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| A stitched panorama image from "inside" the Cliff Palace ruins |
I use Google Analytics to track visits to my website and where/how those visitors found my site. When someone finds my site through Google or another search engine, I can even see what terms they entered into the search to find my site. I noticed an interesting one this morning. "Purpose of Cliff Palace design" Go ahead, try that in Google, the top 3 results are all my site. Unfortunately, I don't think any of those links really offer the information that was being looked for. So without further adieu, my attempt to fix that.
When I first visited Mesa Verde 25 years ago, the working theory was that the Ancestral Puebloans moved into their cliff dwellings for defensive reasons. While more current research shows that theory was wrong, it's easy to see why it came about. These dwellings would have been easier to defend than the mesa top pueblos and the nearby Sand Canyon Pueblo was the scene of a gruesome battle for resources. As drought gripped the southwest in the 1200s, there is increasing evidence of war between neighboring villages.
All good reasons why it would be easy to claim the Ancestral Puebloans moved into cliff dwellings for protection. The problem with the theory is that there is no extensive evidence of violence or warfare in Mesa Verde. So why then did the people move to these cliff dwellings which would be considerably more difficult for themselves to access?
The most likely explanation is again a result of the drought, not violence that resulted because of it but simply because of the lack of water. These alcoves in the cliffs were carved over the eons by water seeping down through the soft sandstone, slowly carving out cracks and crevices and ultimately breaking off larger chunks of the rock. This water seepage created natural springs at the back of the alcoves. Even today these springs are still active and visible in a majority of the alcoves (the most easily accessible of these to modern visitors is the spring near Spruce Tree House). The springs provided a great, clean water supply for the village but the cliff dwellings provided an even greater advantage.
As the Ancestral Puebloan population grew, more and more arable land was required to feed each village. Add to that lower crop yields due to the drought and the need for fertile farmland grew exponentially. By moving the village into these alcoves that weren't able to support crops anyway, the people were able to maximize their mesa top farmland. This farmland would have been difficult to reach, especially considering that their "ladders" were nothing more than a series of crude hand and foot holds on the side of the cliff, but compared to alternative of not having enough food for the village, that would have been an easy trade off.
To whoever was searching for information this morning, if you're still looking, I hope that helps. If it falls short of what you were hoping for, you can find much more information on the impact of the drought on the Ancestral Puebloan peoples, I reccomend (insert shameless plug here) the book my dad and I published a little over a year ago, The Ancestral Puebloan Primer.
When I first visited Mesa Verde 25 years ago, the working theory was that the Ancestral Puebloans moved into their cliff dwellings for defensive reasons. While more current research shows that theory was wrong, it's easy to see why it came about. These dwellings would have been easier to defend than the mesa top pueblos and the nearby Sand Canyon Pueblo was the scene of a gruesome battle for resources. As drought gripped the southwest in the 1200s, there is increasing evidence of war between neighboring villages.
All good reasons why it would be easy to claim the Ancestral Puebloans moved into cliff dwellings for protection. The problem with the theory is that there is no extensive evidence of violence or warfare in Mesa Verde. So why then did the people move to these cliff dwellings which would be considerably more difficult for themselves to access?
The most likely explanation is again a result of the drought, not violence that resulted because of it but simply because of the lack of water. These alcoves in the cliffs were carved over the eons by water seeping down through the soft sandstone, slowly carving out cracks and crevices and ultimately breaking off larger chunks of the rock. This water seepage created natural springs at the back of the alcoves. Even today these springs are still active and visible in a majority of the alcoves (the most easily accessible of these to modern visitors is the spring near Spruce Tree House). The springs provided a great, clean water supply for the village but the cliff dwellings provided an even greater advantage.
As the Ancestral Puebloan population grew, more and more arable land was required to feed each village. Add to that lower crop yields due to the drought and the need for fertile farmland grew exponentially. By moving the village into these alcoves that weren't able to support crops anyway, the people were able to maximize their mesa top farmland. This farmland would have been difficult to reach, especially considering that their "ladders" were nothing more than a series of crude hand and foot holds on the side of the cliff, but compared to alternative of not having enough food for the village, that would have been an easy trade off.
To whoever was searching for information this morning, if you're still looking, I hope that helps. If it falls short of what you were hoping for, you can find much more information on the impact of the drought on the Ancestral Puebloan peoples, I reccomend (insert shameless plug here) the book my dad and I published a little over a year ago, The Ancestral Puebloan Primer.
