bovethe Montezuma and Mancos Valleys, preserves a spectacular remnant of theirthousand year old culture. We call these people the Anasazi, from a Navajo wordmeaning the ancient ones. Ever since local cowboys discovered the cliff dwellingsa century ago, archeologists have been trying to understand the life of thesepeople. but despite decades of excavation, analysis, classification, and comparisonour knowledge is still sketchy. We will never know the whole story of theirexistence, for they left no written records and much that was important in theirlives has perished. yet for all their silence, these written records and much thatwas important in their lives has perished. Yet for all their silence, these ruinsspeak with a certain eloquence. They tell of a people adept at building, artistic, intheir crafts, and skillful at wrestling a living from a difficult land. They areevidence of a society that over the centuries accumulated skills and traditions andpassed them on from one generation to another. By classic times the Anasazi ofMesa Verde were the heirs of a vigorous civilization, with accomplishments incommunity living and the arts that rank among the finest expressions of humanculture in ancient America. Taking advantage of nature, the Anasazi built their dwellings under theoverhanging cliffs. Their basic construction material was sandstone, which theyshaped into rectangular blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. The mortarbetween the blocks was a mix of mud and water. Rooms averaged about 6 feet by8, space enough for two or three persons. Isolated rooms in the rear and on theupper levels were generally used for storing crops.Much of the daily routine took place in the open courtyards in front of therooms. the women fashioned pottery there, while the men mad various tools --knives, axes, awls, scrapers -- out of stone and bone. The fires built in summerwere mainly for cooking. In winter when the alcove rooms were da...
