What Makes Mesa Verde So Green?

What Makes Mesa Verde So Green?

It is literally a "green mesa." This formation in the extreme southwestern corner of Colorado is in a high desert environment, yet it supports an amazing diversity of plant and animal life. In ancient times, it was the home of cliff dwellers, the Puebloan people who thrived and then disappeared mysteriously. Mesa Verde is a land of contrasts, myth, and surprising discoveries. 

How exactly did they thrive, these ancient Puebloan peoples, on this collection of three large mesas surrounded by deep ravines and canyons? Mesa Verde's geology offers clues. Deep in geologic history, the area was actually part of a vast inland sea. Sandy soils from beaches and shallow waters were deposited over a thick layer of shale, made from the hardened mud that was once sea bottom. Then, through geological uplifting, the mesas rose above the surrounding river bottom land and water runoff sculpted the valleys and canyons below. But the mesa surface, being relatively flat, absorbed rain water and snow, which percolated down until it met the hard shale. It then traveled horizontally, sometimes for years, until it seeped out of the mesa's vertical walls. These seeps were known to the dwellers, who carved out reservoirs in the shale to store the water, some of them as small as a ladle. 

The dwellers fashioned many water catchment structures to take maximum advantage of the water for growing food and satisfying their and their animals' thirst. Nearly 1,200 check dams and reservoirs have been discovered on the mesa, and extensive terracing was noticed after a series of wildfires uncovered numerous sites in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

Mesa Verdians practiced corn agriculture and grew "The Three Sisters": corn, squash, and beans. They domesticated turkeys, to which they fed corn. They foraged acorns, pine nuts, berries, and spring greens. Lower down, in the valleys, they practiced decrue farming, flooding the crops in the spring with runoff from the mountains and forests to the north. In fall and winter, they fished and hunted.

The people harvested and preserved their crops. Many of the structures in their cliff dwellings were devoted to food storage. The Puebloan people took basketry and pottery to a high art as well as the highest levels of functionality. Sadly, many of the pots and containers have been carried away by scavengers, but some beautiful examples are in the collections of museums ranging from the Denver Art Museum to the British Museum. 

About the mysterious disappearance of the cliff dwellers, modern Puebloans have an answer: "We're still here." They say that the residents of Mesa Verde simply migrated to other places, including settlements in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. The appearance of similar pottery and basketry confirms this. Puebloans, and their culture, continues today.