Because we are tourists so we must do the must-dos even if it makes our holiday brains ache a bit

So we are going a little bit back in time to leaving Santa Fe and spending some time in Durango. When we left Santa Fe we took that detour to Chimayo and then we went to Bandelier National Monument before going to Los Alamos then on to Colorado. In Colorado we went to Mesa Verde National Park before "that" trip to the four corners monument. I will combine the two visits because there is a common thread between them. Mesa Verde National Park is the only archaeological national park and was created in 1906 to preserve the archaeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people. Bandelier is a monument which protects evidence of human activity from over 11,000 years ago. So basically our visits were exploring people which existed in America before the Europeans "discovered" it.

From AD 550 to 750 the people lived in pit houses which were dug into the ground. Because things were going well for them and the population was growing, by about 750 AD they began to build houses above ground, with upright walls fashioned of poles and mud. They built their houses against each other in a curving row. Pit houses changed into Kivas (probably used for spiritual and social stuff).

By AD 1000 skills had developed to stone masonry. They also were doing more farming than previously and so they cleared land for agriculture.

From 1150 to 1300 AD most lived in compact villages of several rooms, although in about 1225 many of them moved back to cliff dwellings.

By 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted.

It was really interesting to march around these two places and explore a history that doesn't really impact at all on UK history.  At the same time as the Pueblo people were moving back to the cliff alcoves, the Magna Carta was being affirmed.  I don't really know how Americans view this period- is it part of the history of their nation but somewhat detached from that of the USA. The bumpf didn't really try and bring any commonality in and it did feel like "the other America", probably because there was no direct impact from Europeans and the Ancestral Pueblo civilisation had moved south long before Columbus was born.

Bandelier National Monument

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Mesa Verde

See the road on the right? That used to be the road through the park. eek

We walked a few miles in temperatures of 38 degrees through this terrain,...

...to get to the Badger House Community ( 600 years of changing architecture).

We then went to Spruce Tree House which is the best preserved cliff dwelling: