October 24, 1999
Secrets in Stone
By James Abarr
Of the Journal
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, Colo. — Like an immense island, the green tableland of Mesa Verde rises abruptly between the broad Mancos and Montezuma valleys of southwest Colorado.
On the forested summit of the escarpment, towering 2,000 feet above the surrounding landscape, is Mesa Verde National Park, an 83-square-mile area dedicated to preserving the rich legacy of an ancient Indian people who made their homes here for more than 700 years.
It's a strikingly rugged region of piñon, juniper and oak forests cut by more than 20 steep-walled canyons, some plunging to a depth of 700 feet or more.
A national park since 1906 and a World Heritage Cultural Site since 1977, Mesa Verde lists 3,900 archaeological sites within the park boundaries, nearly 600 of them cliff dwellings. Outside the park, there are an estimated 10,000 additional ruins on the 20-mile-long mesa.
This vast number of sites makes Mesa Verde an area with the highest concentration of pre-Columbian Indian ruins in North America.
Unlocking a mystery
For more than a century, archaeologists, ethnologists and others have strived to unlock the mystery of the people whom the Navajos call the Anasazi, or the Ancient Ones.
Actually, these early Indian people had nothing to do with the much-later Navajos, but because archaeologists do not know what the people of Mesa Verde called themselves, they have adopted the Navajo name for them.
Despite the on-going study by scholars in many fields, knowledge of the Mesa Verde Anasazi remains sketchy. They left no written record, and how their daily lives unfolded is educated conjecture. Yet, for all the passage of centuries, the ruins of their many cliff houses and surface dwellings and the artifacts they have yielded speak with a ghostly grandeur.
As a National Park Service researcher noted: "They tell of a people adept at building, artistic in their crafts and skilled at wresting a living from a difficult land."
Using tree-ring dating, comparison of pottery fragments, analysis of tools, clothing, crafts and styles of house construction, archaeologists have traced development of the Mesa Verde Anasazi from the Basketmakers of about A.D. 550 to the Classic Pueblo era, which spanned 200 years from 1100 to 1300.
Park visitors can explore the evidence of seven centuries of Anasazi occupation in the visually striking ruins of cliff dwellings, pithouses, mesa-top pueblos, kivas, ceremonial temples and petroglyphs. The mesa's dry climate has made these reminders of this ancient civilization among the best preserved in the nation.
Basketmakers arrive
There is some evidence that pre-historic hunters roamed the Mesa Verde area as long ago as 10,000 B.C. However, it was not until about A.D. 550, or about a century after the collapse of the Roman Empire, that a wandering band of Indians elected to foresake their nomadic ways to settle atop Mesa Verde. Archaeologists call these early residents the Basketmakers because of their skill at that craft.
Although once a hunter-gatherer people who wandered across the vastness of the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah in an endless search for food and shelter, the Basketmakers now opted for a more sedentary lifestyle. They built pithouses clustered in small villages, and in this more settled way of life, farming replaced hunting and gathering.
Crops of corn, beans and squash were raised in plots along the canyon bottoms and in cleared areas of the mesa tops. To supplement farming, the Anasazi hunted deer, turkeys and rabbits and collected edible plants.
Basic features of their pithouses included square-shaped living quarters dug several feet into the ground. Four stout timbers at the corners supported a roof of saplings covered by layers of mud. In the living area, there was a large firepit with air deflector and an antechamber used for storage.
Pithouses were common until about A.D. 750, when they began to be replaced by small, rectangular surface dwellings of stone. Archaeologists believe the pithouse was the forerunner of the kiva, the underground ceremonial chambers of later Pueblo times.
A society evolves
Through the centuries, the Basketmakers evolved into a high order of civilization. By A.D. 1000, they had exchanged their small surface houses for multi-room stone pueblos as the people apparently became more communal-minded. By this period, they had become skillful farmers, weavers and makers of pottery, clothing, jewelry and tools.
A century later, or about A.D. 1100, the Mesa Verde Anasazi entered their Golden Age with accomplishments in communal living and the arts that rank among the best expressions of culture in ancient North America.
In this period, archaeologists believe the population of Mesa Verde may have reached several thousand. It was concentrated in compact pueblos of many rooms and kivas. Some were three-story rectangular house blocks set off by unique round and square tower dwellings. There was a higher level of craftsmanship in masonry work, pottery, weaving and tool making.
Beginning in A.D. 1200, or about the time that Richard the Lion Heart of England was leading European knights on the Third Crusade, the Anasazi began construction of the elaborate cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is world famous.
Ranging in size from several rooms to more than 200, these cliff homes were built in large alcoves high om the canyon walls, a move which has left archaeologists with a major puzzle.
Why, after centuries, did the Anasazi abandoned their mesa-top dwellings for the rugged cliffs?
Some theorize that they may have been threatened by an outside enemy, forcing the Anasazi to flee to the strong defensive positions afforded by the cliffs. However, no evidence of any such threat has been uncovered.
As Gilbert Wenger, who spent 14 years as the Park Service's chief archaeologist at Mesa Verde, says of the defense theory:
"If so, who were their enemies? There is currently no evidence of any other people than Pueblo in the immediate area until after abandonment of Mesa Verde. Were the people, perhaps, fighting among themselves because they could no longer grow enough food, or were there social reasons?"
These questions remain without definitive answers, but some researchers believe internal strife may have been a factor, and the people, in their individual cliff houses, sought isolation and protection from neighboring clans.
Whatever the reasons, the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde rank among the highest level of Anasazi house craftsmanship in the Southwest. There was no standard ground plan for these amazing villages, which were fashioned to match the topography of the sheltered alcoves beneath overhangs extending outward from the tops of the cliffs.
Sandstone was the basic building material. This soft, porous material was carefully shaped into rectangular blocks and laid in courses cemented in mud mortar. Walls were usually coated with mud plaster and decorated with painted designs. Square house blocks, many three stories high, were accompanied by unique tower dwellings, some round and others square. Numerous kivas were sprinkled throughout the cliff villages.
Rooms averaged 6-by-8 feet, or space enough for probably two or three people. Isolated rooms built against the rear wall of alcoves were used for storage and disposal of refuse.
In some instances, these rooms also were used to bury the dead. Many burials have been uncovered at Mesa Verde, and they have been instrumental in helping ethnologists learn more about the lives of these ancient people.
A steady exodus
Throughout the 1200s, the Anasazi, in growing numbers, began to drift away from Mesa Verde. By 1300, after occupying their cliff villages for less that a century, the mesa tops and canyons that had echoed to the sounds of human life for seven centuries were empty.
A number of factors probably contributed to the exodus.
Tree-ring studies show that in about 1273, rain ceased to fall at Mesa Verde, as it did across much of the Southwest. For the next 12 years, or until 1285, a severe drought gripped the region.
Coupled with this lack of moisture, which put a severe strain on farming, was a heavy drain on natural resources. Centuries of use had likely depleted soil, timber and animal resources. Archaeologists theorize that this may have triggered internal stife with villages raiding the food supplies of neighbors.
Recent research has indicated that a shift in climate also may have shortened Mesa Verde's growing season to the point where the Anasazis could no longer raise enough food to feed the mesa's peak estimated population of 5,000.
As archaeologist Wenger wrote: "A combination of such difficulties all happening at the same time would have had a devastating influence on the population, forcing them to leave their homes."
Where did the people go? Anthropologists say they gradually moved south, some bands joining the Hopis in northeast Arizona and others joining the Pueblos of western New Mexico and along the Rio Grande, where their descendants live today.
Scenic wonderland
From Mesa Verde's entrance on U.S. 160, 36 miles west of Durango, a paved road winds upward 2,000 feet into a wonderland of forests, canyons, craggy buttes and sharp-edged ridges.
Park Point, on the northern rim of the mesa at an elevation of nearly 8,600 feet, offers a panoramic view of the Montezuma Valley to the west and the Four Corners area to the south.
At Far View Complex, 15 miles south of the park entrance, is a Visitor Center featuring displays designed as an introduction to Anasazi life. There also is a restaurant, service station and motel. At Far View, the road divides. The west fork takes visitors 12 miles west and south to Wetherill Mesa, while the south fork follows Chapin Mesa to park headquarters on Ruins Road.
Wetherill Mesa, open only from Memorial Day to Labor Day, features a number of major ruins, including Long House, second largest cliff dwelling in the park.
At park headquarters, eight miles south of Far View, is Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum. In a series of five dioramas and extensive exhibits, the museum provides a comprehensive introduction to the life of the Mesa Verde Anasazi.
Directly behind park headquarters, in a thickly timbered canyon, is Spruce Tree House, a classic Anasazi cliff dwelling and third largest ruin in the park.
Continuing south from park headquarters, Ruins Road divides into two loop drives, each winding six miles through piñon-juniper forests and a heavy concentration of surface and cliff ruins, including Cliff Palace, Balcony House, Square Tower House and other major sites.
Mesa Verde doesn't lend itself to a hurry-up visit. It takes time to savor the scenic vistas and experience the magic of the park's long panorama of ancient life.
A popular slogan on the mesa says it all: "It's a place where you can see for 100 miles and look back in time 1,000 years."
Mesa Verde on the Web
E-mail Story
Print Friendly
venue 
