Spruce Tree House.
These cliff dwellings, constructed in the 1200s AD, evolved from much simpler housing. Around 550 BC the nomadic visitors to Mesa Verde settled on the mesa and practiced agriculture in addition to hunting. They built pit houses clustered in small villages on mesa tops and cliff alcoves.
About 750 AD some began to build houses above ground, one against another, in long curving rows that archaeologists call pueblos. Pit houses evolved into circular kivas and were used for ceremonial purposes.
One of the last puebloan structures built on the mesa, which archaeologists call the Sun Temple, was never finished and its use is unknown. It has no door and only two windows.
The view down the valley from the front of the Sun Temple.
After tourists leave the Sun Temple at the end of the day, local fauna come out of hiding.
As we left Mesa Verde under a cloudy sky, we drove through an area recovering from forest fire.
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