The Mesa Verde mystery: Why did Puebloans leave?
Deb Acord
Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Jul. 2, 2006 12:00 AM Source: The Arizona Republic MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, Colo. - However unique its geologic features, the main treasures of Mesa Verde National Park are its ruins.
More than 4,000 historic ruins lie within the boundaries of the park. Some are large, impressive structures, such as Spruce Tree House, one of more than 600 dwellings built like medieval castles into the sandstone cliffs beneath the mesa. Others are remnants of villages on top: round towers, reservoirs, check dams and other evidence of the agricultural lifestyle of the residents.
Generation after generation of Ancestral Puebloans thrived here and throughout the Four Corners area, perfecting farming methods and building increasingly elaborate structures. But by 1300 - about 900 years after they arrived - they were gone. They left behind tantalizing clues of their existence - a glimpse at an ancient life that has formed the centerpiece of a modern national park - but also many questions.
"Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct much of the workaday life at Mesa Verde from things left behind. But the intangibles that held life together remain obscure," writes archaeologist and area resident Florence Lister in Mesa Verde: The First 100 Years, a collection of essays, photographs and articles edited by the Mesa Verde Museum Association and released this year. "Because the Ancestral Puebloans had no written language to document their world views, we know nothing of their oral traditions, their songs, their dances, their sacred ceremonies, or the devastating circumstances that drove them away."
World Heritage Site
It's that drive to learn more about the past that keeps archaeologists and anthropologists busy and Mesa Verde visitors captivated.
Mesa Verde has always been unique in the park system. This is the first and only park created for the protection and preservation of archaeological resources. It is the only World Heritage Site in Colorado. Conde Nast Traveler chose it as the top historic monument in the world, and National Geographic Traveler chose it as one of the "50 places of a Lifetime - the World's 50 Greatest Destinations," in a class with the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China and the Giza Pyramids.
The mesa's ruins are the most intriguing links to the past for Tom Carr, an archeologist with the Colorado Historical Society.
"More people lived on the top of the mesa at Mesa Verde for a much longer time than they did in the cliff dwellings," Carr says. "The complete picture, with reservoirs and fields and dams . . . that's what interests me."
Archaeologists have been working at Mesa Verde for more than 100 years, but their work is just a beginning, Carr says. "The park's not fully surveyed, and it's hardly been touched in terms of excavations."
Carr says archaeological research in the park "is a balance between conservation, excavation and interpretation. It all has to relate to 'How many resources are there to protect?' . . . and 'What are the needs of the people visiting the park and the researchers that interact with them?' "
Not an easy drive
Mesa Verde isn't a destination park like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.
"Visitors have to make a concerted effort to get here," says Tessy Shirakawa, chief of visitor services for the park.
The entrance is marked on U.S. 160 between Cortez and Mancos, Colo., but once past the ranger station, there's a 20-mile drive up a winding road to the mesa's top. There's a modern lodge, Far View, 15 miles from the entrance, with 13 clusters of lodge buildings and a restaurant but no in-room TVs. Morefield Campground, four miles from the entrance and with 435 sites, is the park's only camping area.
Still, visitors - 474,000 in 2004, the last year on record - find their way to the mesa, Shirakawa says. "Most often, they come with very specific images in their minds of what the park is and what they are going to see."
The images come from "things they read in their history books in school or saw in a documentary on TV," Shirakawa says.
At Mesa Verde, very few trails are open to casual hikers. Most of the cliff dwellings have rangers who lead hikes to them or are stationed in the ruin to answer questions and direct visitors.
"There is so much left to be done in the park, and so many questions yet to be answered," archaeologist Carr says.
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Archaeology 
