Cliff Dweller

Cliff Dweller, name applied to people who built their shelters under overhanging cliffs or in shallow caves in the cliff face. Cliff dwellings have existed since prehistoric times; some have become the repository of well-preserved archaeological records of early human life.

In the United States, numerous cliff ruins are scattered throughout the canyons and mesas of the arid Southwest, especially in the upper valleys of the Colorado River and the Río Grande, in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The ruins are on the summits of the mesas or on the rock walls of the canyons. For many years their origin was the subject of speculation, but ethnological and archaeological investigation has proven that these ruins were built from the 11th to the 14th century by the immediate ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, who constructed these large communal dwellings for protection from the elements and from the nomadic Navajo and Apache tribes. Because the cliffs were difficult to ascend, the shelters were more easily defended from enemies.

The cliff dwellers were a settled people who derived their livelihood from agriculture. They planted crops in the valleys below their homes and learned to irrigate the fields. Their multistory buildings, containing sleeping rooms, living rooms, ceremonial chambers for religious practices, and work and storage rooms, were actually complete towns. Like their dwellings, the lives of these people followed a communal pattern. Today most of the ruins can be visited in national parks and monuments, such as Casa Grande Ruins National Monument and Montezuma Castle National Monument in Arizona.