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The Archaeology of People: Dimensions of Neolithic Life, Whittle

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<< Web Picks >> Mesa Verde - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The Southwest

Submitted by bat400 on Saturday, 23 September 2017  Page Views: 16943

Multi-periodSite Name: Mesa Verde
Country: United States Region: The Southwest Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Cortez, Colorado
Latitude: 37.256677N  Longitude: 108.501214W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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I have visited· I would like to visit

mfrincu visited on 29th Nov 2014 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 5 Access: 5 We visited this park during winter time but fortunately some of the ruins were still accessible and open. Look for the guided tours and also visit early morning to avoid the crowds.

jeffrep visited on 1st Oct 2012 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 3 Visited 3 days in early October. Need at least 3 days to see most of the sites.

bat400 visited on 27th Apr 2012 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 3 Once you are in the Park there are many ancient sites you can visit on your own and without additional fees. Everyone wants to see the spectacular cliff dwellings, but don't neglect the many mesa top dwelling and farming sites that are actually much more typical of occupation at Mesa Verde. The drive from the main entrance to the Visitor Center, muesums, and the nearest sites takes about 30-45 minutes, the distance to nearby towns and lodging is another 30 minutes minimum. So if the campground or lodge are open, it may be worth it to stay there. Major forest fires have destroyed substantial portions of the mesa top trees, leaving a bare and not particularly pleasant landscape in a majority of the park, with living plants limited to scrubs and ground cover. However, there are still terrific views down into the canyons and across the horizon to the San Jaun Mountains, Shiprock, and other landmarks.

XIII visited on 1st Aug 1995 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 3



Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.25 Ambience: 4.75 Access: 3.5

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by DrewParsons : Mesa Verde - The Cliff Palace. September 2005 (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Village or Settlement in Montezuma County, Colorado.
Ancient villages and Settlements. Petroglyphs. Artifacts. Springs. Mesa Verde (Green Table) rises to the south of the McElmo Creek valley where the town of Cortez lies. It is actually a group of mesas. On the mesa tops and along the cliffs are the remains of a society of Ancestral Puebloan culture (previously referred to as Anasazi) that reached its height in the late twelth century. There are nearly 5000 archaeological sites within the park borders (52 thousand acres) ranging from the "Basketmaker" culture pithouse (~500 AD) remains to the Classical Pueblo culture cliff dwelling (1200 to 1300 AD) ruins.

The beautiful cliff dwellings are the spectacular ruins to see here, although these dwellings were only built in the last 100 years of the occupation of Mesa Verde by the Ancestral Puebloans. Multiple large building complexes of dressed stone with wood beam door frames and roofs, many with plaster facing remaining in sheltered areas, were built into alcoves and under overhangs of rock on the mesa's cliffs. These can be seen from roadside overlooks, and may be hiked to by a combination of paved paths, hiking trails, and ladders. Many sites have disability access.

The occupation of the Mesa Verde area was not continuous, and it is difficult to say if the later groups who built the mesa top pithouses, pueblos and the later cliff dwellings tucked into alcoves are the descendants of the earliest peoples who created pit houses in the canyon floor and cliff alcoves, although it is assumed so. It is equally difficult to determine if the direct reason the abandonment around 1300 AD was due to a region wide drought that took place in the late 1200's or other population related factors like the availability of wood for building and fires, or the availability of game. Modeling of crop production and drought by Van West in the 1980's casts doubt that drought alone could have caused enough pressure to make people leave the area. Evidence of violent death and pueblo destruction at some sites immediately west of Mesa Verde points social conflict that could be a symptom of forces that led to the breakup of the society.

After the formation of the National Park in 1906 Jesse Walter Fewkes and later archaeologists removed many artifacts from the major sites in preparation for increasing numbers of National Park visitors. Today Mesa Verde's storage of curated artifacts is the largest in the National Park system, and is about to be moved into a new visitor center, research and curation facility being completed at the park entrance. Other Mesa Verde artifacts are on display at the Chicago Field Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, the National Museum of Finland, and many smaller museums which have inherited private collections predating the adequate protection of the sites.

The park contains a visitor's center, the Chapin Mesa Museum, and a multitude of archaeological sites, some of which may be driven to and are wheelchair accessible, and others that are accessible by hiking trails. The highlights of the park are the cliff dwelling pueblo sites, but pit houses and mesa top pueblo sites can also be visited. The ruins that can be visited are stabilized to prevent further damage, but many can only be visited on ticketed, ranger-led tours, or while a ranger is on duty at the sites. Petrogylphs, springs, as well as a wide variety of plant and animal life can be seen by visitors who take the time to hike past the auto routes. The area is a Unesco World Heritage site, and a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Location is given for the park's current Visitor Center. The main entrance to the park is north east on Highway 160. Please review the park's website or other guides before visiting. The park road is generally well paved, but winding with steep climbs to Wetherill Mesa. Count on taking 2 hours each way to drive into and out of the park from its farthest points. Weather conditions may be severe in winter, closing roads, but several ruin sites and the park museum and visitor's center are open year round. Camping and a concession lodge are available in the park from April into October.

[References:
National Park Service website, including brochures, "Mesa Verde Trip Planner" and "Mesa Verde Educational Packet."
People of the Mesa Verde Country by Ian Thompson, 2002.
"Examining the Abandonment of the Four Corners," Julian Smith, American Archaeology, Summer 2006.
CyArk Mesa Verde Heritage Site website.]

Note: Mesa Verde Voices, a podcast series connecting the experiences of people from the past with the people of today, recently completed its first season. Also, Free Entrance to Mesa Verde National Park on September 30, and November 11-12
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Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by jeffrep : Arriving at the Square Tower House. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by DrewParsons : The Square Tower House site at Mesa Verde (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mesa Verde - Sun Temple
Mesa Verde - Sun Temple submitted by durhamnature : Old photograph, from "Excavation and repair..."via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mesa Verde - Balcony House
Mesa Verde - Balcony House submitted by jeffrep : Balcony House cliff dwelling showing the balcony (right) that gives this site its name. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mesa Verde - Balcony House
Mesa Verde - Balcony House submitted by jeffrep : Balcony House cliff dwelling, Mesa Verde. (1 comment)

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by jeffrep : One of seven kivas in the Spruce Tower House dwelling.

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by jeffrep : Close-Up of the Square Tower that gives this site its name.

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by jeffrep : Spruce Tower House from the overlook on the rim of the canyon.

Mesa Verde - Pipe Shrine House
Mesa Verde - Pipe Shrine House submitted by jeffrep : Remains of pueblo village at Pipe Shrine House in Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep : View of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde from the rim overlook.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep : Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep : Mural inside room at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep : Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by bat400 : Cliff Palace taken from the Sun Temple overlook. Photo by bat400, April 2012. (2 comments)

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by DrewParsons : Detail of the Square Tower House site at Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde - Sun Temple
Mesa Verde - Sun Temple submitted by durhamnature : The Sun Temple, drawing from archive.org

Mesa Verde - Pithouses and Pueblos
Mesa Verde - Pithouses and Pueblos submitted by jeffrep : Pit house.

Mesa Verde - Balcony House
Mesa Verde - Balcony House submitted by jeffrep : Balcony House cliff dwelling, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Square Tower House
Mesa Verde - Square Tower House submitted by jeffrep : Spruce Tower House dwelling, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Pipe Shrine House
Mesa Verde - Pipe Shrine House submitted by jeffrep : Remains of pueblo village at Pipe Shrine House in Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Megalithic House
Mesa Verde - Megalithic House submitted by jeffrep : Kiva at Megalithic House in Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep : Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep

Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace submitted by jeffrep

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 1.7km S 189° Mesa Verde - Megalithic House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 1.8km S 190° Mesa Verde - Mummy Lake* Misc. Earthwork
 2.0km S 188° Mesa Verde - Far View Tower* Ancient Temple
 2.1km S 186° Mesa Verde - Far View House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 2.2km S 185° Mesa Verde - Pipe Shrine House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 2.2km S 191° Mesa Verde - Coyote Village* Ancient Village or Settlement
 7.3km SSW 205° Mesa Verde - Step House Ancient Village or Settlement
 8.0km S 175° Thomas House Ancient Village or Settlement
 8.0km SSW 201° Badger House Community Ancient Village or Settlement
 8.2km S 171° Mesa Verde - Spruce Tree House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 8.3km SSW 204° Nordenskjoeld Site No 16* Ancient Village or Settlement
 8.4km SSW 202° Mesa Verde - Long House Ancient Village or Settlement
 9.2km S 181° Navajo Watchtower Promontory Fort / Cliff Castle
 9.2km SSW 196° Kodak House Ancient Village or Settlement
 9.2km S 175° Mesa Verde - Petroglyph Pt. Trail Cliff Dwelling * Ancient Village or Settlement
 9.2km S 175° Mesa Verde - Petroglyph Point* Rock Art
 9.2km S 172° Mesa Verde - Pithouses and Pueblos* Ancient Village or Settlement
 10.1km S 175° Mesa Verde - Square Tower House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 10.3km SSE 166° Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace* Ancient Village or Settlement
 10.3km S 169° Mesa Verde - Fire Temple* Ancient Village or Settlement
 10.5km SSE 167° Mesa Verde - Sun Temple* Ancient Temple
 10.5km SSE 168° Mesa Verde - Oak Tree House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 11.0km SSE 163° Mesa Verde - Balcony House* Ancient Village or Settlement
 11.1km SSE 168° House of Many Windows Ancient Village or Settlement
 11.7km SSE 159° Hemenway House Ancient Village or Settlement
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Lockdown Video Talk: Passing through History: The Tales that Turds Tell by Andy B on Wednesday, 01 July 2020
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Includes discussion of dubious ancient faeces and cannibalism at Mesa Verde, part of FPAN's "Zoom into Archaeology" series:
Passing through History: The Tales that Turds Tell is by FPAN Public Archaeologist Tristan Harrenstein

Many think that archaeology is about finding arrowheads and bottles. Artifacts. Things. Actually though, archaeology is all about discovering the untold stories of our past and these things are merely a tool to help us reveal that past. While these artifacts may be pretty, sometimes the ugliest and most disgusting ones tell us the best stories. Join us to learn how ancient feces can produce amazing nuggets of truth about our past!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR9yGxzI0C0



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Mesa Verde National Park Podcast: Mesa Verde Voices by bat400 on Saturday, 23 September 2017
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Mesa Verde Voices, a podcast series connecting the experiences of people from the past with the people of today, recently completed its first season.

Mesa Verde National Park, Mesa Verde Museum Association, KSJD public radio and Mesa Verde Country Tourism Bureau collaborated to produce the pilot season. “Our first three podcasts cover water management, food, and migration--all topics which people across the country and the world are grappling with,” according to Cally Carswell, KSJD’s Mesa Verde Voices producer.

The podcast is available on iTunes or for download at mesaverdevoices.org.
“We want this podcast to both enrich the experience of visitors coming to visit Mesa Verde National Park and the other Pueblo sites in our region,” says Kristy Sholly, Chief of Interpretation at Mesa Verde National Park, “and we hope that it sparks conversations across the country. This project represents the highest ideals of the National Park Service around education, inspiration, conservation, and action. And we’re really proud to be able to bring the relevance of ancient cultures forward to our challenges today.”

Mesa Verde National Park, established by an act of Congress in 1906 was the first in the world to be established to protect both natural and cultural resources. Today, the park hosts more than 600,000 visitors annually.

But the podcast isn’t just about the park, according to Kelly Kirkpatrick at Mesa Verde Country Tourism Bureau, “Mesa Verde Voices highlights the experiences of people across a region and across cultures. The park and the Tribal Park on Mesa Verde were and are critically important, and, to really get a feel for the grand scope of the Ancestral Pueblo and Pueblo people today, this podcast series reaches out across the Four Corners, where most of the people live. I like to think of the culture living on Mesa Verde as Manhattan--a center of culture in our Country today, but only a jumping off point as it relates to the story of our nation.”

After the three-episode pilot, work will begin on the second season. “We’ve worked hard with partners to drive this important work forward, says Teri Paul, Executive Director of the Mesa Verde Museum Association, a non-profit organization that supports the operations of the park. “And we look forward to having others join us. In doing this work, it’s really interesting to learn how the folks living in this region 1,000 years ago are similar in their actions and reactions as we are today.”

Due to limited wireless services past the entrance to the park, visitors are encouraged to download the podcasts in advance of their visit to enrich their travel experience and learn more about our region’s distant past and present. Locals too will enjoy hearing stories that relate to their home and history. The series may also be downloaded at the new Visitor and Research Center, which has free Wi-Fi service, at the entrance to the park.

Funding has already been secured to produce five podcasts for the 2018 season thanks to the work of the partners in this project and the Ballantine Family Fund, Mesa Verde Museum Association, the members of KSJD. To support Mesa Verde Voices, click on the support link at mesaverdevoices.org. Mesa Verde Voices is a production of KSJD, whose mission is to inform, entertain, and empower the people of the Four Corners Region.
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Mesa Verde announces 2014 Special Backcountry Hikes by bat400 on Tuesday, 29 April 2014
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These participant limited hikes are guided and allow the serious visitor a chance to visit seldom seen sites in the National Park and the Mesa Verde area. See Mesa Verde Backcountry Hikes for details.

This year the sites include Mug House, Pinkley House, Wetherill Mesa, Yucca House.
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2013 Luminaria Holiday Open House by bat400 on Sunday, 01 December 2013
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On Thursday, December 5, 2013, the staff of Mesa Verde National Park will host the 2013 Annual Holiday Open House from 4:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. in the Chapin Mesa headquarters area.

Everyone is invited to join the park staff in this holiday celebration featuring special tours, luminarias, musical entertainment and refreshments. Ranger-guided tours of Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling in the park, will be presented at 10:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. Spruce Tree House is also available for self-guided tours from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Luminarias will glow along the pathways throughout the headquarters area, a National Historic Landmark District, and along the trail to Spruce Tree House. Dress warmly and bring a flashlight.

The Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum will remain open until 9:00 p.m. There will be musical entertainment in the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum Auditorium throughout the evening.

For more information, see http://www.nps.gov/meve/parknews.
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Special Limited Access Hikes Announced for 2013 season at Mesa Verde by bat400 on Sunday, 21 April 2013
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In addition to daily tours of sites within the Mesa Verde National Park, the park service offers limited access tours of fragile sites that either cannot accommodate large numbers of visitors, or less accessible locations that require a substantial length of time to visit. These tours vary from year to year and the 2013 list may now be viewed at This link.

If you are traveling to Mesa Verde in 2013 and would like to participate, you must made reservations soon to avoid the tour slots being filled.

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Mesa Verde Funding Approval Will Help Park Better Serve Visitors by bat400 on Monday, 09 November 2009
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Twenty-two million dollars for a curation facility and visitor center at the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park is included in an appropriations bill now sitting on the president's desk.

If President Obama adds his signature - there is no indication that he will not - construction will begin next year, and by the autumn of 2011, visitors to Southwest Colorado will have another way to experience the park. Among other benefits the construction will provide, a new visitor center effectively will lengthen the visitor season for Mesa Verde. During the winter, the roads to many attractions are closed. Although the park is open year-round, when snow falls, the drive up the mesa ranges from nerve-wracking to life-threatening. Soon, winter travelers will be able to stop at the visitor center and learn what Mesa Verde is all about.

Even during the warmer months, some visitors won't make the time-consuming drive to the ruins. A visitor center near the highway will offer opportunities and education for those who have limited time or are only mildly curious, and it will serve to lure the truly interested tourists to the attractions within the park. In short, it will add to the experience of all visitors.

Those who care about southwestern archaeology should be particularly pleased with the funding for the curation facility. For many years, millions of artifacts have been stored under substandard conditions. The new building will allow them to be more properly curated and made available for scholars. The artifacts are both priceless and irreplaceable, but more to the point, responsibility for their stewardship falls to the Park Service. It will now be able to properly care for them, preserving an important legacy for future Americans. Park Service officials were sensible to divide their proposal into two halves, perhaps doubling the odds of at least one facility being funded. That was wise planning, considering the economic challenges confronting the federal government.

For more, see the editorial in the Durango Herald.
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Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery by bat400 on Wednesday, 09 April 2008
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The linked New York Times story mentions multiple Ancestral Puebloan sites in Colorado and Arizona in its description of the continuing mysteries of migration and settlement in south west America, 1200-1400 AD. The story includes a slide show with photos of Mesa Verde and Chimney Rock.

"Perched on a lonesome bluff above the dusty San Pedro River, about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn’t seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising.

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style.

They liked to build with stone (the [previous] Hohokam [culture] used sticks and mud), and their kivas, like those they left in their homeland, are unmistakable: rectangular instead of round, with a stone bench along the inside perimeter, a central hearth and a sipapu, or spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.

“You could move this up to Hopi and not tell the difference,” said John A. Ware, the archaeologist leading the field trip, as he examined a Davis Ranch kiva. Finding it down here is a little like stumbling across a pagoda on the African veldt.

For five days in late February, Dr. Ware, the director of the Amerind Foundation, an archaeological research center in Dragoon, Ariz., was host to 15 colleagues as they confronted the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology: Why, in the late 13th century, did thousands of Anasazi abandon Kayenta, Mesa Verde and the other magnificent settlements of the Colorado Plateau and move south into Arizona and New Mexico?

Scientists once thought the answer lay in impersonal factors like the onset of a great drought or a little ice age. But as evidence accumulates, those explanations have come to seem too pat — and slavishly deterministic. ...
Looking beyond climate change, some archaeologists are studying the effects of warfare and the increasing complexity of Anasazi society. They are looking deeper into ancient artifacts and finding hints of an ideological struggle, clues to what was going through the Anasazi mind.

When scientists examine the varying width of tree rings, they indeed see a pernicious dry spell gripping the Southwest during the last quarter of the 13th century, around the height of the abandonment. But there had been severe droughts before.

“Over all conditions were pretty darn bad in the 1200s,” said Timothy A. Kohler of Washington State University. “But they were not maybe all that worse than they were in the 900s, and yet some people hung on then.”

Even in the worst of times, major waterways kept flowing. “The Provo River didn’t dry up,” said James Allison, an archaeologist at Brigham Young University. “The San Juan River didn’t dry up.”

“Climate probably explains a lot,” Dr. Allison said. “But there are places where people could have stayed and farmed and chose not to.”

Some inhabitants left the relatively lush climes of what is now southern Colorado for the bone dry Hopi mesas. “Climate makes the most sense for this big pattern change,” Dr. Lipe said. “But then you think, So they went to Hopi to escape this?”

Hopi was far from an anomaly. “The whole abandonment of the Four Corners, at least in Arizona, is people moving to where it’s even worse,” said Jeffrey Dean, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

For more, see this link.
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Falling Slab Damages Mesa Verde Kiva by bat400 on Wednesday, 31 January 2007
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Submitted by coldrum:

"Something looked different at the popular Square Tower House at Mesa Verde National Park when research archaeologist Julie Bell took visitors by the most photographed site at the park recently.

There was rubble where rubble should not be.

A 4.5-ton slab fell on the picturesque ruin sometime last month, smashing a storage room, rupturing the wall of a kiva and coming to rest inside a two-story room at the far end of the site.

“It pierced the kiva like a knife,” Bell said. “Fortunately, it didn’t get the tower.”

The site at the park is well known because it is easy to photograph in the afternoons and visitors take a short walk to an overlook where the 1,200-year-old ruins can be viewed. The site has the tallest tower in the park, measuring 26-feet high. The four-story tower sets among 80 rooms and seven kivas.

The ruin has been closed to visitors since the 1950s, so Bell and a small group recently grabbed a ladder to assess the damage close-up. The rock took out a 4-foot section of a wall at the site and completely destroyed another wall that was part of an alcove. Bell said there were original beams in one of the walls. The rock also pierced the walls of one of the kivas at the site and left rubble strewn about.

Slabs shearing off the sandstone cliffs isn’t a new problem at Mesa Verde. Preston Fisher, a structural engineer at the park, spends a good amount of time monitoring the sandstone that houses the park’s famous cliff dwellings. He places devices called crack monitors in the cracks to gauge when a slab might start to shift, but the one the size of a Volkswagen bug that fell recently wasn’t one that Fisher was worried about.

For more, see the Cortez Journal
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