About a week ago we went to mesa Verde. I had never been there but I had learned about it in my anthropology classes.
It is a national park that has multiple archaeological sites. Some are houses and other buildings on the mesa tops where they farmed. But the impressive sites, the ones people really go to see are the cliff dwellings. Giant multi level pueblos nestled in natural caves and alcoves high above the canyon floor and nearly inaccessible from the mesa tops.
I don't think I have ever gone to a place that has sparked my imagination like this place. It was awe inspiring and just filled me with curiosity. How would life be like to live on the side of a cliff but be part of an otherwise normal agricultural society. What was the violence like that would force you into living like that. If the best source of water was 9 miles away at a bottom of a canyon what was water gathering like?
I already wrote a book about a hunter gatherer society, in large part because I was fascinated by what life would be like as a hunter gatherer. I kind of want to write one about a complex cave palace dwelling society to explore the possibilities....
I would read that! Abby actually just did the online jr ranger badge for Bandelier National Monument and it was one of the more interesting ones. I did a lot of work on Albert Reagan, the first archaeology professor at BYU, as part of my job at the museum. He wrote a book called Don Diego that if I remember correctly has some myths and interesting things about cave dwellings. Reagan was simultaneously recording and destroying native culture as an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and he had, as far as I can tell, a flair for the dramatic. So take his accounts with a grain of salt (Don Diego is historical fiction, anyway). All this is to say, you could check his book out at the link below. BYU has a copy of it as well.
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I will have to look into that.
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