Although you’ll see plenty of stunning desert scenery on a Mesa Verde National Park tour, the park is most famous for its archaeological sites. Mesa Verde is home to over 5,000 historical sites, mostly left behind by the Ancestral Pueblo people. Those sites include about 600 cliff dwellings, which have become the park’s most iconic attractions. The cliff villages and houses in the park are about 800 years old, while some of the pueblo houses built on top of the mesas date back well over 1000 years.
The Ancestral Pueblo people were the descendants of nomadic tribes that lived seasonally at Mesa Verde. These nomads had been living in or around Mesa Verde for thousands of years, following the migration patterns of the animals they hunted. It wasn’t until corn was introduced to the Mesa Verde region, around 1000 BCE, that the Archaic Puebloans began to settle down and build permanent residences on the mesas.
By the year 750 CE, the Ancestral Puebloan culture had emerged, named after the stone and adobe mud pueblo houses they built on top of the cliffs. They built their homes atop the mesas to be closer to their fields, where they grew corn, beans, and squash. Although the later cliff dwellings are more famous, the Mesa Pueblo houses were also highly complex and well-built, and the Ancestral Puebloans lived in these villages for about 600 years.
In the 12th century, severe droughts in the nearby San Juan Basin area forced people to migrate to Mesa Verde, causing significant population growth. By the start of the 13th century, Mesa Verde’s population had swelled to about 22,000 people. It was around this time that the cliff dwellings were built in natural alcoves carved into the sides of the cliffs themselves.
These villages were architecturally complex and included massive, multi-level structures. The largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park, the Cliff Palace, has over 150 rooms and was once home to about 100 people. Ultimately, Mesa Verde was also hit by droughts in the late 13th century, forcing the Ancestral Pueblo people to migrate south to Arizona and New Mexico and ending over 700 years of continual human occupation in the area. Today, many villages and structures built by the Ancestral Puebloans still remain in remarkable condition and can be seen during your visit to the park.
To make the most of your trip, check out our Mesa Verde National Park Self-Guided Driving Tour, or you can sign up for Action+ and gain access to over 100 tours for a single yearly price.
