nd Their World
adapted from the National Park Service
About 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years, they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, in the late 1200 AD, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away.
Ever since local cowboys first reported the cliff dwellings in the 1880s, archeologists have sought to understand these people's lives. But despite decades of excavation, analysis, classification, and comparison, scientific knowledge remains sketchy. We will never know the whole story: they left no written records and much that was important in their lives has perished. Yet for all their silence, these structures speak with a certain eloquence. They tell of a people adept at building, artistic in their crafts, and skillful at making a living from a difficult land.
The structures are evidence of a society that, over centuries, accumulated skills and traditions and passed them on from generation to generation. By the Classic Period (AD 1100 to AD 1300), Ancestral Puebloans were heirs of a vigorous civilization, whose accomplishments in community living and the arts rank among the finest expressions of human culture in North America.
Using nature to advantage, Ancestral Puebloans built their dwellings beneath the overhanging cliffs. Their basic construction material was sandstone that they shaped into rectangular blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. The mortar between the blocks was a mix of mud and water. Rooms averaged about six feet by eight feet, space enough for two or three persons. Isolated rooms in the rear and on the upper levels were generally used for storing crops. Underground kivas, or ceremonial chambers, were built in front of the rooms. The kiva roofs created open courtyards where many daily routines took place.
Fires built in summer were mainly for cooking. In winter, when the alcove rooms were damp and uncomfortable, fires probably burned throughout the village. Smoke-blackened walls and ceilings are reminders of the biting cold these people lived with for several months each year.
Ancestral Puebloans spent much of their time getting food, even in the best years. They were farmers, but they supplemented their crops of beans, corn, and squash by gathering wild plants and hunting deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other game. The soil on the mesa top was fertile and, except in drought, about as well watered as now. The vegetation was also about the same then as it is today. Then, the Ancestral Puebloans cut pinyon and juniper for building materials and firewood and to clear land for farming.
Fortunately for us, Ancestral Puebloans tossed their trash close by the cliff dwellings. Scraps of food, broken pottery and tools—anything not wanted—went down the slope in front of their homes. Much of what we know about daily life here comes from these garbage heaps.
Ancestral Puebloans lived in the cliff dwellings for less than 100 years. By about 1300 AD, Mesa Verde was deserted. Several theories offer reasons for their migration. We know that the last quarter of the 1200 AD saw drought and crop failures—but these people had survived earlier droughts. Maybe after hundreds of years of intensive use, the land and its resources—soils, forests, and animals—were depleted. Perhaps there were social and political problems, and the people simply looked for new opportunities elsewhere.
2
Drag each tile to the correct box. Not all tiles will be used.
Determine which four events form a clear summary of the passage and place them in the correct order.
Ancestral Puebloans lived in stone homes
under the cliffs of Mesa Verde.
Archeologists started studying
Ancestral Puebloans in the late 1800s.
Ancestral Puebloans used sandstone to
build their homes under the cliffs.
Ancestral Puebloans would feel uncomfortable
in the damp cliff dwellings during winter.
Ancestral Puebloans were primarily farmers,
but they also hunted animals for food.
- Archeologists started studying Ancestral Puebloans in the late 1800s.
- Ancestral Puebloans used sandstone to build their homes under the cliffs.
- Ancestral Puebloans lived in stone homes under the cliffs of Mesa Verde.
- Ancestral Puebloans were primarily farmers, but they also hunted animals for food.