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Cliff Palace
- Location & Contact Information
- Address: Mesa Verde National Park Mesa Verde CO USA 81330
- Telephone Number: +
- Official Website: []
- Overview
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The Ancient Pueblo structure is located in Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Colorado, home to the Ancestral Puebloans people.Cliff Palace contains 23 kivas;mdash;round sunken rooms of ceremonial importance. One kiva, in the center of the ruin, is at a point where the entire structure is partitioned by a series walls with no doorways or other access portals. The walls of this kiva were plastered with one color on one side and a different color on the opposing side. Archaeologists believe that the Cliff Palace contained two communities and that this kiva was used to integrate the two communities.Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. AD 1190 through c. 1260, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and whilst there remains debate as the the causes of this, some believe a series of mega-droughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause (Prof. C Turney, Ice, Mud ; Blood: Lessons of Climates Past; 2008).[1]
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