Mesa Verde Country was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). We’re using that money to create downloadable podcasts that will help you learn about the area’s rich archaeological history when you visit!
The “Ancient Voices” audio driving tour will share information about the many archaeological attractions in Mesa Verde Country, as well as local history, Western stories, botany, cosmology, music and life in ancient Puebloan times. Now, you will have even more resources available to enjoy the rich archaeology in our area. As we like to say, “one day just isn’t enough!” to see all of this.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is the rugged and breathtaking 176,000-acre landscape that contains the highest-known density of archaeological sites in the U.S. Lowry Pueblo is the only developed recreation site within the monument. It features 40 rooms, eight kivas and a Great Kiva.
Hovenweep National Monument includes six prehistoric villages built between A.D 1200-1300. A variety of structures include the multistory towers perched on canyon rims and balanced on borders. Experts think these were used as celestial observatories, defensive structures, storage buildings, homes or a combination of these things.
The 125,000-acre Ute Mountain Tribal Park offers tribal member-guided tours of the pictographs, cliff dwellings, surface ruins and artifacts. This park was named by National Geographic Traveler as one of the “80 World Destinations for Travel in the 21st Century” – one of only nine U.S. destinations to receive the designation.
At the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, you can tour a real archaeology dig for the day! Experiences include visiting a current excavation site, touring a working archaeology lab, and exploring the fascinating history of the Ancestral Puebloans. New in 2017, participants can be among the first to excavate at the Haynie site near Cortez and help researchers understand the Chaco influence in the Mesa Verde region. The new multi-year study features two Chaco-period Great Houses.
The visitors center for Crow Canyon is the remarkable Anasazi Heritage Center, which is also a museum of the Native cultures in the Four Corners Region. Many of the exhibits – like weaving on a loom, grinding corn into metate and handling real artifacts – are interactive.
