Mesa Verde

Piece of the Past at Home

Sometimes we forget the history of own past in the United States because we're too busy looking elsewhere for more exotic sites. However the Mesa Verde plateau in south-west Colorado is not something to be overlooked, for it displays incredible human skill and achievement and is declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The landscape of the Mesa Verde consists of ancient Pueblo dwellings that hit an altitude of more than 2,600 meters. Overall about 5,000 sites have been discovered within this terrain of which 600 are cliff dwellings. Mesa Verde, which translates into green table in Spanish, was built by the Pueblo Indians between 600 and 1300 A.D., making it their home for over 70 years. President Theodore Roosevelt declared the entire Mesa Verde Park to be preserved for the works of man on June 29th, 1906, which became the first of its kind.

 

The Mesa Verde dwellings were first discovered in 1874 when collectors would remove the pottery artifacts and sell them. However as soon as the site was put under protection in 1906 under the Federal Antiquities Act by the President, archaeologists began to properly study and excavate the site. I thought it was very interesting that the UNESCO website mentioned that this act has been the most "effective and long-standing" for the Mesa Verde on the American continent. The Mesa Verde has probably been preserved so well because it is one of the few notable archaeologist sites in North America, and also it represents little of what is left of the Native American heritage. Also it shows that the United States, a powerful and wealthy country, has the resources to simply preserve the site and eliminate looting unlike many of the European, Middle Eastern, or Asian countries. Although the Mesa Verde National Park may not be as popular as other tourist attractions, we still have a responsible to protect the site and educate others about it.


http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/27
http://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm