Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado is home to an ambitiously designed and well-preserved cliff civilisation dating back to AD 550. This includes over 5,000 incredible archaeological sites such as farming terraces, reservoirs, petroglyphs and towers. Discovered in the late 1800s by cowboys, today it forms the largest archaeological preserve in the United States. Here, we delve into Mesa Verde's mysterious communities, from who built them to the homes you can now visit.
The ambitious cave communities were built by the Ancestral Puebloans. This group of Native American people lived in the ‘Four Corners’ region of the southwestern USA, where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet. They thrived as hunters and farmers who perfected the art of dry farming to grow corn, beans and squash. They were also expert basket makers and potters.
Early Ancestral Puebloans moved into the Mesa Verde area around AD 550 and swapped their traditional nomadic way of life for a more settled one. They lived within small agricultural communities in compact family homes called pit houses. The pit houses were basic, with a living room dug a few feet into the ground, possibly to act as shelter from extreme weather. Foundations of several of these houses can be seen on the Mesa Top Loop Road in the national park.
A few hundred years later, they decided to abandon their homes on the cliff top and live beneath in dwellings they built within recesses and alcoves in the cliff. They constructed houses, ceremonial rooms known as 'kivas' and even entire villages out of stone. Archaeologists refer to this time as Mesa Verde’s Classic Period when their architectural skills flourished and designs became more ambitious. It's the homes they created at this time that make Mesa Verde special today.
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These ancient dwellings and structures were built using a combination of sandstone, wood and mud in a sheltered spot under an overhanging part of the cliff. This protected them from harsh weather conditions which means the homes are well-preserved today. They consist of either one, two, three or even four storeys, built in a stepped-back style so that the roofs of lower levels worked as terraces for rooms above. Some structures are said to have had as many as a thousand rooms.
No one knows exactly why the Puebloans started building homes within cliffs. The most common belief is that when the landscape became much drier as the climate became warmer, they decided to move nearer to the water. Also, because the Mesa Verde area is so high and exposed, being tucked under overhanging cliffs offered shelter from the cold winter winds and protection from wildfires.
The Ancestral Puebloans lived in Mesa Verde until around AD 1300. Despite building this entire civilisation, they migrated south into areas now in New Mexico and Arizona, leaving these incredible communities behind. No one really knows why. Archaeologists, historians and some modern-day Pueblo people speculate that drought, depleted resources or skirmishes with other ancient peoples may have spurred the move.
Hidden from view, these incredible cliff communities lay undiscovered for centuries. Christopher Columbus missed them in the 1400s and Spanish explorer Francisco Vazquez de Coronado overlooked them in the mid-1500s. So too did Professor John Strong Newberry and Captain John N Macomb on their extensive expedition through southwestern Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico centuries later in 1859.
In 1874, an adventurous pioneer photographer named William Henry Jackson, led by an enigmatic local mine owner, John Moss, was the first to photograph part of Mesa Verde – a nine-room ruin that became known as Two Story House. His actions set off a chain of events that brought greater attention to the unpopulated, unprotected area, but he wasn’t the one who made history...
It was two cowboys, Charlie Mason and his brother-in-law, Richard Wetherill, who made history in 1888. While searching for stray cattle in southwestern Colorado, they stumbled across the largest concentration of cliff dwellings ever found, built by the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians that lived nearby. Wetherill named it the Cliff Palace.
After uncovering the huge Cliff Palace, Mason and Wetherill went on to discover other dwellings, which have since been named Spruce Tree House (pictured) and Square Tower House. Along with the Cliff Palace, these remain three of the more important cliff dwellings to visit in Mesa Verde National Park for their architectural significance.
After word got out that the dwellings had been found, explorers raided the sites for artefacts – and this went on for years. Less than a decade after the ruins had been discovered, Mesa Verde was in danger of being destroyed by over-enthusiastic tourists and greedy souvenir seekers.
To help prevent further looting, two women set about protecting Mesa Verde. Virginia McClurg (pictured), a prominent figure in Colorado society, became one of the site’s earliest champions. Lucy Peabody, an influential Denver retiree, then investigated the possibility of preserving it as a national park. Together, despite reported tension along the way, the two convinced both the public and US Congress that a national park should be established at Mesa Verde.
On 29 June 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the law creating the 52,000-acre Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde was to be considered a new kind of national park, which would not only celebrate incredible landscape and scenery, but a prehistoric culture and the heritage of its native people. In 1978, Mesa Verde National Park was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
No one is sure exactly how big each dwelling at Mesa Verde National Park once was. However, recent studies have revealed that the Cliff Palace (pictured) was the largest with 150 rooms, 23 kivas (congregational spaces used for ceremonies) and a population of 100. Long House is only slightly smaller, with 150 rooms and 21 kivas, while Spruce Tree House is thought to be the third largest with 130 rooms and eight kivas.
Square Tower House is the tallest structure in Mesa Verde, thought to have been built in the mid-1200s. Until the mid-1800s, this impressive three-storey construction was the tallest man-made structure in the US. Square Tower House stands out from other buildings in the park for its unique setting in a shallow alcove.
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In order to monitor the passing of the seasons, the Ancestral Puebloan people positioned windows, doors and walls along the path of the sun when building some of the biggest dwellings. Puebloans used astronomical observations to plan their farming and religious ceremonies, drawing on both natural features in the landscape and structures they built in this way.
The sun temple is one of the largest ceremonial buildings built by the Ancestral Puebloans. It’s also thought to have been an astronomical observatory aligned to the sunset during the winter solstice, which can be viewed from a platform at the south end of the Cliff Palace. It also aligns with the lunar standstill: when the moon reaches its northernmost or southernmost point during the course of a month.
Petroglyphs are carvings in rocks that feature motifs including figures in procession, handprints, animal tracks, wavy lines, spirals, concentric circles, animals and hunting scenes. According to Puebloan experts, they're said to reflect perceptions of place, environmental situations and hope for what may come. The main rock art panel in the park is called Petroglyph Point (pictured).
This spiral on the south side of a dwelling called Pipe Shrine House is another good example of a petroglyph at Mesa Verde. Spirals are found in many Ancestral Puebloan sites and are interpreted by experts as depictions of migrations. In a Mesa Verde trail guide, Puebloan expert Jim Enote explains: "Migration has always been part of the human experience as we adapt to changing situations. I also think a spiral is a metaphor for finding our centre and truth."
While you're walking around Mesa Verde today, look closely and you may spot remnants of Ancestral Puebloan life in the dusty landscape such as pots, stone knives and other artefacts. It's fine to pick them up and have a closer look but it's a federal crime to remove them from the park.
Of all the artefacts the Puebloans left behind, none are so beautiful nor so skillfully made as the black and white pottery of the later Ancestral Puebloans. Several examples of this pottery can be found in the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum, housed in a cabin built between 1922 and 1925 using the same stone that constructed several of their dwellings.
In Spanish, Mesa Verde means ‘green table’, a name given to the region in 1776 by Spanish explorer Padre Escalante. The name refers to the surrounding landscape of flat-topped hills heavily carpeted in green with pinon and juniper trees. However, the hills where these ancient ruins lie have a gradual slope, which makes them cuestas rather than mesas. Technically its name should be Cuesta Verde.
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Mesa Verde National Park sits at the top of an 8,570-foot-high (2,600m) sandstone plateau. To get to it, it's an exhilarating 20-mile (32km) uphill drive from the main highway, on a mountainous road featuring hairpin bends and sheer drops. It's worth navigating it, however, to drink in the far-reaching view over the verdant Mesa Verde and Four Corners region that greets you at the top.
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Chaplin Mesa is home to the greater concentration of archaeological sites and is the easiest area to access. Wetherill Mesa is quieter but only open from May to October, as the narrow winding access road gets blocked by the snow. It's also not accessible by car. To experience the cliff houses and trails, including Step House (pictured) at Wetherill Mesa, you have to walk or cycle a five-mile (8km) loop to reach them.
Surprisingly, although the Cliff Palace is the park's biggest dwelling with 150 rooms, it's the modestly sized Balcony House (pictured) with just 38 rooms that's the most exciting to tour. Seeing it involves climbing a 32-foot-high (9.7m) wooden ladder and crawling through an 18-inch-wide tunnel.
In 2021, Mesa Verde National Park was established as the world’s 100th International Dark Sky Park in recognition of the quality of the night sky afforded by the park’s remote location, dry climate and high elevation. Good spots in the park to stargaze include Geologic Overlook, Mancos Valley Overlook and Montezuma Valley Overlook, all open to the public throughout the night.
The American Southwest is home to several other sites that testify to the Ancestral Puebloan people's architectural abilities. These include the remote Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, home to the ruins of a community said to have been the centre of the Ancient Puebloan culture, and the lesser-known River House in Utah, a multi-room cliff dwelling which can only be reached by river. The latter is often described as one of the most impressive Native American sites in the entire US.
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