Ancient Abstract
by Peggy Kahan
Title
Ancient Abstract
Artist
Peggy Kahan
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Mesa Verde is a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 81 square mile park was created in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect some of the best preserved cliff dwellings in the world.
Long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in Southwest Colorado chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone pueblos beneath the overhanging cliffs.. Then, in the late A.D. 1200s, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and began migrating south into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By 1300, the Ancestral Puebloan occupation of Mesa Verde ended.
Most of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde contain only 1 – 5 rooms. Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and had a population of approximately 100 people. It is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America.
Ancestral Puebloan’s average life span of 32 to 34 years was relatively short, due, in part, to the high infant mortality rate. Approximately 50% of the children died before reaching the age of five.
Uploaded
December 3rd, 2013
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