The Green Table

Marj, you were right. Mesa Verde is fascinating! Mesa means “table” in Spanish and Verde means “green”. What a green table top this National Park is covering 52, 074 acres. At Mesa Verde multistoried dwellings fill the cliff-rock alcoves that rise 2,000 feet above Montezuma Valley. Here in Mesa Verde archaeologists have located more than 4800 archaeological sites including 600 cliff dwellings dating from 550 to 1300 CE.

The cliff dwellings document the lives of the ancestral Puebloans. They built their dwellings in natural shelters formed by water percolating down through the sandstone. These intricate cliffside homes were discovered by 2 cowboys in 1888 who were tracking stray cattle and saw throw snowfall the honeycombed network of rooms and inside them stone tools, pottery and other artifacts that had been left behind some 600 years before.

Rip and I decided to take the Cliff Palace tour to see the largest cliff dwelling site. It is an alcove more than 200 feet wide which housed around 80 people or so. Every inch of space has a purpose. Holes are cut in the roof to vent out fire smoke and “duct-work” I the stone lets in fresh air. It is all very clever and beautiful. Around their homes (tiny round or square rooms with firepits and small windows) are 8 large round rooms called “kivas” (religious or ceremonial rooms) where the people gathered socially and for religious rites. I was most interested in these! In the centre of the room is a deep pit surrounded by rocks where the Puebloans believed “first man and first woman” came into the world. The pit honours this religious story. It is most fascinating to me that so many religious paths have similar stories, each framed a little uniquely!

Our tour guide was wonderful and informative. It made the trek down treacherous stone paths and steps and up three steep, narrow ladders very worthwhile! We are blown away by the intricacy of the stonework, and small size of the rooms (estimated maximum height of the native ancestors was about 5 feet – I suddenly feel at home with them!) and the ingenious use of natural protection for housing. We spent some time in the museum fascinated with the tools and basketweaving and beautiful pottery. These people are not so outdated after all!