After spending a day in Moab, catching up on blogs and loading up on new research materials, we set off for Colorado. Our destination was the Montezuma Valley and Mesa Verde.
I had not realized the archaeological importance of the Montezuma Valley in SW Colorado until I began doing sabbatical research for this trip. The Montezuma Valley is due west of Mesa Verde
and, unknown to most people, was made a "National Monument" in 2000 by Bill Clinton--officially named as The Canyons of the Ancients. (The county in Colorado is also named Montezuma County, reflecting the belief of the early pioneers in the area that the great "ruins" could not be attributed to "primitive" southwestern Indians and had to be Meso-American in origin.)
Like Cedar Mesa in Utah, it is a plateau raised by ancient geologic forces and cut by canyons. These canyons drain into the McElmo Creek, which has water only part of the year, despite deep soil cutting from torrential storms. The McElmo drains into the San Juan River just east of Bluff and Blanding, Utah. Many archaeologists, like the ones at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, CO, refer to this area as the McElmo Dome.
Mesa Verde lies directly to the east of the McElmo Dome, about 1500 feet higher.
Mesa Verde gets all the attention, and deservedly so. But while Mesa Verde had a maximum population of 3,000 or so in the 1200s, the Montezuma Valley had a population more than ten times that number (30,000 to 40,000)
For instance, just one of the many settlements in the valley--Yellow Jacket Pueblo, north of modern-day Cortez--had an estimated population equal to all of Mesa Verde (2,700). And many other settlements in the "valley" were larger than those on Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde was neither the oldest nor largest settlement of ancestral Puebloans.
In fact, there were more people living in this region in 1250 than are living here today. The population of the only major city, Cortez, is 8,500. Compare the town of Yellow Jacket today to the Yellow Jacket of 800 years ago. This is main street Yellow Jacket today.
Farmers stopped to pick up their mail while we were there,
but the store has long-since closed. (Actually, it was built as a stage coach stop in the 1800s.) These are the directional signs found at the main intersection of County Roads X and 18.
(Were these Yoders,
Schultzes,
and Lancasters from Amish Pennsylvania?)
Apart from the city of Cortez, the land is now dominated by large farms. Today, as in 1250 A.D., it is a "breadbasket." The town of Dove Creek advertises itself as the "Pinto Bean Capital of the World."
This bean field lies near the location of an ancient Puebloan settlement, in the shadow of Sleeping Ute Mountain.
Other farms produce hay,
whose protein content is so high that it is shipped as far away as California. We had "Dove Creek beans" in a restaurant and passed a lot of "Hay for sale" signs on backcountry roads. And there is an occasional corn field
or vineyard.
In 1250 A.D., the fields were covered by maize, being "dry-farmed" by Anasazi (sorry, "ancestral Pueblo") people. Were they helping to feed the cliff dwellers on Mesa Verde? In exchange, possibly, for the famed Mesa Verde Black-on-White pottery?
Although this region was explored as early as the 1870s by explorers and surveyors sent out by the U.S. government, Americans are just beginning to become aware of its archaeological importance. Janet and I will be exploring this area further.
In the meantime, on the way to Mesa Verde we stopped at one important Pueblo II/III "Great House" site in the Montezuma Valley that was excavated in the 1930s by Paul Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago.
It is known as Lowry House,
built and expanded over the course of a couple of centuries.
It may have been as much as three stories high in some parts of the building, with 70 to 80 rooms and eight small kivas enclosed in the building.
We were allowed to enter and explore the ruins.
The architectural details were still vivid.
Notice the wooden lintel over the door that still exists.
Five of the eight small kivas (round rooms) were marked out.
This photo shows that the interiors of the small kivas were lined with shelves.
Most people do not realize that the ancients sat on mats on the floors, not on the ledges.
Several hundred yards away was the "Great Kiva," which probably did serve as a sacred, ceremonial center for an extended series of nearby smaller Pueblo settlements.
It was the first Great Kiva excavated in Colorado. It measured 45 feet in diameter and had massive supports for the columns that supported the roof and stone "floor drums" used for sacred dances.
Like other Great Kivas, it is oriented on strict north-south/east-west alignments. (The smaller kivas were used as residences and work sites, not just as ritual rooms.)
Within a one-mile radius of this "Great House" were more than 20 other smaller settlements with a total population, according to Arthur Rohn, of 1500 to 1800 persons in the 1200s.
Being able to experience an ancient ruin, without the press of other visitors, brings to life the reality of people who built great buildings with careful attention to architectural detail and just as much spiritual awareness. No one who enters today should forget that for Puebloan people, these buildings are still alive and places of spiritual connection.
By the way, the methods that Paul Martin used in excavating this site would not be followed by archaeologists today. As we will see, archaeologists today use minimally obtrusive techniques, small strategically placed trenches, and rebury any trenches they dig. The goal is not to create tourist curiosities, a la Mesa Verde, but to leave the site as it was found--as much as possible--for later generations of archaeologists and students.
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