Definition: Mesa Verde ("green table" in Spanish) is the name given to a high stone cliff in southwestern Colorado near the Four Corners region of the United States Southwest. Occupation of the mesa began in Paleoindian times and there are about 10,000 different prehistoric archaeological sites on the mesa. But Mesa Verde is best known for its multi-story masonry cliff dwellings, elaborate stone residential settlements built by the Anasazi beginning about AD 1100.
The Anasazi lived in Mesa Verde between about AD 500-1300. By 1100 AD, the largest mesa top sites (Yellow Jacket, Lowry Ruins, and Goodman Point) all housed more than 1,000 people each. Yellow Jacket was the largest, with about 2,500 people in 1,800 rooms. The magnificent cliff dwellings, such as Cliff Palace, Oak Tree House and Spruce Tree House, were built in the cliff face between about AD 1100 and 1200; and Mesa Verde was virtually abandoned about 1300 AD.
Mesa Verde was the first National Park declared by the United States government under the American Antiquities Act of 1906.
Google Earth Placemark
The Anasazi lived in Mesa Verde between about AD 500-1300. By 1100 AD, the largest mesa top sites (Yellow Jacket, Lowry Ruins, and Goodman Point) all housed more than 1,000 people each. Yellow Jacket was the largest, with about 2,500 people in 1,800 rooms. The magnificent cliff dwellings, such as Cliff Palace, Oak Tree House and Spruce Tree House, were built in the cliff face between about AD 1100 and 1200; and Mesa Verde was virtually abandoned about 1300 AD.
Mesa Verde was the first National Park declared by the United States government under the American Antiquities Act of 1906.
Google Earth Placemark
Sources and More Information
Billman, Brian R., Patricia M. Lambert, and Leonard L. Banks. 2000. Cannibalism, warfare, and drought in the Mesa Verde region during the twelth century AD. American Antiquity 65(1):145-178.
Breternitz, David A. 2000. A personal perspective of Mesa Verde archaeology. Kiva 66(1):205-213.
Kohler, Timothy A. and Lynne Sebastian. 1996 Population aggregation in the prehistoric North American southwest. American Antiquity 61(3):597-602.
Leonard, Robert D. 1996. Mesa Verde. In Oxford Companion of Archaeology, edited by Brian Fagan. Oxford University Press, New York.
Roney, John R. 1995. Mesa Verdean manifestations south of the San Juan River. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14(2):170-183.
