29 Carved Stones to Capture Water

These holes were ground in to the “floor” and had a small channel carved between them and the source of water shown in the previous picture.  Of course, the story of a people that lived in the desert is really a story of water.  Between 1100 and 1300, the “Ancestral Puebloan” (fka the “Anasazi Indian”) population of Mesa Verde itself may have reached several thousand – and the experts claim roughly 30,000 people were living in the surrounding Montezuma County/Mancos Valley area, far more people than live there today.  X-Files legends aside, ample evidence exists to indicate a massive drought – mostly likely due to a shift in the El Nino / La Nina cycle – meant that by 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted.