Mesa Verde National Park - Community Action

The blessings of civilization are not unmixed, and in a growing population social tensions are bound to increase. Each clan required more and more land for agriculture, and the success of each year's crop became increasingly vital. The periodic droughts that are a fact of life in this part of the world were no longer simply hard times to be endured; they loomed as threats to the very fabric of society, to survival itself.

As the families of the clans joined their rooms to live together, complex social and religious organizations that focused on nature and agriculture developed. The earlier pit houses evolved into subterranean ceremonial and communal chambers -- the kiva as it is called today by Hopi Indians, one of the modern Pueblo tribes who are descendants of the ancient Anasazi. It was here that special ceremonies and dances, many designed to bring rain, ensure crop fertility, and ward off natural disasters, were held. The kiva's form was almost identical to some of today's kivas: a deep, round pit lined with masonry blocks, the roof supported by pilasters of masonry. Ringing the wall was a bench or shelf of masonry, and a masonry deflector shielded the central fire pit from air entering through the ventilator shaft. In the floor was a small hole, called a sipapu -- symbolic of the Great Sipapu, through which it was believed mankind had entered the world.

By A.D. 1100 some 2,500 people lived in Mesa Verde. Clans began working together as they never had done before. At least two great kivas were built that weremore than twice the size of the average clankiva and unconnected to any clan house. The Anasazi became expert at conserving local water supplies. On Chapin Mesa, a reservoir about 90 feet across with high, artificial banks on two sides, was dug; we call its dry remains Mummy Lake. The stone-lined reservoir was filled through a series of ditches and some archeologists think it served several nearby communities, attesting to cooperation among hundreds of villagers in work projects essential for survival.

About A.D. 1075 the Anasazi farmers began to build round towers of stone about 15 feet high near their houses and kivas; some were connected to kivas by tunnels. Others were freestanding, near no other structures. We don't know why these towers were built; it is presumed that they served some religious purpose, although some of them may have been lookout posts.