Cliff Dwellers in the Four Corners Area - Part 2

.
Rediscovery - Spruce Tree House
Mexican-Spanish missionaries and explorers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, seeking a route from Santa Fe to California, faithfully recorded their travels in 1776. They reached Mesa Verde (green plateau) region, which they named after its high, tree-covered plateaus, but they never got close enough, or into the needed angle, to see the ancient stone villages. They were the first Europeans to travel the route through much of the Colorado Plateau into Utah and back through Arizona to New Mexico.

The Mesa Verde region has long been occupied by the Utes, and an 1868 treaty between them and the United States government recognized Ute ownership of all Colorado land west of the Continental Divide. After there had become an interest in land in western Colorado, a new treaty in 1873 left the Ute with a strip of land in southwestern Colorado between the border with New Mexico and 15 miles north. Most of Mesa Verde lies within this strip of land. The Ute wintered in the warm, deep canyons and found sanctuary there and the high plateaus of Mesa Verde. Believing the cliff dwellings to be sacred ancestral sites, they did not live in the ancient dwellings.

Occasional Trappers and Prospectors
Occasional trappers and prospectors visited, with one prospector, John Moss, making his observations known in 1873. The following year, Moss led eminent photographer William Henry Jackson through Mancos Canyon, at the base of Mesa Verde. There, Jackson both photographed and publicized a typical stone cliff dwelling. Geologist William H. Holmes retraced Jackson's route in 1875. Reports by both Jackson and Holmes were included in the 1876 report of the Hayden Survey, one of the four federally financed efforts to explore the American West. These and other publications led to proposals to systematically study Southwestern archaeological sites.

In her quest to find Ancestral Puebloan settlements, Virginia McClurg, a journalist for the New York Daily Graphic, visited Mesa Verde in 1882 and 1885. Her party rediscovered Echo Cliff House, Three Tier House, and Balcony House in 1885; these discoveries inspired her to protect the dwellings and artifacts.

Wetherills
A family of cattle ranchers, the Wetherills, befriended members of the Ute tribe near their ranch southwest of Mancos, Colorado. With the Ute tribe's approval, the Wetherills were allowed to bring cattle into the lower, warmer plateaus of the present Ute reservation during winter. Word of the Ancestral Puebloan great houses had spread, and Acowitz, a member of the Ute tribe, told the Wetherills of a special cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde: "Deep in that canyon and near its head are many houses of the old people – the Ancient Ones. One of those houses, high, high in the rocks, is bigger than all the others. Utes never go there, it is a sacred place."

On December 18, 1888, Richard Wetherill and cowboy Charlie Mason rediscovered Cliff Palace after spotting the ruins from the top of Mesa Verde. Wetherill gave the ruin its present-day name. Richard Wetherill, family and friends explored the ruins and gathered artifacts, some of which they sold to the Historical Society of Colorado and much of which they kept. Among the people who stayed with the Wetherills and explored the cliff dwellings was mountaineer, photographer, and author Frederick H. Chapin, who visited the region during 1889 and 1890. He described the landscape and ruins in an 1890 article and later in an 1892 book, The Land of the Cliff-Dwellers, which he illustrated with hand-drawn maps and personal photographs.

Cliff Palace in 1891
The Wetherills also hosted Gustaf Nordenskiöld, the son of polar explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, in 1891. Nordenskiöld was a trained mineralogist who introduced scientific methods to artifact collection, recorded locations, photographed extensively, diagrammed sites, and correlated what he observed with existing archaeological literature as well as the home-grown expertise of the Wetherills. He removed many artifacts and sent them to Sweden, where they eventually went to the National Museum of Finland. Nordenskiöld published, in 1893, The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde. When Nordenskiöld shipped the collection that he made of Mesa Verde artifacts, the event initiated concerns about the need to protect Mesa Verde land and its resources.

National Park
In 1889, Goodman Point Pueblo became the first pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Mesa Verde region to gain federal protection. It was the first such site to be protected in the US. Virginia McClurg was diligent in her efforts between 1887 and 1906 to inform the United States and European community of the importance of protecting the important historical material and dwellings in Mesa Verde. Her efforts included enlisting support from 250,000 women through the Federation of Women's Clubs, writing and having published poems in popular magazines, giving speeches domestically and internationally, and forming the Colorado Cliff Dwellers Association.
The Colorado Cliff Dwellers' purpose was to protect the resources of Colorado cliff dwellings, reclaiming as much of the original artifacts as possible and sharing information about the people who dwelt there. A fellow activist for protection of Mesa Verde and prehistoric archaeological sites included Lucy Peabody, who, located in Washington, D.C., met with members of Congress to further the cause. Former Mesa Verde National Park superintendent Robert Heyder communicated his belief that the park might have been far more significant with the hundreds of artifacts taken by Nordenskiöld.

Mesa Verde National Park
By the end of the 19th century, it was clear that Mesa Verde needed protection from people in general who came to Mesa Verde and created or sold their own collection of artifacts. In a report to the Secretary of the Interior, Smithsonian Institution Ethnologist Jesse Walter Fewkes described vandalism at Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace:
Parties of "curio seekers" camped on the ruin for several winters, and it is reported that many hundred specimens there have been carried down the mesa and sold to private individuals. Some of these objects are now in museums, but many are forever lost to science. In order to secure this valuable archaeological material, walls were broken down ... often simply to let light into the darker rooms; floors were invariably opened and buried kivas mutilated. To facilitate this work and get rid of the dust, great openings were broken through the five walls which form the front of the ruin. Beams were used for firewood to so great an extent that not a single roof now remains. This work of destruction, added to that resulting from erosion due to rain, left Cliff Palace in a sad condition.

Many artifacts from Mesa Verde are now located in museums and private collections in the US and across the world. A representative selection of pottery vessels and other objects, for example, is now in the British Museum in London. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt approved creation of the Mesa Verde National Park and the Federal Antiquities Act of 1906. The park was an effort to "preserve the works of man" and was the first park created to protect a location of cultural significance. The park was named with the Spanish term for green table because of its forests of juniper and piñon trees.
In 1976, 8,500 acres was designated a wilderness area. These three small and separate sections of the National Park are located on the steep north and east boundaries and serve as buffers to further protect the significant Native American sites. Unlike most wilderness areas, visitor access to Mesa Verde Wilderness is prohibited, along with the rest of the park's backcountry.

Excavation and Protection
Between 1908 and 1922, Spruce Tree House, Cliff Palace, and Sun Temple ruins were stabilized. Most of the early efforts were led by Jesse Walter Fewkes. During the 1930s and 40s, Civilian Conservation Corps workers, starting in 1932, played key roles in excavation efforts, building trails and roads, creating museum exhibits and constructing buildings at Mesa Verde. From 1958 to 1965, Wetherill Mesa Archaeological Project included archaeological excavations, stabilization of sites, and surveys. With excavation and study of eleven Wetherill Mesa sites, it is considered the largest archaeological effort in the US. The project oversaw the excavation of Long House and Mug House.
In 1966, as with all historical areas administered by the National Park Service, Mesa Verde was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1987, the Mesa Verde Administrative District was listed on the register. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1978. In its 2015 travel awards, Sunset magazine named Mesa Verde National Park "the best cultural attraction" in the Western United States.

Conflicts With Local Tribes
Clashes between non-Indigenous environmentalists and local tribes surrounding the ruins at Mesa Verde began even before the park's official establishment. Conflicts over who laid claim to the land surrounding the ruins came to fruition in 1911, when the US government wanted to secure more land for the park that was owned by the Ute Indians. The Utes were reluctant to agree to the land swap proposed by the government, noting that the land they were seeking was the best land the tribe owned. Frederick Abbott, working with Indian Office official James McLaughlin, proclaimed to be an ally to the Ute in negotiations. Abbott later claimed that the "government was stronger than the Utes," saying that when the government finds "old ruins on land that it wants to take for public purposes, it has the right to take it ..." Feeling they were left with no other options, the Utes reluctantly agreed to trade the 10,000 acres on Chapin Mesa for 19,500 acres on Ute Mountain.

The Utes continued to battle the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prevent more Ute land from being incorporated into the park. In 1935, the BIA attempted to gain back some of the land traded in 1911. Additionally, superintendent Jesse L. Nusbaum later confessed that the Ute Mountain land traded for Chapin Mesa in 1911 belonged to the tribe anyway, meaning the government had traded land that never belonged to them in the first place.

Other issues unrelated to land disputes emerged as a result of park activities. In the 1920s, the park began offering "Indian ceremony" performances that gained popularity among visiting tourists; however, the ceremonies did not actually reflect the rites of the Ancient Puebloans who lived in the cliff dwellings nor the rites of the modern Ute.

Navajo day laborers performed these rituals, resulting in "the wrong Indians doing the wrong dance on ... the wrong land." In addition to the inaccuracy of the ceremonies, a question of whether Navajo dancers were paid fairly also resulted in questions regarding the lack of local American Indians being employed in other capacities in the park. Additionally, the park offered little financial benefits to the Ute Mountain Ute despite their land swap making much of the park possible.

Services
The entrance to Mesa Verde National Park is on U.S. Route 160, approximately 9 miles east of the community of Cortez and 7 miles west of Mancos, Colorado. The park covers 52,485 acres. It contains 4,372 documented sites, including more than 600 cliff dwellings. It is the largest archaeological preserve in the US. It protects some of the most important and best-preserved archaeological sites in the country. The park initiated the Archaeological Site Conservation Program in 1995. It analyses data pertaining to how sites are constructed and utilized.

The Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center is located just off of Highway 160 and is before the park entrance booths. The Visitor and Research Center opened in December 2012. Chapin Mesa (the most popular area) is 20 miles beyond the visitor center. Mesa Verde National Park is an area of federal exclusive jurisdiction. Because of this all law enforcement, emergency medical service, and wildland/structural fire duties are conducted by federal National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers. The Mesa Verde National Park Post Office has the ZIP code 81330. Access to park facilities vary by season. Three of the cliff dwellings on Chapin Mesa are open to the public. The Chapin Mesa Museum is open all year. Spruce Tree House is also open all year, weather permitting. Balcony House, Long House and Cliff Palace require tour tickets for ranger-guided tours. Many other dwellings are visible from the road but not open to tourists. The park offers hiking trails, a campground, and, during peak season, facilities for food, fuel, and lodging; these are unavailable in the winter.

The park's early administrative buildings, located on Chapin Mesa, form an architecturally significant complex of buildings. Built in the 1920s, the Mesa Verde administrative complex was one of the first examples of the Park Service using culturally appropriate design in the development of park facilities. The area was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1987.

During the years 1996 to 2003, the park suffered from several wildfires. The fires, many of which were started by lightning during times of drought, burned 28,340 acres of forest, more than half the park. The fires also damaged many archaeological sites and park buildings. They were named: Chapin V (1996), Bircher and Pony (2000), Long Mesa (2002), and the Balcony House Complex fires (2003), which were five fires that began on the same day. The Chapin V and Pony fires destroyed two rock art sites, and the Long Mesa fire nearly destroyed the museum – the first one ever built in the National Park System – and Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling in the park.

Prior to the fires of 1996 to 2003, archaeologists had surveyed approximately ninety percent of the park. Dense undergrowth and tree cover kept many ancient sites hidden from view, but after the Chapin V, Bircher and Pony fires, 593 previously undiscovered sites were revealed – most of them date to the Basketmaker III and Pueblo I periods. Also uncovered during the fires were extensive water containment features, including 1,189 check dams, 344 terraces, and five reservoirs that date to the Pueblo II and III periods. In February 2008, the Colorado Historical Society decided to invest a part of its $7 million (equivalent to $9,388,000 in 2022) budget into a culturally modified trees project in the national park.

The Ute Mountain Tribal Park, adjoining Mesa Verde National Park to the east of the mountains, is approximately 125,000 acres along the Mancos River. Hundreds of surface sites, cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and wall paintings of Ancestral Puebloan and Ute cultures are preserved in the park. Native American Ute tour guides provide background information about the people, culture, and history of the park lands.
National Geographic Traveler chose it as one of "80 World Destinations for Travel in the 21st Century", one of only nine places selected in the US.

In addition to the cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde boasts a number of mesa-top ruins. Examples open to public access include the Far View Complex and Cedar Tree Tower on Chapin Mesa, and Badger House Community, on Wetherill Mesa.

Balcony House
Balcony House is set on a high ledge facing east. Its 45 rooms and 2 kivas would have been cold during the winter. Visitors on ranger-guided tours enter by climbing a 32 ft ladder and crawling through a small 12 ft tunnel. The exit, a series of toe-holds in a cleft of the cliff, was believed to be the only entry and exit route for the cliff dwellers, which made the small village easy to defend and secure. One log was dated at 1278, so it was likely built not long before the Mesa Verde people migrated out of the area. It was officially excavated in 1910 by Jesse L. Nusbaum, who was the first National Park Service Archeologist and one of the first Superintendents of Mesa Verde National Park. Visitors can enter Balcony House only through a ranger-guided tour, which involves numerous ladders up the cliff face and crawling through a small tunnel.

Cliff Palace
This multi-storied ruin, the best-known cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde, is located in the largest alcove in the center of the Great Mesa. It was south- and southwest-facing, providing greater warmth from the sun in the winter. Dating back more than 700 years, the dwelling is constructed of sandstone, wooden beams, and mortar. Many of the rooms were brightly painted. Cliff Palace was home to approximately 125 people, but was likely an important part of a larger community of sixty nearby pueblos, which housed a combined six hundred or more people. With 23 kivas and 150 rooms, Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park.

Long House
Located on the Wetherill Mesa, Long House is the second largest Pueblonian village; approximately 150 people lived there. The location was excavated from 1959 through 1961, as part of the Wetherhill Mesa Archaeological Project. Long House was built c. 1200; it was occupied until 1280. The cliff dwelling features 150 rooms, a kiva, a tower, and a central plaza. Its rooms are not clustered like typical cliff dwellings. Stones were used without shaping for fit and stability. Two overhead ledges contain storage space for grain. One ledge seems to include an overlook with small holes in the wall to see the rest of the village below. A spring is accessible within several hundred feet, and seeps are in the rear of the village.

Spruce Tree House
Mug House is located on Wetherill Mesa; it contains 94 rooms, a large kiva, and a nearby reservoir. It received its name from four mugs the Charles Mason and the Wetherill brothers found strung together at the site. Oak Tree House and neighboring Fire Temple can be visited via a 2-hour ranger-guided hike. Spruce Tree House is the third-largest village, within several hundred feet of a spring, and had 130 rooms and eight kivas. It was constructed sometime between 1211 and 1278. It is believed anywhere from 60 to 80 people lived there at one time. Because of its protective location, it is well preserved. The short trail to Spruce Tree House begins at the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum. The Square Tower House is one of the stops on the Mesa Top Loop Road driving tour. The tower is the tallest structure in Mesa Verde.
Corn was introduced to the Great Sage Plain, the regions north and west of Mesa Verde, from Mexico.

Donna Glowacki refutes this position, suggesting that the people of Aztec never achieved the wide-spread influence of Chaco Canyon. She believes the relationship between Mesa Verde and Aztec was more likely one of competition and conflict, versus religious or social hegemony.

The earliest known evidence for large-scale violence in the region was uncovered in southeastern Utah. Future Mesa Verde rediscoverer, Richard Wetherill, then leading the Hyde Exploring Expedition, located the site, now called "Cave 7", in which the bodies of nearly 100 men, women, and children were found. They date to the late Basketmaker II period (200 BC to 500 AD). Evidence of defensive structures, such as palisades and stockades, dating to the 7th and 11th centuries have been uncovered near ancient Puebloan farmsteads.

When the Spanish first settled in the area in 1598, they proposed that the Utes and Navajo had driven the Ancestral Puebloans away from Mesa Verde.[58] In 1891, Gustaf Nordenskiöld proposed that the Puebloans had been driven away from the area by hostile intruders. In the early 20th century, Jesse Walter Fewkes theorized that climate change had adversely affected water supplies in the region, which led to widespread crop failure and the rapid depopulation of the area. The last two theories remain at the foreground of the archaeological investigation of Mesa Verde.

Contemporary Native Americans do not describe the region as abandoned, but rather view it as a stage in the area's ongoing indigenous culture.

During this time, the entirety of the Zuni people is believed to have migrated to western New Mexico. Archaeological evidence suggests that another large group of Puebloans migrated approximately 200 miles to southwestern New Mexico, where they built structures that are now known as Pinnacle Ruin.

Painted wavy lines in the square tower at Cliff Palace average 18.6 marks each, suggesting that people recorded four of these events there. Jesse Walter Fewkes named the building Sun Temple after finding rock art in the southwest corner of the site depicting the sun.