site was later discovered, the discoverer describe the place as thus: “Things were arranged in the rooms as if people might just have been out visiting somewhere”.

Modern History

The ruins of Mesa Verde were “discovered” by local cowboys, the Wetherwill brothers, in 1889 while they were searching for stray cattle in southwestern Colorado. Upon their discovery, the Wetherwill brothers took it upon themselves to excavate the site. Their motives for the excavation sound a little tinged:

“We knew that if we did not break into that charmed world some else would, sometime... someone who might not love and respect those emblems of antiquity as we did.” ~ Al Wetherwill.

Not long after the Wetherwill brothers' discovery, a Swedish aristocrat, Gustaf Nordenskiold, arrived on the Mesa Verde scene. Gustaf, being something of an archeology buff, showed the Wetherwill brothers the way to properly excavate a site. By this he meant to package up all the good stuff and ship it off to Sweden as quickly as possible. Gustaf had the brothers work for him for two months, dusting, collecting and packaging. At the end of this time, Gustaf made for Sweden with his booty, only to be arrested at the railway station out of town. However, the Colorado police eventually had to let him go, because there was actually no law preventing what Gustaf had done at the time Gustaf returned to Sweden with 600 excavated samples from Mesa Verde and wrote an authoritative paper on the cliff dwellers. The Wetherwill brothers then tried to turn their hand at tourism, offering tours of the ruins for $5 a day.

It was getting a little too obvious that some sort of legal protection was required for the Mesa Verde ruins before they were completely destroyed. In the next phase of drama for Mesa Verde, a prominent Colorado Woman's Group proposed that it become the custodian of the Mesa Verde ruins. Membership to this club would be hereditary (mother to daughter) and presumably the members would protect the ruins by evoking their Earth Goddess powers. Wisely, some might say, a national park was created by Congress instead on June 26, 1906. The bill was signed by our old fave, President Teddy Roosevelt.

What We Did

We started our Mesa Verde journey with a drive through the mesas, which in their own right are quite spectacular and unique. The horizon is painted with blue Colorado mountains, and the mesas rise stately before them. Mesa Verde is around 7,000 feet in elevation and is covered with Douglas firs, Pinyon pines, Utah juniper trees and shrubs, like Utah serviceberry. The vegetation appears as a cross between typical mountain forest (large pines) and desert vegetation (small shrubs that conserve water). The Pinyon pine is probably the most common tree in the region. These pines have adapted to conserve water in the arid conditions, and the waxy needles lose very little moisture in comparison to the broadleaf trees located in other parts of North America, such as maple and elm. The nuts of the Pinyon pine make for good eating and can be toasted, boiled or ground to mix with corn for flour.

Our first stop was at the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum, which houses a selection of dioramas featuring the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans. We then set off on the Petroglyph Trail aiming to reach Pictograph Point, the highlight of this trail being a panel of petroglyphs a little over a mile from the museum. The Point is actually misnamed, as the artwork on display here falls into the petroglyph category rather than pictograph; the difference being that pictographs are painted onto rock, whereas petroglyphs are carved into the rock.

Since the Ancestral Puebloans are not available to tells us the meaning of the petroglyphs at Pictograph Point, a group of four Hopi men from northeastern Arizona were asked to decipher their meaning in 1942. These men speculated that the petroglyphs tell the story of the Ancestral Puebloans migration to, and also possibly from, the area. On their reading, the animal symbols represent various clans and the lines represent the peoples' migration from the Grand Canyon (known as the “Sipapu” to Native Americans) to Mesa Verde and the various splits that occurred in the clans as the migration was undertaken. The Native Americans of the Four Corners region, believe that their ancestors emerged from the Sipapu. Obviously, it is not known if the Ancestral Puebloans would interpret the petroglyphs in the same fashion as the Hopi, but it is thought that there is an ancestral link between these two groups. One piece of evidence suggesting this continuity is the occurrence, in the ceremonial rooms, called Kivas, of both the Hopi and the Ancestral Puebloans of a small hole that symbolizes the Sipapu.

The highlight of Mesa Verde National Park is the cliff dwelling residences. We did a guided tour of Spruce Tree House with an excellent park ranger and a tour group of about fifty curious Indians from India, who had an amazing array of questions ready to ask the ranger - “What was their schooling like?”; “Did they drive?”; “Where did they go to the toilet?”; “How did they climb to the top of the mesa?”; “Can we walk into the house?”; “Can we climb down into the Kiva?” Our guide took us down to the ruins, politely answered our questions and explained certain aspects of the Ancient Puebloans culture and lifestyle to us. We learned quiet a lot on this very informative tour and hopefully the information below makes up for the comical modern history summary above.

The Spruce Tree House has 129 rooms and 8 Kivas. (A “Kiva” is a round below ground room that was predominately used for ceremonial purposes). Archaeologists speculate that up to 100 people lived at Spruce Tree House. Before the white man “discovered” it, Mesa Verde had been empty for approximately 500 years, as it is thought that the Ancients left the region in 1300 AD.

The Ancients were agriculturalists, most of their lives were dedicated to farming their land as they spent long hours in the fields cultivating their crops (sounds like my modern day parents). The crops that were grown on top of the mesas included beans, corn and squash. They reached their field by hand and toe hold trails pecked into the canyon walls. They hunted deer, rabbits, squirrel and other game and supplemented their diet with various local plants and berries. Their only domestic animals were dogs and turkeys. Turkeys were used for food, their feathers used in weaving and their bones for tools. Clothes were woven from any available fibers, including bark, plants, furs, feathers and even human hair.

The cliff dwellings were built out of sandstone bricks, individually shaped by hand. The mortar between the bricks consists of mud, straw, water and human urine. The rooms that make up the Spruce Tree House were generally 6 by 8 feet in dimension.

As mentioned above “Kiva” is the Hopi word for ceremonial room. The Kivas at Spruce Tree House took the form of underground chambers. Ancestral Puebloans may have also used the Kiva as a gathering place or a place to work in the winter. Being underground and containing a fire, the Kiva would have been the warmest room in the settlement during winters that can reach as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Entry to the kiva is by ladder through a hole in the roof.

The winters at Mesa Verde were and are still brutal. The Ancients would have expended most of their energy during the winter season in keeping warm. The fires would need to be continually stoked and maintained. Many of the inside walls of the cliff dwelling structures are still blackened by smoke.

Based on modern day practice, it is thought that storytelling would have been the main source of entertainment during the long winter months (and other times of the year as well). Traders told the best stories, the most famous trader of all is Kokopelli. The petroglyph of Kokopelli is seen all over the Southwest of the USA, including at Mesa Verde. He is a hunchbacked figure with spiky hair, playing a flute and/or dancing. Kokopelli was such a popular figure that he came to be associated with god-like features. He was considered to bring good luck to villages and fertility for the crops and for the ladies.

There is evidence that the Ancestral Puebloans engaged in trade with traders from far flung areas. Seashells from the Pacific Coast, turquoise from New Mexico, pottery and cotton from other southern regions and silver work from Mexico has been found within the ruins of Mesa Verde. 

Obviously, it is difficult to know the exact truth about the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans. Archaeologists rely heavily on modern Pueblo peoples in New Mexico and Arizona for guidance on the ways of the Ancestral Puebloans. A visit to Mesa Verde National Park is highly recommended by the Green Blazing team, especially for history and UFO buffs.