Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde
In 1891, Swedish scientist Gustaf Nordenskiold studied, explored, and photographed many of Mesa Verde’s cliff dwellings. Considered by many to be the first true archeologist at Mesa Verde, his book, The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, was the first extensive record of its cliff dwellings. This edition is richly illustrated with Nordenskiold's own drawings and photographs which have been digitally remastered.
"The summer and autumn of 1891 I passed through Colorado, engaged upon investigations of the remarkable cliff dwellings scattered in the canons of an extensive plateau, the Mesa Verde, in the southwest of the state. The present work is the result of those researches. It contains a description of the ruins, an account of the excavations carried out there and of the objects discovered." - G. Nordenskiold, Preface
Images of America Mesa Verde
Mesa Verde National Park was America's first cultural park and also the world's first cultural heritage park. Created in 1906, it preserves the sites and materials of the prehistoric Puebloan people. Located in southwestern Colorado near the famous Four Corners, where the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, the magnificent Mesa Verde is situated in Montezuma County, just south of Cortez and directly west of Durango. The park's rich archaeological history was played out amid some of the most ruggedly beautiful landscapes in the West. The greater story of the evolution of the park encompasses the Ute people, Theodore Roosevelt, novelist Willa Cather, and other personalities. These remarkable vintage photographs tell that saga, which is as fascinating as that of the Puebloans.
Living and Leaving
The Mesa Verde migrations in the thirteenth century were an integral part of a transformative period that forever changed the course of Pueblo history. For more than seven hundred years, Pueblo people lived in the Northern San Juan region of the U.S. Southwest. Yet by the end of the 1200s, tens of thousands of Pueblo people had left the region. Understanding how it happened and where they went are enduring questions central to Southwestern archaeology.
Author Donna M. Glowacki shows how "living and leaving" were experienced across the region and what role differing stressors and enablers had in causing emigration. The author's analysis explains how different histories and contingencies--which were shaped by deeply rooted eastern and western identities, a broad-reaching Aztec-Chaco ideology, and the McElmo Intensification--converged, prompting everyone to leave the region. This book will be of interest to southwestern specialists and anyone interested in societal collapse, transformation, and resilience.
Mesa Verde Life/Earth/Sky
Author Susan Lamb demonstrates an exceptional interprative knowledge of the Ancestral Puebloans, in this stunningly beautiful photographic reference for Mesa Verde National Park. Insightful and heartfelt narratives detailing the park's natural and human histories allows readers to explore some of the mysteries of Mesa Verde. Also includes detailed maps of the park and region. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of this book are donated to Mesa Verde National Park.
Mesa Verde Shadows of the Centuries
Originally published in 1988, Mesa Verde National Park: Shadows of the Centuries is an engaging and artfully illustrated history of an enigmatic assemblage of canyons and mesas tucked into the southwestern corner of Colorado. Duane A. Smith recounts the dramatic 1888 "discovery" of the cliff dwellings and other Anasazi ruins and the ensuing twenty-year campaign to preserve them. Smith also details the resulting creation of a national park in 1906 and assesses the impact of more recent developments - railroads and highways, air pollution, and the growing significance of tourism - on the park's financial and ecological vitality. This revised and completely redesigned edition includes more than 50 illustrations and will be enjoyed by readers interested in environmental, Western, and Colorado history.
Mesa Verde World
Mesa Verde, with its stunning landscapes and cliff dwellings, evokes all the romance of American archaeology. It has intrigued researchers and visitors for more than a century. But "Mesa Verde" represents more than cliff dwellings--its peoples created a culture that thrived for a thousand years in Southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. Archaeologists have discovered dozens of long-buried hamlets and villages spread for miles across the Great Sage Plain west and north of Mesa Verde. Only lately have these sites begun to reveal their secrets.
In recent decades, archaeologists have been working intensively in the Mesa Verde region to build the story of its ancestral Pueblo inhabitants. The Mesa Verde World showcases new findings about the region's prehistory, environment, and archaeological history, from newly discovered reservoir systems on Mesa Verde to astronomical alignments at Yellow Jacket Pueblo. Key topics include farming, settlement, sacred landscapes, cosmology and astronomy, rock art, warfare, migration, and contemporary Pueblo perspectives.
Mesa Verde/Yucca House Complete Guide
Two former Mesa Verde Park Rangers collaborated to provide visitors with the most comprehensive guide to both Mesa Verde National Park and Yucca House National Monument. This guide book is intended to help visitors explore the park and monument to their maximum; intellectually, spiritually, physically and photographically. It contains easy-to-follow maps, schedules and information designed to make your stay at Mesa Verde more pleasurable at any time of the year. Additionally, the information on hiking trails, natural history and archaeological sites will be invaluable to all visitors.
Top spiral bound for ease of use. 8 x 5.5
Mesa Verdes Hidden Landscape
This book is based on a cultural landscape inventory of Mesa Verde National Park's early development. The landscapes described in this book are historic designed landscapes – a landscape that was consciously designed or laid out by a landscape architect, master gardener, architect, or horticulturist according to design principle. The headquarters loop at Mesa Verde is considered an historic designed cultural landscape because it is connected with an historically important person, Jesse Nusbaum; the activities of the Civilian Conservation Corps; and the 1930s movement of national park master planning.
This book is created out of a deep interest and respect for those who have endeavored to undertake the often difficult task of making national park resources available to the public while protecting the resources themselves. Contains 22 maps and more than 100 historic black and white photographs.
This Is Mesa Verde
This Is Mesa Verde has stunning photographs and interpretive text that allow you, the reader, to learn more about the beauty and wonder that Mesa Verde has to offer each visitor.
"As Ancestral Pueblo people settled down and clustered together, individual families no longer had to do everything for themselves. Those who were especially good at hunting or farming could provide for others outside their own home, while artisans had more time to work on tools, baskets, clothing, and jewelry. Rooted where they could keep their materials and surrounded by others with a need for their work, artisans made objects of great beauty as well as utility". – Susan Lamb, This Is Mesa Verde
Two Raven House
A monograph in the Wetherill Mesa Project in the Archaeological Research Series.On a sunny day in May of 1960, Jerry Melbye found the rubble ruins of a small pueblo in an open glade of sagebrush. A steel stake bearing a site number was driven into the mound and it was recorded that here was a single story house of from 9 to 12 rooms fronted by a kiva and an extensive trash mound. The report is largely descriptive with a minimum of interpretation and no attempt to define archaeology or spell out cultural history.
Wildflowers of Mesa Verde
This book is a visitor's guide to some of the more commonly seen plants of Mesa Verde National Park. It was inspired by Stephen Wenger's wonderful book, Flowers of Mesa Verde National Park, that was published over thirty years ago by the Mesa Verde Association. To facilitate identification of the plants, both a close-up of the flower or cone as well as a photo of the entire plant are included for each of the featured wildflowers, tree, shrubs, cacti, and grasses. Uses by Indians and ecological information have been incorporated into the book. There is a place at the bottom of each page to record when and where each plant was first seen. Invasive plants that have created problems in the area are discussed in a special section at the end of the book.