Mesa Verde
National Park - Colorado
 For
thousands of years people wandered across the Mesa Verde, living
a nomadic life while hunting wild game and gathering sustenance
from the earth. Fourteen centuries ago, a few chose to settle in
Mesa Verde, Colorado, staying near their planted crops. Over the
next seven centuries they built more permanent homes and
villages, and participated in extensive trade networks across
the Southwest. The people of Mesa Verde are known today
particularly for the grace of their architecture and the beauty
of their intricate black-on-white pottery.
 Mesa
Verde National Park, a United Nations World Heritage Site, is
known internationally for the fabulous cliff dwellings. Though
long familiar to Mesa Verde's native inhabitants, the cliff
dwellings were brought to world attention after being noticed by
European-Americans in the late 1800's.
In an effort to
preserve these priceless cliff dwellings, the National Park
Service has excavated and stabilized both mesa top and cliff
dwelling sites, chronologically interpreting some 700 years of
Mesa Verde occupation so that people today can learn from the
past.
Mesa Verde, Spanish for
"green table", offers an unparalleled opportunity to see and
experience a unique cultural and physical landscape. The culture
represented at Mesa Verde reflects more than 700 years of
history. From approximately A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300 people
lived and flourished in communities throughout the area,
eventually building elaborate stone villages in the sheltered
alcoves of the canyon walls. Today most people call these
sheltered villages "cliff dwellings". The cliff dwellings
represent the last 75 to 100 years of occupation at Mesa Verde.
In the late 1200s within the span of one or two generations,
they left their homes and moved away. The archeological sites
found in Mesa Verde are some of the most notable and best
preserved in the United States. Mesa Verde National Park offers
visitors a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral
Pueblo people. Scientists study the ancient dwellings of Mesa
Verde, in part, by making comparisons between the Ancestral
Pueblo people and their contemporary indigenous descendants who
still live in the Southwest today. Twenty-four Native American
tribes in the southwest have an ancestral affiliation with the
sites at Mesa Verde. To fully enjoy Mesa Verde National Park,
plan to spend a day or two exploring its world-class
archeological sites as well as its beautiful landscape. The
entrance to the park is 9 miles east of Cortez and 35 miles west
of Durango in Southwestern Colorado on US Highway 160. |
