The canyons are long, steep, and deep. Everywhere you look there are cliff dwellings built on the sandstone ledges that riddle the canyon walls. There are literally thousands of archeological sites here, but we only climbed down to two of them. After being somewhat frightened by the taxidermied puma in the visitor's center, we headed to Spruce House.
This is the most well-preserved of all the sites. There are about 150 rooms, and the peak estimated population is 70-90 people. The Ancentral Puebloans lived at Mesa Verde from 550-1280 AD, but the cliff dwellings were only constructed starting in the 11th century (before that, they were living in pit houses on the mesa top). Anthropologists theorize that they started moving down the cliffs because of overcrowding and/or for defense. The defense part is tricky, because although they built towers that look like they're made for archers or lookouts, there's actually no evidence of warfare anyware around here. These people were heavily influenced by Chaco culture to the south, and they seemed to be peaceful hunters, farmers and traders.
This is a photo of one of the restored kiva roofs that form the main courtyards (the wooden ladder leads down to it). The kivas are round underground rooms; if the modern descendants of the Ancentral Puebloans (the Hopi and the Zia, among other tribes), they were used for ceremonial purposes. The sipapu ("navel") is an important part of each kiva; it's a small circular indentation on the floor that symbolizes the navel of the earth through which humans, demons, and corn have all come to the earth.
ANYWHOSITS. I can hear you falling asleep from here. Our second visit was to the Cliff Palace, which is the largest and most extensively restored site at Mesa Verde. The cave goes back about sixty feet, and it looks like the seep springs from which they got their water were back there. Cliff Palace seems to be a spiritual center of some kind, because there are 21 kivas* here. It could have been an administrative center as well. There are over 200 rooms, but peak population is estimated at 90-120 people; they couldn't possibly have used all that space themselves, so it's likely that this was used as a gathering place for visiting traders and the other settlements as well as the main residents.
Our ranger guide gave us what speculative information he could, but he said "Really, all we have are rocks and mud, and a little bit of wood. So...tour's over." Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1280, and all of the Ancentral Puebloans moved south. The main reasons for the mass migration seem to be a growing population, the depletion of their resources from living there so long (lack of game, tired soil), and a 25-year drought that started in 1226. It's weird, though, that EVERYONE left, when Mesa Verde could certainly have supported a smaller population, so there were probably cultural reasons for the move as well.
That ends today's unsolicited lecture. I should inform you that I am now an official Junior Ranger. Katie and I filled out activity and quiz booklets, turned them into a ranger, swore an oath, and were handed our badges. The oath was actually quite comprehensive, and we take our new duties very seriously as part of the 10-and-up age bracket of Junior Rangers. Ranger Eli said that he's never seen adults do this, but we can't figure out why not. There are fun games, and you get a prize at the end! If they taught art history like that, I would pay much better attention.
*Note that I did not fall into a kiva, although Katie was placing sizable bets on that probability.
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