The Ancestral Pueblo people did not always live in cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. For the first 600 years they lived on the mesa top. As you take a tour along the virtual Mesa Top Loop Drive, you will see generations of changes in housing styles from pithouse, to pueblo, and finally to cliff dwelling. Stop 1: Pithouse (600 CE)TEXT FOR ABOVE PANEL FIRST PERMANENT HOMES Most visitors to Mesa Verde arrive in summer, when it’s hard to imagine snow on the ground or freezing temperatures. But Ancestral Pueblo farmers were used to the year-round cycle of seasons. Their first permanent homes were partially underground, so they were cool in the summer and warm in winter. A family pithouse included a central fire hearth used for cooking, light, and warmth. It was protected by a deflector which reduced air drafts across the fire and onto people sitting, working, or sleeping on mats nearby. It also allowed smoke to rise straight up through the roof vent. Wing walls defined living spaces and may have offered options for privacy. Behind the wing walls were grinding stones, where women spent hours grinding corn into cornmeal, the basis of family meals. Baskets, pottery jars, and bowls held food such as shelled corn, wild fruit, seeds and berries, or stored water. Items such as burden baskets, cradleboards, and capes of twisted yucca fiber wrapped with rabbit fur or turkey feathers hung from the roof or main posts. TEXT FOR ABOVE PANEL BUILDING A PITHOUSE Why would a family build a new home? A marriage? Child? To be closer to a newly cleared field or garden plot? However it was decided, building and maintaining a pithouse meant a lot of hard work! To maintain their homes, people repaired the mud covering after the summer rainy season—or perhaps after every heavy rainstorm—and then every spring after the snow melted. Wooden support timbers were replaced when the bases rotted. Today, experimentation suggests that pithouses were completely rebuilt every 10 to 20 years. What Did it Take to Build a Pithouse?
Stop 2: Pithouses & Early Pueblo Villages (700 - 950 CE)TEXT FOR ABOVE PANEL MASONRY CONSTRUCTION Over time, the Ancestral Pueblo people began constructing above-ground buildings. By then, families lived in homes that included several rooms. The rooms shared walls with each other, much like apartments do today. The earliest above-ground buildings were made of wooden posts, branches, and brush covered with mud. Several generations later, builders began to use rough stone blocks instead of just wood and mud. They placed the blocks together using a mortar made of clay. This created a strong, stone-masonry wall. Although building masonry walls required a considerable amount of time and labor, people of this time clearly preferred them to wooden walls. Why? Was wood becoming harder to find? Had they seen too many disastrous house fires? Whatever the reason, the new masonry construction techniques were widely adopted and refined in the centuries to come, culminating in the massive Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.
Stop 3: Sun Point View (1200 - 1300 CE)SUN POINT VIEW: BUILDING IN THE ALCOVES
Years of Activity The move to the alcoves began around 1200 CE and by mid-century, there were more than 30 cliff dwellings in the Cliff and Fewkes Canyon neighborhood. Several are visible from here. Imagine these canyons filled with the sights and sounds of a bustling neighborhood—smoke from cook fires, children playing, men working in their mesa top fields, people going about their day. Well-travelled paths wound through cliffs and forests from one village to another. Ties of families, friendships, shared celebrations, and ceremonies brought neighbors together in this vibrant community.
Children born in one of these cliff dwellings in 1225 CE experienced many changes in their lifetime. Over the course of roughly 75 years, they and their families witnessed the migration from mesa top villages into alcove communities; a significant peak in the area’population; and then the final exodus from the entire Four Corners region. By the end of the 13th century, these canyons were quiet again—filled with remnants of once thriving communities and a host of unanswered questions. The Ancestral Pueblo people lived in this area for centuries. Archeologists don’t fully understand what prompted the final migration in the late 1200s. Many believe drought, resource depletion, and social conflicts may have played a role. Why do you think the Ancestral Pueblo people left?
Stop 4: Oak Tree House (1200 CE)TEXT FOR ABOVE PANEL CLIFF DWELLING LIFE: OAK TREE HOUSE There are about 600 alcove sites in Mesa Verde National Park. About 90 percent contain fewer than 11 rooms. At least one-third are simply one room structures, probably storage rooms for a nearby cliff dwelling. There are only about a dozen cliff dwellings that contain 40 or more rooms, including Oak Tree House.
Oak Tree House is one of the larger cliff dwellings on Mesa Verde, and its residents lived in a busy neighborhood. Fire Temple and New Fire House are just up canyon, Sun Temple sits above on the canyon rim, and many other cliff dwellings are nearby. At least one spring flowed from nearby cliff walls to supply the residents with fresh water. COMMON CLIFF DWELLING FEATURES
Stop 5: Cliff Palace (1200 CE)TEXT FOR ABOVE PANEL TIES THAT BIND With at least 150 rooms, Cliff Palace is an exceptionally large cliff dwelling. It was constructed in a very special location, surrounded by a vibrant, active community. Several features suggest it was an important gathering place, perhaps an administrative or governmental center for the Ancestral Pueblo society that centered around these canyons. The people who lived in the area were familiar with dozens of footpaths that led from village to village and to storage structures, farming areas, water sources, and public buildings that included Sun Temple and Cliff Palace.
Although silent today, Cliff Palace is a reflective reminder of a people who settled among these cliffs, canyons, and mesa tops for a time, and then migrated to establish new communities and neighborhoods further south. Here, for 700 years, they passed their skills, traditions, artistry, and knowledge from generation to generation, forming the foundations of modern Pueblo culture. Through elaborate oral histories, most Pueblo people trace their ancestry back to the Four Corners region and occasionally return to honor their past, their ancestors, and their ancestral homeland.
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Last updated: May 16, 2020