Yesterday we drove from Durango to Moab, a drive that included a visit to Mesa Verde National Park on the way. As early as 7,500 BC the cliffs of Mesa Verde were used as seasonal dwelling places by Paleo-Indians. But, by about 650 CE there were permanent residents here.
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| Trish and I walk down the Spruce Tree House trail. |
The basket making culture built the complex structures we see here today and lived here full time until a series of drought years pushed them to other places by about 1,285 CE.
Spruce Tree House dwellers had a fresh water source at the foot of their dwellings and they climbed to the flat surface above to farm crops as successful agricultural settlers.
The largest cliff dwelling in North America is Cliff Palace House where several hundred people lived at the height of its lifetime. After the dwellers departed, the cliff houses were undiscovered for more than six hundred years.
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| Cliff Palace House. |
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