Mesa Verde (Cliff House)
Mesa Verde National Park is located in southwestern Colorado at an altitude above 2,600 m. Its name comes from the mesa (table for flat terrain), verde (green - because of abundant greenery in places). National Park "Mesa Verde" is the largest archaeological preserve in the U.S. with open and well-preserved 5000 archaeological object and at least 600 stone houses dating from before the 8-15 centuries.
Spruce Tree House Kiva - Mesa Verde National Park , Colorado
No illusions that you can arrive here by public transport. Public buses carefully surround these locations and the last train of the "Union Pacific" is on rails August 27, 1997 The only way is to get a car driven by a local friend or leased, say from Denver. From south to Monte Vista on the road 285, near the famous Bonanza and in the upper reaches of not less famous Rio Grande, then - in the west to the border with Utah. Shortly before her very roadside, Mesa Verde National Park are located - perhaps the most famous village of the mysterious Anasazi. The site is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978.
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
We all know that Indians from Mexico up do not like to build houses. They live in portable leather and bars to easily move according to climate and animal migration. With one exception - the Anasazi.Somewhere during our invasion of the south of the Danube Group tribes settled in the area of the four corners - where do you touch states Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Throughout the region are scattered their settlements built in the vast recesses of abandoned rivers canyons. In the south they are numerous - the territory of the reserve "Navajo" in Arizona and New Mexico. But here - in Mesa Verde National Park plateau is the most popular.
Culture "Pueblo" to which they belong Anasazi is cut with a narrow belt of ethnographic culture area "noua-Aztec." Later this belt is of a large family of Apache. Perhaps some Anasazi were neighbors, why not closer to the ancestral builders south of the Rio Grande. Coincidence of the Anasazi carry such names as Montezuma's Castle, Aztec ruins, Havasupai Canyon, etc.
The earliest inhabitants of the "Mesa Verde" unfinished homes in holes in the ground on the plateau. Around the 13th century Anasazi improved living conditions, moving in shallow caves on the slopes of the plateau, where rocky built residential complexes, standing to this day. These are not just holes in the walls of the plateau, and buildings made of bricks and wood assembled with much thought, some are even decorated.
Mesa Verde close up
Many are so typical. "Kiwi" - round underground rooms with a roof of leaves, a thick layer of mud hole in which they are descended through the stairs inside. Have served as an analogue of today's temples. Have a cleverly designed fireplace chimney, seating and a hole in the floor - the relationship with the underworld.Although impressively designed project, these rock houses have been inhabited for nearly a century. Around 1300 for unknown reasons, residents simply disappeared, abandoned the place. Suggested that prolonged drought (20-25 years) forced the Anasazi to move. It destroyed the crops of the Anasazi, relying mainly on subsistence agriculture. But during their stay here Anasazi were resist where-where greater droughts. Mesa Verde National Park in hot Colorado winters did not scare them - reefs of overhanging rocks kept them from storms, clothes and blankets of fur and turkey feathers are warm their bodies and traces of large fires can be seen today as in the middle of residential fires, and special places outdoors. There is a reasonable hypothesis - the depletion of resources after centuries - soils, forests, animals ... There is also a hypothesis for social and political upheaval. Not to neglect came later in these lands Navajo. "Anasazi" of the Navajo language means "ancient enemy".
Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park
Anyway Hard work is the history of divination people without writing in Mesa Verde National Park. Us, today's travelers more interested in our legacy of ancient people, which is more than impressive.After entry into archeological reserve "Mesa Verde" road splits in two. Just have a fork parking, restaurant and museum. You will not get confused - the entrance ticket unless you served and information leaflet with a map. The right branch is working for unknown reasons on October 1. Maybe in the autumn there is a danger of collapse. So you can easily miss the multi-Long House, which is one of the most interesting objects. The left branch passes to the hotel and camping trailers. The first project is the right house with a square tower. Narrow and steep staircase leads to the observation site, nested in the rocks into Mesa Verde National Park. Hence the great underground shows across which rise the ruins of two-storey building of stone masonry with a flat rectangular doors and windows, and above them rises a tower with four windows and a square base.Mesa Verde National Park buildings seem so out of the folds of the rock that can easily pass for a natural formation in Mesa Verde National Park .
Here cave house, the Temple of the Sun and the Far Rock Palace. Convenient monitoring are "three terraces spruce" and the other Navajo canyon of strange house are the steps, Kodak House and House balcony. Over the first set in the deep reef a second crack, which was built in another series. It is said that it will not anywhere scattered throughout the "four corners" .
All other groups can be seen from afar, but rock palace to see up close. It was created in a niche above a canyon in the "Mesa Verde" and under the edge of the plateau is a four-apartment complex with 217 single rooms and 23 kiwi (underground ceremonial rooms). It is believed that the Indians used tools from pebbles to handle the sand, forming bricks using mud and pine have become buildings that still stand and arouse wonder of Mesa Verde National Park.
Cliff Palace - Mesa Verde, Colorado
Pedestrian crossing between long cliffs and huge trees and suddenly there it is main street of the village. Almost all buildings are bunk. In the perfectly aligned walls, windows visible than small square holes, which was anchored between floor beams. Roofs are unnecessary - clever Anasazi inhabited reefs not only because of the covenant of the winds and natural camouflage, concealing them from their enemies. They dole most important element of your home - the roof. Here among the rocks appeared adobe masonry, and even here and there, of clay plaster. The rectangular structure is enriched with cylindrical shapes - round tower, large round pool at every step. How Does it appeared before the 7th century?Mesa Verde National Park vague idea can gain from the many remains of old weapons and vessels found by archaeologists anywhere in the complex. For these scientists judged that the first - the ancients hygiene is mainly inside the home, but Hitch is not paying attention to the aesthetics of space. And second - the construction of the Anasazi is a distant prototype of the modern American family buildings in Mesa Verde National Park.
