CULTURE NOT CANYONS - MESA VERDE

(Going back in time for this post - a bit out of sync - but whatever!)

We spent 2 days on our own in this great National Park, whilst staying at a motel in Cortez, and then, armed with lots of information, we spent a busy 3rd day with Allan and Sue (at our fancy Airbnb) for their only day at MV.  Adding some info from the web to reduce my brain work and input what I can on the limited time we have for blogs and rest/recovery - on the tourist trail most days from 8 am or earlier until 6 pm, then meal in or out depending how tired we all are.

Mesa Verde

Created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52,485 acres (21,240 ha) near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. With more than 4,300 sites, including 600 cliff dwellings, it is the largest archaeological preserve in the U.S. Mesa Verde (Spanish for "green table") is best known for structures such as Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America.

Starting c. 7500 BCE, Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex. The variety of projectile points found in the region indicates they were influenced by surrounding areas, including the Great Basin, the San Juan Basin, and the Rio Grande Valley. Later, Archaic people established semi-permanent rockshelters in and around the mesa. By 1000 BCE, the Basketmaker culture emerged from the local Archaic population, and by 750 CE the Ancestral Puebloans had developed from the Basketmaker culture.

The Mesa Verdeans survived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming of crops such as corn, beans, and squash. They built the mesa's first pueblos sometime after 650, and by the end of the 12th century, they began to construct the massive cliff dwellings for which the park is best known. By 1285, following a period of social and environmental instability driven by a series of severe and prolonged droughts, they abandoned the area and moved south to locations in Arizona and New Mexico.

These are some of the amazing cliff dwellings around the park - mainly 13th century.

We got up close and personal by taking three ranger led tours around different villages.  We accessed them by a series of ladders and steps, but these were easy peasy compared to how the original inhabitants went up and down to their fields on the plateau above the village.  Handholds cut in the sandstone and see above photos for the rockfaces!!!

So, lots of history and culture of the Ancestral Puebleons - who used to be called Anasazi.

In contemporary times, the people and their archaeological culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term. Reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean "ancient enemies". Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term to be used.

More info here if interested.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans