{"it":{"id":"NAM-007","kind":"site","sub":"North America","name":"Mesa Verde National Park","place":"United States","lat":37.184,"lon":-108.489,"date":"Starting c. 7500 BCE Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic…","mat":"adobe;clay;earth;sandstone","nfacts":22,"tags":["North America"],"sum":"Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado protects more than 5,000 Ancestral Puebloan sites, including about 600 cliff dwellings tucked into canyon walls.","why":"A national park in Colorado that preserves thousands of Ancestral Puebloan sites, famous for houses built into canyon walls.","src":[350],"nsrc":2,"yt":"Why they moved is debated: drought, conflict or both?","rel":["NAM-004"],"hook":"Some 600 cliff dwellings in Colorado's canyon walls, built and then left within a few generations."},"S":{"350":["Wikipedia: Mesa Verde National Park","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park"]},"rec":{"id":"NAM-007","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 the park occupies","a":"area","v":"52485","u":"acres","o":"Established by Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52485 acres near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2124"},{"f":"were relatively short and muscular averaging less than","a":"height","v":"5.5","u":"feet","o":"Basketmaker men were relatively short and muscular, averaging less than 5.5 feet tall.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2125"},{"f":"They were typically 3 or","a":"depth","v":"4","u":"feet","o":"They were typically 3 or 4 feet deep and 12 to 20 feet wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2126"},{"f":"were typically 3 or 4 feet deep and","a":"width","v":"12-20","u":"feet","o":"They were typically 3 or 4 feet deep and 12 to 20 feet wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2127"},{"f":"smaller circular structures called kivas which were usually","a":"diameter","v":"12-15","u":"feet","o":"By the mid-10th and early 11th centuries, protokivas had evolved into smaller circular structures called kivas, which were usually 12 to 15 feet across.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2128"},{"f":"site chronology","a":"dating (as stated)","v":"he last tree felled for construction on the mesa was cut in 1281","u":"","o":"Dendrochronology indicates that the last tree felled for construction on the mesa was cut in 1281.","unc":"","by":"per cited source","yr":"","m":"documentary: auto-extracted sentence","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary)","t":"INTERPRETATION","n":"","id":"M2129"},{"f":"Several ancient roads averaging","a":"width","v":"15-45","u":"feet","o":"Several ancient roads, averaging 15 to 45 feet wide and lined with earthen berms, have been identified in the region.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2130"},{"f":"The temple is D-shaped and its alignment is","a":"orientation (deg)","v":"10.7","u":"degrees","o":"The temple is D-shaped, and its alignment is 10.7 degrees off true east–west.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2131"},{"f":"When conditions were good 3 or","a":"area","v":"4","u":"acres","o":"When conditions were good, 3 or 4 acres of land would provide enough food for a family of three or four individuals for one year, providing they supplemented with game and wild plants.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2132"},{"f":"Far View and Sagebrush reservoirs which were approximately","a":"diameter","v":"90","u":"ft","o":"Soon afterward, work began on two more: the Far View and Sagebrush reservoirs, which were approximately 90 ft across and constructed on the mesa top.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2133"},{"f":"vary but the larger ones were up to","a":"length","v":"24","u":"feet","o":"Their sizes vary, but the larger ones were up to 24 feet long and thought to have been shared kilns that served several families.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2134"},{"f":"zone at Mesa Verde National Park Headquarters at","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"6952","u":"ft","o":"According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Plant Hardiness zone at Mesa Verde National Park Headquarters at 6952 ft (2119 m) elevation is 6b with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of −0.1 °F (−17.8 °C).","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2135"},{"f":"Verde National Park Headquarters at 6952 nbsp ft","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"2119","u":"m","o":"According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Plant Hardiness zone at Mesa Verde National Park Headquarters at 6952 ft (2119 m) elevation is 6b with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of −0.1 °F (−17.8 °C).","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2136"},{"f":"At","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"7000","u":"ft","o":"At 7000 ft, the middle mesa areas were typically ten degrees Fahrenheit (5 °C) cooler than the mesa top, which reduced the amount of water needed for farming.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2137"},{"f":"the Point Lookout feature in the park elevation","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"8427","u":"ft","o":"The first is the Point Lookout Sandstone, which is named for the Point Lookout feature in the park (elevation 8427 ft).","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2138"},{"f":"Its sediments are approximately","a":"thickness","v":"400","u":"ft","o":"Its sediments are approximately 400 ft thick, and its upper layers feature fossiliferous invertebrates.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2139"},{"f":"options the Utes reluctantly agreed to trade the","a":"area","v":"10000","u":"acres","o":"Feeling they were left with no other options, the Utes reluctantly agreed to trade the 10000 acres on Chapin Mesa for 19500 acres on Ute Mountain.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2140"},{"f":"trade the 10000 acres on Chapin Mesa for","a":"area","v":"19500","u":"acres","o":"Feeling they were left with no other options, the Utes reluctantly agreed to trade the 10000 acres on Chapin Mesa for 19500 acres on Ute Mountain.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2141"},{"f":"started by lightning during times of drought burned","a":"area","v":"28340","u":"acres","o":"REF27 The fires, many of which were started by lightning during times of drought, burned 28340 acres of forest, more than half the park.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2142"},{"f":"Visitors on ranger-guided tours enter by climbing a","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"32","u":"ft","o":"Visitors on ranger-guided tours enter by climbing a 32 ft ladder and crawling through a small 12 ft tunnel.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2143"},{"f":"32 ft ladder and crawling through a small","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"12","u":"ft","o":"Visitors on ranger-guided tours enter by climbing a 32 ft ladder and crawling through a small 12 ft tunnel.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2144"},{"f":"2 12 ft tunnel 3 5 exit up","a":"dimension (unspecified)","v":"60","u":"ft","o":"File:Balcony House tour at Mesa Verde NP.jpg|Balcony House tour: (1) entrance 32 ft ladder, (2) 12 ft tunnel, (3–5) exit up 60 ft cliff face","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379092509 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2145"}],"lab":[{"k":"Materials","mat":"site material (as stated in article)","m":"documentary mention (Wikipedia, auto-extracted)","v":"The late Archaic is marked by increased trade in exotic materials such as obsidian and turquoise.","by":"no inline ref in article","b":"S","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509"},{"k":"Materials","mat":"site material (as stated in article)","m":"documentary mention (Wikipedia, auto-extracted)","v":"thumb|right|alt=A color picture of a large sandstone ruin under an alcove|Square Tower House","by":"no inline ref in article","b":"S","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509"},{"k":"Materials","mat":"site material (as stated in article)","m":"documentary mention (Wikipedia, auto-extracted)","v":"The structures contained within these alcoves were mostly blocks of hard sandstone, held together and plastered with adobe mortar.","by":"no inline ref in article","b":"S","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509"}],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[],"dat":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"Starting c. 7500 BCE Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex.","dm":"[see dating_excerpt; method not extracted]","lab":"NO: inference only (style/context/king list/textual)","weak":"no direct lab result on the structure in our records; date from stylistic, contextual or textual inference","unesco":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/27","dens":"CENSUS"},"co":{"lat":"37.1838","lon":"-108.4887","src":"Wikidata P625 + UNESCO WHC list XML (agree ≤0.05°)","agree":"DISAGREE: primary 37.18380,-108.48870 vs OSM 37.25378,-108.45560","b":"V","note":"OSM top hit 0.070 deg away; likely a different feature/town match - kept primary value (prior VERIFIED from wave2 retained)","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5749837"},"src":[{"id":"S0338","t":"no inline ref in article","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Verde_National_Park&oldid=1379092509"},{"id":"S0536","t":"Wikipedia: Mesa Verde National Park","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park"},{"id":"VNAM-007-3","t":"Mesa Verde National Park - UNESCO World Heritage Centre","u":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/27/"},{"id":"VNAM-007-4","t":"Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service)","u":"https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm"},{"id":"VNAM-007-5","t":"History & Culture - Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service)","u":"https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/index.htm"},{"id":null,"t":"U.S. National Park Service, Mesa Verde National Park, “Cliff Dwellings.”","u":"https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cliff_dwellings_home.htm"}],"sum":"The last tree cut for building at Mesa Verde fell in 1281. We know the year because the wood remembers it. Every growing season adds a ring to a tree, wide in wet years and thin in dry ones, and when the rings in a roof beam are matched against a long regional sequence, they give the year the tree was felled. After 1281, the beams stop. Within a few years, a farming people who had lived on this plateau in southwest Colorado for some seven centuries were gone, leaving their cliff houses standing in the rock almost as they had left them.\n\nMesa Verde, Spanish for \"green table,\" is a plateau more than 2,600 metres above sea level, cut by deep canyons. Mesa Verde National Park, created by Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt on 29 June 1906, was the first national park made to preserve cultural heritage. It covers about 52,500 acres. How many ancient sites it holds depends on the count: UNESCO's summary gives some 4,400 recorded sites, while the National Park Service speaks of nearly 5,000. Among them are some 600 cliff dwellings of sandstone and mud mortar, tucked into alcoves in the canyon walls. The park works today with 27 Pueblos and Tribes who trace their heritage there, and UNESCO calls it a living link between the Pueblo past and Pueblo life now.\n\nUNESCO describes Ancestral Puebloan settlement here lasting almost nine hundred years, from about AD 450 to 1300; the Park Service speaks of communities on the mesas and in the cliffs for over 700 years. For most of that time people lived on the mesa tops, in pit houses dug partly into the ground and later in masonry villages, among farm terraces, check dams, reservoirs and ditches. Their numbers rose and fell with the rain. Early in the 10th century many left for Chaco Canyon to the south in search of reliable rainfall; by about 1050 the population was rebounding, and as the Chacoan system collapsed, people moved back to Mesa Verde in large numbers.\n\nThe cliff dwellings came late. The Park Service says most were built between 1180 and 1300. Most were small, averaging eight to ten rooms, with hearths, bins for grinding corn, narrow granaries for dried food, and kivas, round rooms often sunk into the floor, for communal and ceremonial use. Cliff Palace is the largest, with 150 rooms and 23 kivas, home to perhaps more than 100 people. Most villages had one kiva for every six rooms; Cliff Palace had one for every three, which suggests it served as a public centre for the canyon. Balcony House, with 38 rooms and two kivas, kept rare balconies of plaster and timber, and today visitors still enter it by climbing a 32-foot ladder and crawling through a tunnel.\n\nThese were also people who watched the sky. The D-shaped Sun Temple, one of the largest purely ceremonial buildings the Ancestral Puebloans ever raised, is thought to have been an observatory. It sits 10.7 degrees off true east–west, aligned to the major lunar standstill, the extreme of a cycle that returns every 18.6 years, and to the winter solstice sunset, which can be watched setting over the temple from a platform at Cliff Palace across Fewkes Canyon. A fire pit at the bottom of the canyon catches the first rays of the rising sun on the winter solstice. Builders who could fix a cycle of nearly two decades into stone had kept careful count across generations.\n\nWhy move into the cliffs at all? Many visitors see castles or forts, because of the masonry and the commanding positions, and the Park Service treats that as a popular impression rather than the scholarly verdict. The case it favours is water. Most cliff dwellings sit near seep springs, among the few permanent sources on the mesa, and tree rings show extended droughts in the period, when the mesa-top reservoirs were probably failing. On that view, people moved closer to water.\n\nYet the darker evidence will not go away. Periodic warfare occurred on the mesa through the 13th century, and violence peaked between about 1275 and 1285. Most of it is ascribed to fighting among Puebloan groups, but at Sand Canyon Pueblo and Castle Rock Pueblo nearby, excavators in the 1990s found evidence of attacks around 1280, some perhaps by outsiders, with skull fractures from small stone axes, and victims scalped, dismembered and eaten. A study has argued that people resorted to cannibalism from about 1150 onward, possibly to survive starvation. The violence was not unique to Mesa Verde; conflict was widespread across North America in the late 13th century, as a changing climate cut food supplies. Water and fear may both have pushed people into the alcoves.\n\nThen came what archaeologists call the Great Drought, a severely dry period from 1276 to 1299. After 1260 the region emptied fast, as tens of thousands of people left or died of hunger. By 1285 most had migrated south to the Rio Chama, the Albuquerque Basin, the Pajarito Plateau and the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The Ancestral Puebloans had moved before, but this time the region was almost completely emptied, and no descendants returned to build permanent settlements. They left household goods behind, cooking pots, tools and clothing, which gave archaeologists the impression of a hurried departure. Archaeologists see it as a continuation of Puebloan society rather than its end; descendants live today along the Rio Grande and at Acoma, Zuni, Jemez and Laguna.\n\nFor centuries afterwards, the Utes held this country. A Ute man named Acowitz told the ranching Wetherill family of the place: \"Deep in that canyon and near its head are many houses of the old people – the Ancient Ones. One of those houses, high, high in the rocks, is bigger than all the others. Utes never go there, it is a sacred place.\" On 18 December 1888 Richard Wetherill and the cowboy Charlie Mason spotted it from the mesa top and named it Cliff Palace. The Wetherills collected and sold artifacts. In 1891 the Swedish mineralogist Gustaf Nordenskiöld brought scientific recording to the ruins, and shipped many objects to Sweden.\n\nThe Park Service notes that the cliff houses were used for only about a century, yet built to last. That is the riddle at the heart of Mesa Verde. A people who could read the moon's long cycle and the sun's turning point, and who engineered homes into sheer rock, abandoned them within a lifetime or two and never came back. Picture Cliff Palace on a winter afternoon after they had gone: low sun slanting into the alcove, rooms and walls of sandstone still sharp, household goods left where they were dropped, and across the canyon, as the solstice sun drops exactly over the Sun Temple, no one left to watch it set.","qs":["A whole region of farmers moved into cliffs, then left within a few generations. What were they afraid of?","Where did the people of the cliff houses go?","Why count sites at all, when two official sources give different totals?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Cliff_Palace-Colorado-Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg/1280px-Cliff_Palace-Colorado-Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cliff_Palace-Colorado-Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg","title":"Cliff Palace-Colorado-Mesa Verde NP.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Tobi 87","cap":"Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA: it is the largest of about 4000 preserved Cliff Dwellings (circa 800 years old) built by ancient Pueblo"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Ancestral_Puebloan_bone_awls_by_RO.JPG/1280px-Ancestral_Puebloan_bone_awls_by_RO.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancestral_Puebloan_bone_awls_by_RO.JPG","title":"Ancestral Puebloan bone awls by RO.JPG","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Rationalobserver","cap":"Ancestral Puebloan bone awls, American Museum of Natural History, on loan to Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Balcony_House_tour_at_Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg/1280px-Balcony_House_tour_at_Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balcony_House_tour_at_Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg","title":"Balcony House tour at Mesa Verde NP.jpg","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"U.S. National Park Service","cap":"The Balcony House tour requires walking down a 130-step metal staircase; then, to enter: (1) climbing up one 32-foot (9.8 m) ladder to enter, two small ladders,"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Barrier_Canyon_style%2C_Sego_Canyon.jpg/1280px-Barrier_Canyon_style%2C_Sego_Canyon.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barrier_Canyon_style,_Sego_Canyon.jpg","title":"Barrier Canyon style, Sego Canyon.jpg","lic":"CC BY 2.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0","by":"Rennett Stowe from USA","cap":"These elaborate and well preserved Barrier Canyon style petroglyphs are located in Sego canyon in the Utah desert. They are among the best preserved pre-Columbi"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Cliff_Palace%2C_Mesa_Verde_Park%2C_Colorado%2C_US_%2829%29.jpg/1280px-Cliff_Palace%2C_Mesa_Verde_Park%2C_Colorado%2C_US_%2829%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cliff_Palace,_Mesa_Verde_Park,_Colorado,_US_(29).jpg","title":"Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde Park, Colorado, US (29).jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Bubba73","cap":"Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, U.S."}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"150","u":"rooms","h":"Cliff Palace has 23 kivas, the largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde","s":[98]},{"v":"c. 7500 BCE","h":"Date from its main source","s":[98]},{"v":"Adobe","h":"Made of: Adobe, clay, earth, sandstone","s":[98]}],"hs":{"98":["Wikipedia: Mesa Verde National Park (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/NAM-007.webp","w":1280,"h":729,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Cliff_Palace-Colorado-Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg/1280px-Cliff_Palace-Colorado-Mesa_Verde_NP.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}