A Glimpse into the Past at Mesa Verde National Park

''The spirits of our ancestors are still here. Stop a minute and listen ... children laughing, women talking, dogs barking, and turkeys gobbling. Hear and feel the beat of the drums and the singing. Smell the cooking fires. You can feel their presence, their warmth, their sense of community.''

TJ Atsye

Laguna Pueblo

Although the Ancestral Pueblo people moved on from these cliff dwellings over 800 years ago, their presence is still felt in the over 4500 architectural sites that make up Mesa Verde National Park. Mother's Day was special for this history-lover when we found ourselves in this southern Colorado national park. We grabbed a quick photo before driving up, up, up to the mesa tops where architectural remains gave us a glimpse into the life styles of this area's early residents.

The Visitor Center had excellent displays and stories as well as some of the artifacts that have been uncovered by archaeologists. These items show how the people supported their families and community through the hunting of wildlife and planting of squash, corn, and beans on top of the high, fertile green mesas.

The name ''Mesa Verde'' means ''green table'' in Spanish, and it is the uniqueness of these ''green tables'' that first attracted the Ancestral Pueblos to this area. The fertile mesa tops were slanted to the south which had the effect of increasing the growing season by a couple of weeks allowing them to produce larger amounts of crops.

We left the valley below and the snow-capped mountains in the distance as we started our half-day exploration. Mesa Verde National Park consists of two different mesas ... Wetherill Mesa and Chapin Mesa. To see both areas involves pretty much a whole day or two. We were able to explore Chapin Mesa during our short visit.

Each mesa has cliff dwellings that can be viewed from a distance, or if you plan ahead better than we do, you can sign up for ranger-led tours into a couple of the dwellings. As we headed up Chapin Mesa to the six mile long Mesa Top Loop Road we listened to a recommended podcast by park ranger and Pueblo tribal member TJ Atsye who told us the stories behind the sites that lay before us.

 

Stories about ...

... the early Pit Houses (600 - 1100 AD) which consisted of living areas dug into the earth and covered with wooden walls and mud ceilings.

Stories about ...

... family life in the cliff dwellings (1190-1270 AD). One of the largest and best preserved is Spruce Tree Dwelling which had 130 rooms for family living areas and 8 circular kivas that served as religious and ceremonial structures.

Stories about ...

... Sun Temple which they believe served as a huge ceremonial structure for the community.

At the end of the 13th century, over the course of a generation or two, the dwellings in Mesa Verde were abandoned. Why the Ancestral Pueblos left is still a mystery to archaeologists. Perhaps a severe drought or threatening enemies forced them to find a new home to the south and east. 

We may never know for certain, but we can still be grateful that the structures that remain give us a magnificent glimpse into the past at Mesa Verde National Park.

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