To start out, one drives up the front of a mesa. It is something that they were able to build a road up it. We were at 6950 feet at the visitors center. By the time we got to the Park Point Overlook, we were at 8572 feet.
We had picked up our tickets at the Visitors center and headed out on the Chapin Mesa to go to Cliff Palace. That is the largest and the one that you always see in pictures. It is a forty five minute drive to get there. It looks large in pictures, but when there are people standing amongst the ruins, it doesn't look as large. We had to wait at an overlook for the ranger for the one hour tour. The first two pictures were taken from this area. You can see people, in the tour before ours, if you look closely in the first picture.
We went down stairs to the rock layer upon which it is built. This was metal stairs and steps that had been cut into the rock after it was open to visits. It was steep going down and it makes one wonder how Indians got into it.
After we were down, the ranger had us sit in an area just at the left edge of the dwelling area. There he talked about it and also answered questions. When it was first found, there was lots of ruble but most of what we see today was standing. They do continue repair to the existing dwellings to keep them standing. He said that twenty years ago he came as a visitor. At that time, they didn't know what happened to the people that lived here; they just disappeared. Now we know that they didn't disappear, they just moved south and are the ancestors of the Hopi, Zuni, Laguna, and Acoma. The pueblos along the Rio Grand trace their ancestry to these Ancestral Pueblo people.
They had lived first in pit houses from about AD 550. Most of these were on mesa tops but some were in cliff alcoves. About AD 750 some people began to build houses above the ground with upright walls fashioned of poles and mud. These were built one against another in long curving rows, often with a pit house or two in front. By AD 1000 their architectural skill had advanced from pole-and-adobe construction to stone masonry. Walls of thick, double-coursed stone often rose two or three stories high and were joined as units of 50 rooms or more. Between 1150 and 1300 thousands of people lived on Mesa Verde.
It is not known why they moved from the top but about 1225 there was another major population shift which saw people moving back into the cliff alcoves. Most of the cliff dwellings were built from late 1190 to late 1270. Some are one-room houses to community centers of about 150 rooms. Cliff Palace had 130 rooms and eight kivas.
When they lived in Pit houses they gathered a wide variety of edible and useful plants, hunted larger game as well as they farmed corn, beans, and squash. By the time they were living in above ground structures, most of their diet was grown or was small animals. Their only tamed animals were dogs and turkeys. At some time they built a reservoir.
By about 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted. It is known that the last quarter of the 1200s saw drought and crop failures, but they had survived earlier droughts. Maybe after hundreds of years of intensive use the land and its soils, forest, and animals were depleted. Their descendants say that it was just time to move on as they are on a journey.
One of the things that was brought out is the difference in our thinking to that of the descendants. While we worry about dates and why, they look at it as a journey that the people are taking.
This picture is of a kiva at Cliff Palace. You can see the stone, air deflector, erected in front of the ventilator or hole bringing in air for the fire. (I had mentioned this in my previous blog.) This was to circulate the air and also to prevent too much draft to the fire. The stone pillar, or pilaster, had wood poles on top that helped support the roof which was at ground level. The lower benches, or banquettes, were used to sit on or store things. In direct line with the ventilator and fire pit, but on the other side of the fire pit, was a smaller hole called a sipapu. This represented the portal from which they as a people emerged and started their journey. (One of the museums said they tell of being in a dark place with much turmoil. It wasn't until they heard foot steps overhead that they believed it was time to go up into a new world through the sipapu. This and the dates makes one think of the Book of Mormon.)
This is storage area that was built above the dwellings. The ranger said that they would have had to crawl in them and that maybe they were hurried, that some were only stacked.
The above is for perspective. You can also see the 'storage' area on the higher ledge.
Below is the square tower that can be seen on the left of the first picture. The floors inside only have the original poles. Most of these rooms were at one time plastered and painted on the inside. This tower still has some. The two pictures after this one are of its' inside painting.' (That is B looking in.)
We went out on the opposite side of the dwelling from where we had gone in. This is of some of the steps and the first ladder. (There were only about ten rungs on each of the ladders. B was behind me and I did just fine.)
Then we started driving around the loop, stopping to look at sites. This shows what the mesa looks like. We were looking across at another part of one. It reminded me of Black Oak Canyon that I went to with Marty in Arizona. The more you looked the more dwellings you saw.
This next one is called Square tower. It was one of the first excavated. Unfortunately, the man who did it took more than a thousand artifacts back to his home in one of the Scandinavian counties where they remain. Had they been left in place and with today's technology, we would know much more about how they lived and what the rooms were used for.
This is about long enough, so I will wait until the next post to bring you forward to the time of the cliff dwellings with pictures.
1 comment:
More jealousy. So cool to get to see all of this in person and not just in pictures in a book.
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