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National Geographic : 1964 Feb
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National Geographic, February, 1964 were missing. All but two finally were located in a collection made by an archeologist who was there in the 1920's. We found one in Long House itself; one is still missing. We may get it yet! One of the driest caves on the mesa holds Step House, last of our cliff dwellings to be excavated. Here we found our greatest quan tity of perishable material, including yucca sandals, corn husks, and the only actual leaves of tobacco we uncovered. In the dry atmos phere of the cave they had endured seven centuries. Although it was built in the same style as the other pueblos, Step House frustrated our tree-ring experts by being almost totally de void of wooden beams. Only one datable spec imen was found, which read A.D. 1229. All the other beams had been wrenched from their places long ago. Robert F. Nichols, archeologist in charge of the Step House dig, believes the building was abandoned earlier than others on Weth erill Mesa, and nearby groups pillaged the pueblo for whatever was left. Or perhaps the departing Anasazi, like many other primitive peoples, left behind any tribesmen unable to contribute to their journey. In that case, the old and the crippled may have lived on in Step House, knowing they were doomed, keeping warm as long as they could by tearing up their homes for fuel. Indians Built Intricate Water System While we were at work on Wetherill Mesa, our colleagues of the National Park Service made a significant discovery on neighboring Chapin Mesa that shed additional light on the Anasazi. Ever since 1935, archeologist James A. Lancaster had harbored a suspicion. He had noticed long depressions, some 18 inches deep by six feet wide, on the mesatop. "I thought they might be parts of a water supply ditch, and if they were, there should be some sort of collection system at the uphill end of it, but I never seemed to find time to look into it properly," Al Lancaster told me. But when the park planned a new camp ground for that area in 1962, Al acted quickly. "I took a crew right up there and ran a few trenches," he said. What he uncovered turned out to be a mas sive water-collection system built nearly a thousand years before (preceding pages). One day Park Superintendent Chester A. Thomas guided me to it. "South of Navajo Hill there," Mr. Thomas said, "we found that the Indians dug a fan of ditches, one half a mile long, to catch the run off from 25 acres of hillside. Right here they had a storage tank big enough to hold half a million gallons. We call it Mummy Lake, because it has dried up [map, page 164]. By clever sluice work they allowed only clear water to enter the lake-the silt settled in the bend of a feeder trench, where it could be easily dredged out." A ditch from Mummy Lake ran far down the mesatop to supply water to Spruce Tree House, four miles away, and possibly to Cliff Palace, one and a half miles farther. The water system was so big that only sev eral pueblos working in partnership could have built it. Cooperative ventures of this kind are often found among ancient Indians of the Southwest. The Anasazi obviously knew the value of working together. The waterworks had a long-delayed effect. To avoid destroying it, 20th-century national park planners had to choose a different site for the new campground. Ruins Given New Lease on Life We did far more than dig on Wetherill Mesa; we preserved. These ruins are fragile and their numbers limited. If Mesa Verde was to continue to be one of the great out door museums of the world, we had to pre pare these remnants of the past to survive long into the future. So we strengthened the ancient structures, shoring up and bracing the enfeebled walls, providing firm foundations and protection from the elements. We did not attempt to re build; that would have been false. Instead, we treated the ruins as a restorer would an old painting, carefully giving them a new lease on life. Someday a few years from now Wetherill Mesa will have good roads and trails. A mu seum will be built to house and preserve the clues we found. Then you will be able to come into this splendid frame of cliff and canyon, and see the mysterious past with your own eyes. Your first impression, as mine has often been on first entering these dwellings of a forgotten people, may be: "This is impossible. These walls, these pots, these discarded corn husks, and roofs still blackened by cooking fires-these things cannot be 700 years old." But they can be. They are. THE END 194
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