Today is a definite change from the weather we have gotten used to .... its freezing in Colorado ... I don't know if it was elevation or a cold front ... there are still snow pile remnants and little piles along the road side. Part of the park is still closed for winter and the park campground won't open until May - one of the hiking trails up the side of a mountain still has snow on it ... yuck ... and its windy. And all the mountains around us ... lots of snow ... and there were snow flurries.
I had to wrap my scarf over my ears and top it with a baseball hat ... how attractive. Sorry, no pictures of that!
Mesa Verde was COOL and COLD!
Mesa Verde is spanish for "green table."
The ancestral puebloans lived here about 1,400 years ago - modern Pueblo tribes in the Southwest consider themselves descendants of these people and still return to the cliff dwellings to honor their ancestors.
During the 700 years that the ancestral puebloans lived here they progressed to building elaborate multi-storied dwellings in the rock cliff alcoves 2,000 feet above Montezuma Valley. In the late 1200s, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away.
In 1888 two cowbows were tracking stray cattle in a snowstorm and stopped on the edge of a steep-walled canyon. Through the flakes they made out traces of walls and towers of a large cliff dwelling across the canyon. They climbed down a makeshift ladder and explored the honeycombed network of rooms that they named Cliff Palace. They found stone tools, pottery and other artifacts in rooms that had been uninhabited for some 600 years.
Cliff Palace
The earlier Puebloans were known as hunter-gatherers were nomadic, known as basketmakers for their skill in the craft. Spanish introduced them to corn - corn changed everything. They began to lead a more settled way of life .., farming replaced hunting. They lived in pithouses clustered into small villages. They learned to make pottery and acquired the bow and arrow. The population multiplied and they began to build houses above ground with upright walls fashioned of poles and mud, building the houses one against another in long, curving rows.
By 1,000 they had advanced from pole and adobe construction to skillful stone masonry. Walls of thick stone rose two to three stories high and were joined together into units of 50 rooms or more. Pottery became more elaborate and beautiful. Farming became much more their diet and the land was cleared for farming.
They were adept at building, artistic in their crafts and skillful at making a living from a difficult land.
They used nature to their advantage building in the cliffs. The same water that seeps through the sandstone creating the cliffs (seep wells) was also their water source. Water is essential to survival and each cliff dwelling had a seep well in it or nearby.
Cliff Palace is huge!
These are some of the peck holes for hands and feet that they would use to climb up to the mesa above and then back down. Kind of makes modern rock climbers look like sissies. However, we did see a pair of crutches in the museum ... make you wonder.
Kiva
A Kiva is a ceremonial room - an underground chamber, gathering place and also a place to weave - only men allowed. It would have a southern orientation. The construction is ingenious. Pilasters supported a beam and mud roof. Entry was by ladder through a hole in the center of the roof - same hole smoke would come out of. There would be a ventilator shaft behind a small stone wall to draw in fresh air but not make a draft. Isn't it amazing that they would figure that out. Anyway since they were built underground and had flat roofs (appear to be part of the earth) they would be walked on and could be part of a courtyard.
Balcony House
This cliff dwelling is named Balcony House becasue of the wood and plaster balcony on the second story. The balcony would enable you to get to the different rooms on the second floor. They were not connected from the inside. They used juniper trees - these are still original. The stone walls would also be finished with plaster and painted ... sometimes white with orange triangle designs as a border.
Kiva
See the narrow bench for sitting? There would have been a flat roof over this kiva so that it was the same level as the rest of the courtyard.
This is the tunnel you have to crawl through on your hands and knees to exit the cliff dwelling. Wasn't it nice of Tom to take my picture????
This is how the puebloans entered this cliff dwelling.
This picture is from the ladder - looking back down at the tunnel.
To tour this cliff dwelling you had to climb two ladders, one 32 feet, the other 60 feet ... on the cliff face and crawl through two narrow tunnels 1 1/2 feet wide - YIKES!!! I did it!
The average of a puebloan - 35 years.
The population of puebloans at the height of their time in the Cliff Dwellings was greater than the population of Cortez today (That's the town where Mesa Verde is).
It is not known exactly why the ancestral puebloans left - it is known that there was a drought and crop failure at the time that they left - but they had survived droughts before. There is not evidence of warfare. When they left, they traveled south into New Mexico and Arizona, settling among their kin who were already there.
Mule Deer
Isn't he cute????
tomorrow ... Lake Powell ...
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