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Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Driving around Colorado - Great Pacific Northwest Move 2013. Photos from Friday, 20 September 2013. (c) 2013 - photo by Leaf McGowan, Eadaoin Bineid, Thomas Baurley, Technogypsie Productions (www.technogypsie.com/photography/). Purchase rights and/or permissions to use can be obtained at site listed here. To follow the adventure, visit www.technogypsie.com/chronicles/. To read reviews visit www.technogypsie.com/reviews/.
The Great or Classic Pueblo Period - 800 years ago.
AD 1100 to 1300 saw the climax of Pueblo development in the Mesa Verde area. During this period the people moved from small, compact villages on the mesa tops to alcoves where they built cliff dwellings, like Spruce Tree House, shown here on an autumn day in the late 1200's. The natural alcoves were an ideal place to build homes. Walls were built of shaped sandstone blocks laid in mud mortar and roofs were constructed of poles, bark, and mud. Houses were grouped around open courtyards where most daily activities probably took place. Circular rooms beneathe the courtyards, resembling kivas of Pueblo villages of today, may have been used for ceremonial or social functions. The Ancestral Puebloan people continued to farm on the mesa tops using dryland farming techniques. In good years, quantities of produce were stored for use in years of crop failure. Water was carried from a spring in the head of the canyon, 100 yards north of the alcove. Clubs, snares, and the bow and arrow were used for hunting, stone wood, and bone tools including awes, knives, drills, and hammerstones were vital to the survival of the people. Two types of pottery were made, corrugated ware for cooking and storage, and decorated black-on-white vessels for other purposes. Food was boiled in jars, baked or fired on flat stone griddles, or roasted in ashes or coals. Cotton was traded into the area from southern Arizona and used to make excellently woven cotton cloth. Turquoise, ocean shells, salt, and argillite, a red stone that looks like pipestone, were traded from the Southwest and the Pacific coast. Despite the advances made by the Pueblo people, changes in architecture and living styles point to problems by the late 1200's. Although a severe 24 year drought began in AD 1276, the people had survived water shortages in the past. Depletion of the soil, timber resources, and game animals took a toll. The people left Mesa Verde by 1300 AD, moving south and joining other Pueblo people in Arizona and New Mexico.
092013-130
Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Driving around Colorado - Great Pacific Northwest Move 2013. Photos from Friday, 20 September 2013. (c) 2013 - photo by Leaf McGowan, Eadaoin Bineid, Thomas Baurley, Technogypsie Productions (www.technogypsie.com/photography/). Purchase rights and/or permissions to use can be obtained at site listed here. To follow the adventure, visit www.technogypsie.com/chronicles/. To read reviews visit www.technogypsie.com/reviews/.
The Great or Classic Pueblo Period - 800 years ago.
AD 1100 to 1300 saw the climax of Pueblo development in the Mesa Verde area. During this period the people moved from small, compact villages on the mesa tops to alcoves where they built cliff dwellings, like Spruce Tree House, shown here on an autumn day in the late 1200's. The natural alcoves were an ideal place to build homes. Walls were built of shaped sandstone blocks laid in mud mortar and roofs were constructed of poles, bark, and mud. Houses were grouped around open courtyards where most daily activities probably took place. Circular rooms beneathe the courtyards, resembling kivas of Pueblo villages of today, may have been used for ceremonial or social functions. The Ancestral Puebloan people continued to farm on the mesa tops using dryland farming techniques. In good years, quantities of produce were stored for use in years of crop failure. Water was carried from a spring in the head of the canyon, 100 yards north of the alcove. Clubs, snares, and the bow and arrow were used for hunting, stone wood, and bone tools including awes, knives, drills, and hammerstones were vital to the survival of the people. Two types of pottery were made, corrugated ware for cooking and storage, and decorated black-on-white vessels for other purposes. Food was boiled in jars, baked or fired on flat stone griddles, or roasted in ashes or coals. Cotton was traded into the area from southern Arizona and used to make excellently woven cotton cloth. Turquoise, ocean shells, salt, and argillite, a red stone that looks like pipestone, were traded from the Southwest and the Pacific coast. Despite the advances made by the Pueblo people, changes in architecture and living styles point to problems by the late 1200's. Although a severe 24 year drought began in AD 1276, the people had survived water shortages in the past. Depletion of the soil, timber resources, and game animals took a toll. The people left Mesa Verde by 1300 AD, moving south and joining other Pueblo people in Arizona and New Mexico.