Existing comment:
Alcove Dwellers.
Centuries before they built cliff dwellings, the Anasazi in this region used alcoves for sleeping and shelter. There is only a shadow-record of their lives: pieces of hunting gear, intricate baskets, and crude pottery, and some stone-lined pits.
The storage pits were a significant find. By around AD 550, hunters and seed-gatherers who entered the region about AD 1 and used alcoves for temporary shelter were beginning to farm the mesa top and store part of the harvest -- tentative steps toward permanent settlement.
Hundreds of years later, after living primarily on the mesa tops, the Anasazi moved back to their ancestors' alcoves, but as a larger, more technically accomplished population. ...
At 26 feet (8 meters) high, Square Tower House is the tallest structure in the park. The four-story "tower" was actually part of an extensive, multi-storied unit with about 80 rooms and 7 kivas. Most of the other high rooms collapsed after abandonment. |