Exit78 Photo of the Day #27
In traveling through Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona over the years, we’ve visited a number of Ancestral Puebloan ruins, including those at Mesa Verde, several times, most recently in 2015. One of the most notable at Mesa Verde is Cliff Palace, which contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. It is an exceptionally large dwelling that may have had special significant to the local culture of the time, perhaps as a social and administrative with high ceremonial usage.
Cliff Palace cliff dwelling, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, September 13, 2009 (Pentax K10D)
Cliff Dwellings
The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are some of the most notable and best preserved in the North American Continent. Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they continued to reside in the alcoves, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. By the late 1270s, the population began migrating south into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By 1300, the Ancestral Puebloan occupation of Mesa Verde ended.
Series notes:
- The photos in this series are randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
- Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.
