9-29-2016 Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

The first Ancestral Pueblo people settled in Mesa Verde about AD 550.  By 1150 thousands of people lived on the mesa.  Around 1200 the population began to move back into the cliff alcoves that had sheltered their ancestors centuries before.

Spruce Tree House, the best preserved cliff dwelling here.

The view of the inhabitants into the valley below them.  They accessed their dwellings from the mesa top where they farmed and hunted.

Hemenway House has not been restored.

Ancestral Puebloans hunted abundant game with traps and the atlatl, a hand-held slotted wooden rod used to propel a long spear with great force.  Atlatls were the precursor to the much more accurate bow and arrow.

Archaeologists have found interesting pottery created by the cliff dwellers at Mesa Verde, such as this double cup with a hollow lower tube so the fluid level remains constant in each cup.

Thirty-one pounds of corn, shown here, were found buried in this vessel.  Only the neck of the jar and the small cup placed on top as a cap showed above the earth.  It sat undisturbed by insects, rodents or humans for seven centuries.