Cliff Dwellers

Cliff Dwellers The Cliff dwellers, Native Americans of the Anasazi culture who were builders of the ancient cliff dwellings found in the canyons and on the mesas of the U.S. Southwest, principally on the tributaries of the Rio Grande and the Colorado River in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. The dwellings were large communal habitations built on ledges in the canyon walls and on the flat tops of the mesas. The cliff dwellers were farmers who planted crops in the river valleys below their high-perched houses. They were experts at irrigating the fields. While much of the construction in these sites conforms to common Pueblo architectural forms, including kivas, towers, and pit-houses, the space constrictions of these alcoves necessitated what seems to have been a far denser concentration of their populations. These construction and water-related activities lead archaeologists to speculate that climatic change and increased population placed the communities under stress. The ancient people of Mesa Verde left the area in the late 1200s, possibly in response to a 24-year regional drought. People in the entire Four Corners region were also abandoning smaller communities at that time, and the area may have been nearly empty by AD 1300. Having left the Mesa Verde area, the people of Mesa Verde moved south to southern Arizona and New Mexico.( McGregor, J) By the 5th century AD, the Anasazi's ancestors settled in southwestern Colorado. Called the Basket people by archaeologists they created elaborate baskets from plant fibers and feathers. Their homes were simple pit houses dug into cave floors, though surface structures made from wood and adobe brick served as storehouses. Most villages contained kivas, or public buildings, for religious ceremonies and other public functions. The Indians farmed the land on the mesa tops and in the valleys. They developed complicated irrigation systems to provide their crops with water. They