STOP #2
This dense pinyon-juniper forest indicates deep, well-watered soil. Some of the best farm land on the Mesa Verde was to be found here around Badger House Community. Today the Mesa Verde looks much as it did when the Anasazi arrived. The birds and mammals you may see during your walk—mule deer, ravens, turkey vultures, jays—would have been familiar to the prehistoric people. The conspicuous hills you will see in several places along the trail are anthills. Modern Pueblo potters sometimes collect the small pebbles from these nests to grind up and use as temper, the material added to pottery clay to prevent the vessels from cracking as they dry.
Steller’s Jay
Mountain Chickadee
Developmental Pueblo Village
Beginning about 750, Anasazi living arrangements changed rapidly. The jacal storage rooms built near the pithouses grew into rooms of three-room apartments. The Anasazi probably used these as summer homes, then retreated into the better insulated pithouses with the coming of cold weather.
Plan of three-room apartments, AD 750.