Our day began at 6 AM as we wanted to be at Mesa Verde National Park by 8-ish to go to the Visitors Center before traveling the hour and a half to the meeting point for the Cliff Palace Ranger-guided tour of the largest pueblo village. It's 20 miles from the Visitors Center to the meeting point, but most of the windy, frequently switch-backed road is 15-35 mph. I volunteered to drive today for which David was grateful.
We discovered the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum was actually where the orientation film was shown. It was also where David would wait while Kathie and I went on the tour which is rated strenuous and for a good reason we learned. The Museum is a wealth of information with diaramas depicting the habitation of North America by Puebloans from 10 to 15 thousand years ago to 800 years ago. I must comment on the use of the term Puebloan. Some have said Anazazi has fallen out of use because it has a negative connotation. The Welcome Center clerk we talked with yesterday said the term Anazazi really doesn't have a negative translation, but rather only means ancient ones who were not Navajo. Anazazi seems to be avoided in all the orientation films and literature.
The first diarama in the Museum depicted the Early Habitation Period of North America from 10-15 thousand years ago. These were hunters and gatherers who use atlatl (spears) to hunt bison.
The Basketmaker Period--to 1600 years ago-- were the first hunter/gatherers to come to the 4 Corners Area between AD 1-500. They learned to farm, growing corn, beans and squash and hunting rabbits, and deer, fruit and seeds. Clothing was made from skins of animals. They used yucca fibers and dog hairs to weave sandals.
The Modified Basketmaker Period--1300 years ago-- had Pueblo people living in the Mesa Verde area. They abandoned their nomadic lifestyle to build semi-permanent subterranean houses called pit houses in alcoves as well as on the mesas. They raised domesticated turkeys and dogs.
The Developmental Pueblo Period--1200 years ago--found Puebloans living in true villages. The began making pottery and lived in connected living and storage rooms facing south or southwest to take advantage of sun exposure. They had a deep pit used for social and ceremonial purposes. The grooved axe made building easier. They had reservoirs to collect rain and snow. Cotton was introduced from the south with added to their weaving articles. They actively traded with other regions.
The Great or Classic Pueblo Period--800 years ago--found people moving from small compact villages to cliff dwelling. Walls were built of shaped sandstone blocks laid in mud mortar with roofs of poles, bark and mud. Houses were grouped around an open courtyard with a circular room beneath which resembles modern kivas in Pueblo villages of today.
After viewing these diaramas, David and I were struck by how similar some of the practices we observed among the Basotho of Lesotho when we served there as missionaries from 1993-99 were to the Puebloans.
We met at the Cliff Palace Viewpoint at 10:45 AM where the Park Ranger spoke of the rules for the tour stressing that no food or beverages other than water were allowed and no chewing gum!! He stressed it was a strenuous climb down and up with several 10-rung ladders to climb. He half jokingly commented that the cost of rescuing someone was nearly $5K! We observed an elderly woman who had to receive support from her husband going down the steps carved into the rocks. She persisted, though, and we congratulated her as she sat, smoking, in their vehicle in the parking lot.
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. We don't know why the "Ancients" moved to this style of dwelling about 1200 AD. It was discovered by two cowboys in 1888 who were looking for stray cattle. An experienced mountaineer, Frederick Chapin, eventually came to the site and lowered a rope down over it and began exploring it. A Swedish scientist, Gustaf Nordenskiold, published the results of his exploration in 1891.Our Ranger said, Nordenskiold also took wagonloads of artifacts back to Sweden. This was before Antiquities Acts.
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| Cliff Palace looking down from the view point where we met to walk down to it. |
The birds like to perch on the ledges and do their own "painting" of the walls. Rangers tried many different techniques to keep them off when someone suggested a slinky. It works!
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| If you look very closely at the top of this tower, which we looked up into to see petroglyphs etched near the top, you can see a large slinky uncoiled across to keep the birds from perching. |
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The mortar is made of crushed sandstone, clay, ashes and urine to wet it. (Basotho make mud using cowdung and soil as their mortar.)
The dwellings throughout this area are dated using wood carbon dating. That is not a perfect way to judge the age, however, as often when they rebuilt they used wood from previous dwellings. Sometimes the poles up higher in the dwelling were found to be older than the lower ones.
To leave the Cliff Palace we had to climb over 40 uneven stone steps ascending though narrow passages between rocks and at the end up two sets of steep wooden ladders. For one who has acrophobia, it was a real test of my willpower.
After this adventure we needed nourishment, so we went to the Spruce Tree Cafe which served a wide array of sandwich, salad and hot foods. While Kathie and I had explored Cliff Palace, David was able to view the Spruce Tree House from near the Museum, so he did get to see one of the most well-preserved dwellings in Mesa Verde.
Knowing I would have a long windy drive back to the valley, I wasn't interested in the other long road we could have driven, but we did do the Mesa Top Loop.
This section shows many kivas and dwellings under enclosed structures which makes it very easy to see and also protects the exposed structures. These structures date from 600-1300 AD.
The first dwelling was a typical pithouse, this one with a larger space for living. In the center is the firepit where people did their cooking. A stone slab was placed in front of the firepit to keep the air circulating--deflecting cool drafts and drawing smoke up and out. In the adjoining smaller room, called an antechamber, food and firewood were stored. Everyone slept together on the floor on twill mats and snuggled together in the cold winters.
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| Typical pithouse | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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At the Square Tower House we were surprised to find two Rangers who had rapelled down the cliff to enter the dwelling. They were obviously cataloging and measuring judging by the equipment we could see from the viewpoint.
The Square Tower House is built in an alcove in the upper walls of Navajo Canyon. It is a 4-story structure still largely intact occupied between 1200-1300 AD. The tower had windows, doorways, flooring and inner walls which were plastered. About 60-80 rooms of the Square Tower remain. They went to and from the dwelling by way of hand-and-toe holds pecked into the cliff walls. A spring below the alcove provided water.
We drove to the Sun Point View, one of the best in Mesa Verde, arriving as the black cloud that had been building overhead let loose with a downpour which lasted almost 15 minutes. Our truck is much cleaner on the outside now. I am glad we waited because the view was spectacular especially of Cliff Palace from across the canyon. Kathie and I still marvel that we were inside this structure!!
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| Cliff Palace as seen from Mesa Top Loop drive--across the canyon |
One of the last buildings we saw on the Mesa Top Loop was the Sun Temple, estimated to have been built about 1250 AD. It was never roofed and there are geometric designs inscribed on the face of some of the walls. It was obviously never finished and there continues speculation why.
The Puebloans appeared to have migrated south from the 4 Corners area possibly because they had depleted the soil and they had had 25+ years of drought. Many different tribes banded together in the Texas region.
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| The Sun Temple |
As I drove us back down to US 160, I glanced over at David in the passenger seat. I commented his knuckles weren't white (mine were!!). His retort was, "Yeah, but you should see my shorts!!" We chased another thunderstorm as we descended, but gratefully only a few sprinkles reached us before we were on level ground again. Today's adventure was again at about 7000 feet elevation. Cortez is at 6,201 feet.
