Mesa Verde NP
Mesa Verde National Park Ranger Tammi Corchero (far right) talks with Heather Ficke (far left) and Vince Toms (center) during an hour long tour of the Cliff Palace site at Mesa Verde National Park one afternoon. Ficke and Toms are from Crestline, Ca. and said it was their first time at Mesa Verde. The cliff dwellings at Cliff Palace were discovered in 1888 by cowboys Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason. The archeological sites found in Mesa Verde National Park, near Cortez, Co., are some of the most notable and best preserved sites in the United States. Mesa Verde offers visitors a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people. The culture represented at Mesa Verde reflects more than 700 years of history. From approximately A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300 people lived and flourished in communities throughout the area, eventually building elaborate cliff dwellings in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. The park occupies 81.4 square miles (211 square kilometers) and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the ancient Pueblo people. It is best known for several spectacular cliff dwellings ? structures built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs ? including Cliff Palace, which is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America..(MARC PISCOTTY/ © 2005)
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