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Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The Ancient Pueblo structure is located in Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Colorado, home to the Ancestral Puebloans people.[citation needed]
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Description
Cliff Palace contains 23 kivas—round sunken rooms of ceremonial importance. One kiva, in the center of the ruin, is at a point where the entire structure is partitioned by a series of walls with no doorways or other access portals. The walls of this kiva were plastered with one color on one side and a different color on the opposing side. Archaeologists believe that the Cliff Palace contained two communities and that this kiva was used to integrate the two communities.[citation needed]
Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. AD 1190 through c. 1260, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of mega-droughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause.[1]
References
- ^ Turney, Chris (2008). Ice, Mud & Blood: Lessons of Climates Past.
Bibliography
- Chapen, Frederick H. The Land of the Cliff-Dwellers. Appalachian Mountain Club, W. B. Clarke and Co., Boston, 1892. Reprinted by the University of Arizona Press, with notes and forward by Robert H. Lister, 1988. ISBN 0-8165-1052-0.
- Noble, David Grant. "Ancient Ruins of the Southwest", pp. 36-43. Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona 1995. ISBN 0-87358-530-5.
- Oppelt, Norman T. "Guide to Prehistoric Ruins of the Southwest", pp. 159-161. Pruett Publishing, Boulder, Colorado, 1989. ISBN 0-87108-783-9.
- Turney, Chris. "Ice, Mud & Blood: Lessons of Climates Past", 2008
External links
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