The long finger of the mesa points south. The west side, just below the rim, is in full sun on a late June summer day. It’s warm, but not unbearable. And it’s quiet. Very quiet, which works for me as I’ve left the few folks around back in “town” in search of some contemplation. Square Tower House is my favorite place in the Park; I think it’s the architecturally distinctive tower itself, although the S-SW view down Navajo Canyon from here is a treat as well. At 6800’ it may also have something to do with the fact that I’m sitting in the Pinus edulis / Juniperus osteosperma (Pinyon Pine /Juniper) woodland that, for me, is the best ecosystem in the Rockies. The fragrance is intoxicating, and I’m willing to spend some more time in the sun to be right here, on the west flank of Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park.
Technically, Mesa Verde is a cuesta, not a mesa. “Mesa” is Spanish for “table”, “Cuesta” for “slope”. If a tabletop is perfectly horizontal, the appropriate word is “mesa”. However if inclined from horizontal, it should be a “cuesta”. In the Rockies this type of feature is also referred to as a “hogback”, such as those seen on the east side of the Colorado Front Range. At Mesa Verde, the cuesta is tilted down by about seven degrees toward the south. Dozens of N-S oriented canyons have developed on the cuesta and deliver whatever rain falls to the south into the Mancos River.
The cuesta crest is on the north side of the Park, and reaches elevations over 8000’. The crest is my second-favorite part of the Park because, on especially clear days, the view through 360 degrees is extraordinary. To the west is the Sleeping Ute, the mountain which is the signature landmark of the Four Corners. To the north is the great upwarp of the Uncompahgre Plateau, stretching away towards Grand Junction. Immediately to the northeast is the massive complex of the La Plata Mountains, guarding the western approaches to Durango. To the north and east of them is the much greater mass of the San Juan Mountains, home to Telluride, Ouray, and (a favorite) Colorado 149, the road over fabled Slumgullion Pass. To the south and southeast the landscape opens up into the broad expanse of the San Juan Basin, home for other habitations of the Pueblo, including the Aztec Ruins and Chaco Canyon. Finally, south by southwest there is, first, monolithic Shiprock, the great winged rock of the Navajo, and behind that the mountain ranges of the Zuni-Defiance Upwarp: Zuni, Lukachukai, Chuska. Pick a compass heading, discover a new story…
Thinking about the Pueblo has brought me to this location down-canyon and upwind from Square Tower House. There is no sound whatsoever coming from that direction. At this time of the day the swallows and wrens have retreated to whatever shade they can find, and even the normally raucous jays have stilled. All I can hear is the gentle wind through the woodland.
What happened here?… The question is hardly original to me, has been considered by many, and remains elusive. The Ancestral Pueblo (and their living descendants) have been in this country since at least the 2nd Century AD. The first of the Ancestral Pueblo showed up at Mesa Verde mid-6th century. They transitioned from structures built on open ground to the construction of cliff houses at the top of the Mesa as the 12th century gave way to the 13th. Why the move to the alcoves and grottos of the Cliffhouse Sandstone? Another good question in search of answers… What is both impressive and concerning is that this great period of cliff house construction and way of living lasted for all of about 100 years. It ended quickly as the 14th Century opened, with the Pueblo exodus farther south into New Mexico and Arizona to join family there (the present locus of the Pueblo is the Acoma Pueblo about 60 miles W-SW of Albuquerque).
What happened here?… Theories abound, but… There are, however, a couple of pieces of climate information that intrigue. One is the “Great Drought” of 1276-1299 AD that affected the entire American Southwest. Exacting dates, aren’t they? They are exacting dates, courtesy of the science of dendrochronology and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. The Southwest went into a quarter-century of extreme drought at a time that coincided with the end of habitation on Mesa Verde. Interesting, however it was not the end of all habitations around the Southwest.
The other piece of climatic information is even more intriguing. The Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO) was a worldwide warming event that lasted from approximately 950 to 1250 AD. It had profound effects in the North Atlantic region (it’s the same time period as the Norse migration to Greenland and the Newfoundland exploration), and coincides with events in the Southwest. The rise of stone masonry construction and expanded communities on the part of the Pueblo are coincident with the advent of the MCO, as are the pinnacle of canal construction and community development on the part of the Southwest’s great irrigation society, the Hohokam, in the Salt River Valley of southern Arizona.
The Northern Hemisphere, in particular, plunged into the Little Ice Ages by 1300 AD, possibly triggered by the massive 1257 volcanic eruption of Mt. Samalas on the island of Lombak, Indonesia. Across the Northern Hemisphere the abrupt change triggered societal chaos and dislocation (including the Norse retreat from Greenland). Mesa Verde was empty by 1300, the Hohokam civilization simply gone 50 years later…
Early afternoon, quiet. Not my usual time or place, in the sun on a SW-facing slope. I’m listening… The pinyon pine/juniper fragrance is in play, as is the shimmering light down-canyon. But it’s the wind…something about the wind. There is something, somewhen, somewhere. There…just on the other side of audible. Voices?… On the wind.
