It’s disappointing that historic Native American sites so often receive far less recognition and attention than other landmarks.
Cliff Palace, located in Mesa Verde National Park, is the largest known cliff dwelling in North America. Built by the Ancestral Pueblo people between roughly AD 1190 and 1260, it contains around 150 rooms and 23 kivas, the circular spaces used for ceremonies and community gatherings. Archaeologists believe that as many as 100 people may have lived there at its height.
The settlement was constructed beneath a massive natural sandstone alcove carved into the canyon wall, which helped shield its inhabitants from rain, snow, and intense summer heat. Using sandstone blocks, wooden beams, and mortar, the builders created multi story structures that rose as high as four stories tall.
Mesa Verde itself was not a single city, but part of a vast cultural landscape containing hundreds of cliff dwellings and thousands of archaeological sites. By the late 13th century, the region’s inhabitants had left the area, likely because of a combination of prolonged drought, resource strain, and shifting social conditions. Their descendants are believed to include several modern Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest.
Cliff Palace remained unknown to non Indigenous Americans until the late 19th century and later became one of the key reasons for the creation of Mesa Verde National Park in 1906, the first U.S. national park established specifically to preserve archaeological and cultural heritage.
Photographed by Judson McCranie.