Mesa Verde, Colorado
Read Evan’s blog post about his trip to Mesa Verde HERE
This park preserves incredible cliff dwelling settlements, petroglyphs, and other archaeological sites of the Ancestral Puebloan people created from 550 to 1300 AD. Nestled among sheer cliff faces, some of the villages have between 50 and 200 rooms. Twenty six different pueblos and tribes across the Southwest descend from the Ancestral Puebloan people. One of the nearest tribal nations, The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, conducts Ute-lead tours of similar dwellings on their own reservation near the park. The land of the National Park was originally on Ute Mountain Ute Tribal land, but through a series of dishonest treaties on the part of the US Government, the tribe was forced to give up their rights to the land. This park is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was the first National Park set aside in the United States to protect a man-made site.
Resources
Excavation History of Mesa Verde