Pithouses and Early Pueblos - Before the Cliffs

Photo: Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings, a free self-guided tour.

Now you begin the six-mile Mesa Top Loop, which runs through about 700 years of building in order. The first stops are the oldest. Under the shelters you will see the outline of pithouses from around 600 CE: a room dug a few feet into the ground, with a roof of timbers, brush and mud, and a ladder through the smoke hole as the door.

The next stops show villages from roughly 700 to 950 CE, when families began building rooms above ground, first with poles and mud, then with stone. The pithouse did not disappear. It evolved into the kiva, the round underground room still at the center of Pueblo ceremonial life.

These early farmers are called Basketmakers because their weaving was so skilled. Over these centuries they added pottery, the bow and arrow, and beans to their corn and squash.

Take your time at the signs; this is the foundation for everything you will see from the overlooks ahead.

Getting here: Finish the Cliff Palace Loop, then take the Mesa Top Loop; the pithouse stops come first, a short drive from the junction.

Did you know?: Many pithouses and kivas have a small hole in the floor called a sipapu, which in Pueblo tradition represents the place where people emerged into this world.

Photo op: Shoot down into the excavated pithouse to show the hearth, the floor and the roof post holes.

Nearby: No facilities on the loop itself; the museum area has the nearest restrooms.

More on Wikipedia: Pit-house · Basketmaker culture · Kiva

Pithouses and Early Pueblos - Before the Cliffs

Stops on this tour