Mesa Verde National Park

Natural Formations as Places of Protection

Between the 6th and 12th centuries, the Native American Pueblo peoples built dwellings in the natural cliff alcoves in Mesa Verde National Park, located at the intersection of the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Of the 4,400 archaeological sites identified in the region, the most impressive and well-known isCliff Palace, comprising 150 rooms, a tower and kivas—circular, partly underground chambers likely used by the Puebloans for rituals, ceremonies, gathering, or storing objects and crops. In prehistoric times, when humans were developing farming, they settled on the mesa tops to grow beans, squash, and corn. Faced with the natural elements such as rain, wind, sun, and snow in winter, and perhaps for cultural and spiritual reasons, the Pueblo people began moving into pueblos they built into natural cliff alcoves, better protected from the weather and closer to water sources.