Mesa Verde National Park - Colorado - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

In the late 1800's two ranchers on the hunt for stray cattle, turned a corner on a cliff,and there below stood the remains of a multi room dwelling, nestled in among the cliff, protected from the wind and sun...but not time.

All throughout these canyons, hundreds of such dwellings leave evidence of a metropolis of culture. Mesa Verde is here for visitors to have a glimpse of this past culture, as well as to maintain and preserve.

Many of the earliest structures in the area, dated around 750 AD, were above ground, sat on the mesa top and stood stories high. Around 1100 AD, the inhabitants began building and occupying these cliff dwellings...but by 1300 AD, they stood abandoned.

As mysterious as the reasoning for the move into the cliffs, is the mystery of why they were all abandonded in what seemed a mass exodus.

These questions may never be answered, but here, thanks to the park system, we can imagine and admire...

The MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK includes 50,275 acres of canyons and mesa lands set aside by the Congress in 1906 for the preservation of its many ancient cliff dwellings and surface pueblos. Mesa Verde (Sp. green table) is itself a great mound of earth and rock about 15 miles long and 8 miles wide; on the north it rises abruptly 2,000 feet above Montezuma Valley...Along the walls of the canyons are found the most spectacular cliff dwellings.