#12 Mesa Verde National Park

Balcony House

Location: Colorado
Established: 1906
Size: 52,074 acres
Highest Point: 8,571 feet

Mesa Verde National Park is the most interesting park that I have been to from a cultural point of view.  It was established to protect the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi, the "ancient ones", who inhabited the area from 550 - 1300 AD.    There are over 4,000 individual sites in the area but the most impressive are the elaborate apartment complexes, the most famous of which is Cliff Palace.   These apartment complexes are built into large alcoves that natural forces eroded into the sides of the cliffs.    They include areas for storage of grain, private apartments and communal areas which included their kivas, underground circular areas that were used for ceremonial events.   The descendants of the Anasazi consider the area sacred and come back to the remains of the kivas to perform rituals.   To see most of these major ruins you have to reserve a spot on a tour because they don't want too many people in them at one time.  But the tours make it so much more interesting.   I remember the Balcony House tour guide explaining that the life expectancy of the Anasazi was around 30 something because their dietary staple was corn meal ground in stone crucibles.   Because it was ground with stone implements, sand was mixed with the meal and it ground away the teeth of the Anasazi until by the time they were 30 something they had no teeth and they basically died of malnutrition. 

Why did they leave?  No one knows for sure but a very plausible explanation is drought.  They were farmers and depended heavily on yearly rains for their crops which they grew on top of the mesa.    The sources of water at the top of the mesa were unreliable even during normal times.