Mesa Verde
Period of Occupation 550-1300 A.D.

The first Anasazi settled in Mesa Verde at about  A.D. 550. Formerly a nomadic people, they were now beginning to lead a more settled way of life. Farming replaced hunting and gathering as their main source of livelihood. They lived in pithouses clustered into small villages, which they usually built on the mesa tops but occasionally in the cliff recesses.

About 750 they began building houses above ground, with upright walls made of poles and mud.  By 1000 the Anasazi had advanced from pole and adobe construction to skillful stone masonry.

The years from 1100 to 1300 were Mesa Verde's classic period.  The population may have reached several thousand. It was mostly concentrated in compact villages of many rooms.  Round towers began to appear, and there was a rising level of craftsmanship in masonry work, pottery, weaving, jewelry, and even tool making.

About 1200 there was another major population shift.  The Anasazi began to move back into the cliff alcoves that had sheltered their ancestors long centuries before.  This sudden move is thought by some to have been for defensive purposes. For whatever reason, it gave rise to the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.  Most of the cliff dwellings were built in the middle decades of the 1200s.  The Anaszi lived in the cliff houses for less than a hundred years. By 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted.  It is commonly believed that a combination of a prolonged drought and the over utilization of resources were responsible for the Anasazi abandoning their magnificent cities of stone.