We have visited several Pueblo tribes on our trip so far and have seen rock art from ancient Indian groups, so visiting the Long House held extra meaning. Mesa Verde National Park encompasses several inclined mesas, or cuestas. Only two of them have roads and developed sites to visit. The main road extends along Chaplin Mesa and there is a side road, open only from May through October that extends along Wetherill Mesa. The cuesta slants at about 7 degrees from north to south. The park road enters on the higher, north side and once reaching the top of the mesas runs all the way to the south end. The Wetherill Mesa Road turns off the main park road on the Chaplin Mesa, crosses the canyon to the Wetherill Mesa and runs to its southern end. All this makes for an interesting, if somewhat harrowing drive.
We had tickets to the ranger led tour of the Long House cliff dwelling on Wetherill Mesa. The cliff dwellings are under the rim of the southern end of the cuestas, because that’s where the water runs down, seeps into the sandstone, freezes and carves out chunks of sandstone that form alcoves. Our tour was at 11:30, the park entrance was an hour and a half from our campground and the park information said to allow an hour and a half to drive the 30 miles through the park. We could have made it in less time, but the park roads are not built for hurrying. The Wetherill Mesa Road had a speed limit of 25 mph for most of its length, steep inclines, switchbacks and for all but one sharp turn, no guardrails. There are no pictures of the drive because I was too busy simultaneously gazing around and gripping the armrest.
Once we parked we had to walk 3/4’s of a mile on the top of the Mesa to get to the meeting point for the tour. Then it was another 1.1 miles down stairs and a switchback trail to the site.
At our first glimpse of the Long House we knew it had been worth it.
Our group gathered where the trail came into the west side of the dwelling. We met our ranger guide, Michael.
After a brief introduction Michael led us up the two fifteen foot ladders to the main level of the dwelling.
There were several levels, including small rooms tucked way up under the roof of the alcove.
Michael explained that the dwelling was expanded over time and that earlier construction was crude, with unshaped blocks and extensive use of mortar and small chinking stones.
Later construction used carefully shaped blocks and much less mortar. In reading the park brochure I learned that people had lived on the top of the mesa since about 500 CE (current era), while the cliff houses were built from about 1150 to 1300 CE. They did use the cliff alcoves but didn’t live there. During the years they lived on top they improved their building skills. I would guess that the early walls and rooms were built by the people living on top of the mesa and incorporated into the dwellings once the people moved below.
It is not known why they chose to move to the alcoves. We do know that their culture was prospering. They were growing corn, beans and squash on the mesas and not only were their own families growing, but people were moving in from other places. There are at least 600 alcove dwellings in the park. The Long House is the second largest (Cliff Palace has a few more rooms) in the park and in North America. One draw can be seen in this photo. If you look to the right of the remnants of the rooms, you can see an open area where the shale floor meets the sandstone roof. The green is plants growing at a seep spring. The water that permeates the sandstone comes out when it hits the impermeable shale. That both shaped the alcove and produced the springs. Those springs were essential during dry periods.
Central to their lives and their belief system were their Kivas. This photo is looking down at the original floor of a kiva built about 800 years ago! Looking from the lower right towards the upper left you can see the ventilator (the rectangular opening in the wall and the space behind the wall). Next is the short wall of the air deflector and the round fire pit. An entrance ladder would descend from the center of the roof in this area. The docent at the Coronado site had told us that it was designed so you would come down through the smoke and be purified. Kivas were built partially underground. The small round opening above and left of the fire pit looked like a piece of PVC pipe. It is actually the sipapu and is the neck of a large clay vessel. It is embedded in the floor and is an opening to the earth and a reminder that these people believed they had come from below the earth into this world on a journey to find their proper or ideal home.
Our tour took us all across the upper story of the dwelling and then down into the plaza. Michael told us that the plaza was the center of their social interactions. He also explained that these dwellings in Mesa Verda held a unique place in the native culture. Here many people came together and shared ideas and skills.
But after a number of years their crops were failing, perhaps because of a drought combined with too many people growing crops on the mesa fields which may have depleted the soil. In the end the people decided this was no longer the right place for them and the groups dispersed. The Zunis, Jemez, Acoma and other pueblo communities we had passed all had Mesa Verde as a former home. These people still come here to visit their ancestral home and to hold spiritual ceremonies. Our guide told us a Hopi elder told him they always end their ceremonies with a prayer for all people to live in peace and in balance with the earth.
We left with a greater appreciation of the skill and wisdom of these people.
And for their physical abilities, because we learned they had no steps to get up and down, but traversed the canyon with hand and toe holds cut into cracks, and often were carrying clay vessels on their backs held up with straps around their foreheads!
On the Roam Again 