Mesa Verde: The Museum

Because we had only a day to see Mesa Verde, we awoke early to make the most of it, beginning with the park museum. It's located deeper in the park, about five miles south of the Far View lodgings on Chapin Mesa next to Spruce Tree House, the most easily accessible cliff dwelling in the park.  

The museum details the history of the inhabitants of the Mesa Verde area beginning with the Basket Maker and proto-Pueblo cultures that first settled there around 400 AD. The earliest sites were small villages on top of the mesas comprised of small, individual pit houses. By 600-700 AD, the houses were often built contiguously, and the famed black-on-white pottery the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) are so well known for began to replace the woven ware that gave the Basket Maker culture its name. Around 1100 AD, the people of Mesa Verde moved off the mesa tops and into the canyons, building their homes in hard to reach places tucked up under the canyon rims. The move to these more easily defensible cliff dwellings is thought to have been precipitated by a centuries-long drought that may have turned the once peaceful pueblo dwellers against each other in their quest for food and water. The move may also have been predicated by an influx of outsiders to the area. Whatever the case, evidence of violence and warfare is present in the archaeological record from this period across the region.

By 1300 AD, the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings had been abandoned. Contrary to popular belief, however, the Ancestral Puebloan people did not vanish mysteriously. Instead, they moved further south into what is now Arizona and New Mexico to find more reliable sources of water. They survive today as the Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Jemez, and Zia tribes, and many more besides.

The Mesa Verde area was for the most part uninhabited until the 19th century. It was not until the 1870s that the cliff dwellings were first photographed and publicized, and Cliff Palace was not discovered by whites until 1888. For the next twenty years, various sites at Mesa Verde were pot-hunted by amateurs and vandalized by tourists and curio-seekers. In the 1890s, Gustaf Nordenskiöld, a minerologist from Finland, excavated a number of sites scientifically, but he shipped all of his finds home to the Museum of Cultures in Helsinki. This scientific looting of some of the best finds at Mesa Verde as well as the continued desecration of the sites by tourists led to the area being declared a National Park in 1906. It also spawned the Federal Antiquities Act of 1906 to protect ancient American sites from further pillaging. With that history in mind, the treasures in the Mesa Verde museum are still a treat to see, but to this student of archaeology, the lack of provenance for many of the pieces displayed was somewhat frustrating.

For those not familiar with the history of the region, the museum offers an excellent short film about the cliff dwellings and the park. The exhibits begin with the earliest inhabitants and proceed through the various occupation stages, providing a variety of visuals that show how (we think) they lived.

Basket Maker pithouse circa 550 to 750 AD

 

Early pueblos circa 750 to 1100 AD

 

Cliff dwellings circa 1100 to 1300 AD

 

Early basket

 

An iconic black-on-white pottery effigy

 

 

 

 

And some of the extraordinary pottery

 

 

 

 

 

A case showing the areas where the various Ancestral Puebloan people (Anasazi, Mogollon, Hohokam, Salado, etc) lived and examples of their pottery

A Mimbres-style (Mogollon) bowl from the Tularosa area in New Mexico

 

Avian wildlife of Mesa Verde

 

My sneaky sister got a shot of me admiring the pottery

The museum includes some art from modern tribes in the area as well including Navajo rugs, a Navajo sandpainting, and some exquisite Plains tribes beadwork

 

 

 

 

 

Next post---Spruce Tree House and Cliff Palace!

Iron horses and wild horses

The next morning, we woke up early to chase the train up to Cumbres Pass. The Cumbres and Toltec line is one of very few narrow gauge railroads still operating in this country, and the engines used are some of the last steam engines still in regular use here as well. Built in 1880 as part of the mining network throughout Colorado and New Mexico, it was once possible to ride the narrow gauge in a big loop from Denver south to Colorado Springs and on to Pueblo, then west to Durango via Chama, then north through Silverton, Ouray, and Montrose, and then back east again to Denver. Most of the tracks were abandoned in the 1960s or earlier, and since then most have been ripped out. The only narrow gauge tracks still in use in Colorado are the Chama to Antonito line, the Durango to Silverton run, and the Georgetown Loop.

Because of the incredible mountain scenery, the narrow gauge railroads were very popular for public excursions, and they still are. The train out of Chama was fully booked that morning, and we were part of a procession of cars full of railfans following it as it chugged out of town.

Leaving the station.

Just outside of town, the train passes by the famous "Jukes' Tree" first photographed by railfan Fred Jukes in 1908. (It's the pine on the left of the tracks with all of the missing branches.)

 

 

 Trestle!
(It burned down a month later in a brush fire and had to be rebuilt.)

 Lots of winding turns through the valleys to manage the elevation climb.

 

Coming around Windy Point (with the highway below). 

 At the top of Cumbres Pass.

Spring snow melt.

We chased the train a bit further, but the road and the tracks split a few miles on and don't meet up again until you get to Antonito, so we turned around and head back to Chama. From there, we headed west and then north on the road to Pagosa Springs, CO. The drive was full of stunning scenery.

 

 

 

One thing has struck me about Colorado is that no matter where I go in the state, there is remarkable sculptural art everywhere, even in the most mundane places, such as this mall parking lot in Pagosa Springs.

About 20 miles west of Pagosa Springs on the road to Durango is Chimney Rock National Monument, an ancient Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) site. Situated between two spires of rock on a cliff overlooking the valley, the site features more than 200 rooms, including pit houses and ceremonial kivas. Archaeologists think that as many as 2,000 people may have lived there from about A.D. 925 to 1125.

We continued on to Durango where we spent a few minutes driving around town. My parents were there in the 1970's and were curious to see how it had changed. While we were stopped in traffic, we spotted a mule deer casually strolling across a nearby construction site.

With my background in history and archaeology, one of the places I most wanted to visit on our trip was Mesa Verde, so we continued west from Durango into Anasazi country.

 Nearly there!

 

The road into the park twists and winds its way up to the top of the mesa, affording some spectacular views.

 

Fires are a natural part of the ecology of the southwest, and the skeletons of dead trees bear witness to their passage through the park. The Bircher Fire in 2000 burned more than 23,000 acres.

As a treat, my dad decided we should stay at the lodging in the park for one night.

The visitors' center.

 

The lobby.

 

A fabulous Navajo sand painting on display.

Our room.

Pretty decor. (Yep, the Navajo storm patterned purse is of course mine.)

 

We opted to eat at the casual visitors' cafe (with gift shop) just down the road from the welcome center, and while driving we spotted some horses. We thought for sure they must be trail horses belonging to the park service, but the gal in the welcome center assured us they were in fact wild. 

My first view of Mustangs!

Inside the cafe (apologies for the blurry shot).

 

The view from the dining room.

 

After dinner, we sat on the balcony behind our room to look out across the green table land for which the park was named. The utter quiet was marvelous, and it was a thrill to see the indigo-black sky full of stars for once.

Next time, adventures in the park!