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The ruins of Mesa Verde
By Spooky on June 25th, 2008 Category: Pics, Travel LIKE DISLIKE
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Dating back to as early as 1150, the ruins of Mesa 
Verde are one of the oldest in America.

They are set in the Mesa Verde National Park in 
Colorado, USA and are all that is left of the 
ancient Pueblo people, also known as the Anasazi. 
Around 600 houses dug in the cliffs of Colorado 
can be found through the park, most of them very 
small, but some are absolutely huge, able to 
house more than 250 people. The Anasazi came 
to these places around 550 A.D., but only started 
digging their dwellings into the canyon cliffs 
around 1150.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park
Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and 
UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, 
Colorado, United States. It was created in 1906 to 
protect some of the best preserved cliff dwellings 
in the world. The park occupies 81.4 square miles 
(211 km2) (211 square kilometers) near the Four Corners 
and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built 
by the Ancestral Puebloan people, sometimes called the Anasazi.
 
The Anasazi inhabited Mesa Verde anywhere between 
550 to 1300 AD. These people were mainly subsistence 
farmers; they grew crops on nearby mesas. Their primary 
crop was corn, which was also was the major part of 
their diet. Men were also hunters which further 
increased their food supply. The women of the Anasazi 
were famous for the elegant basket weaving. Anasazi 
pottery is just as famous as their baskets; their 
artifacts, even today, are highly prized. Since the
Anasazi kept no written records, their artifacts are 
the only link to understanding their interesting culture.
 
By 750 AD, the people were building mesa-top villages 
made of adobe. By the late 12th century they began to 
build the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.
 
Mesa Verde is best known for cliff dwellings, which 
are structures built within caves and under outcropping 
in cliffs — including Cliff Palace, which is thought 
to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. 
The Spanish term Mesa Verde translates into English 
as "green table." Approximately 600 of the over 4700 
archeological sites found in Mesa Verde National 
Park are cliff dwellings.[citation