After living in the open for many centuries the Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde moved to the caves and constructed the cliff dwellings. There can be little doubt that this move was prompted by a desire for defensive locations.
Double House, part of which is shown here, is an excellent indication of the Pueblo Indians’ desire to utilize the caves. The ruin is in seven sections, not all of which are shown, and indicates a desire to build in easily defensible places, no matter how small or difficult of access they were. All together, Double House has about seventy rooms, with several kivas along the base of the cliff.
DEFENSIVE LOCATIONS
The majority of the cliff dwellings are in locations more or less like those shown below. Villages like these could easily have been defended against raiders armed with bows and arrows.
THE DEFENSIVE QUALITIES OF THE CLIFF DWELLINGS
From a modern viewpoint a cave might not appear to be a safe place for a home. All thought of modern warfare must be forgotten, however, and ancient methods must be kept in mind. When it is considered that the cliff dwellers lived in bow and arrow times it is not difficult to see the cliff dwellings as defensive structures. Because of the location and the type of construction, they served as excellent forts against bow and arrow attack.
Some of the villages were at the base of the cliff and were easily accessible. But the inhabitants of such towns had to defend only the front of the cave and their thick walls would have suffered no damage from arrows. The men of a large village, such as Spruce Tree House or Cliff Palace, could have repulsed a small raiding party without too much difficulty. The small high villages were comparatively safe because of the difficulty of access. Some caves were reached by ladders; others by toe-holds cut in the cliff. In many of the small high cliff dwellings no evidence of a trail can be found. They were too high for ladders, the cliffs were too steep for toe-holds, and no ledges led to them. One can only suppose they were entered by means of ropes.
Although the cliff dwellings were excellent defensive structures they were weak in one respect—the water supply was outside the caves. Of the hundreds of cliff dwellings probably not more than a score had springs within the cave. In almost every case the women carried water from nearby, or distant springs. In all probability the people did not have to worry about actual sieges. The enemy people were hunters who traveled in small bands. Word of a raiding party would have spread quickly for there were few isolated villages where the people could not call to the next village and so on along the canyon. It was possible to call across even the largest canyons and warnings would have traveled well in advance of the raiders.
In their large jars the villagers could have stored considerable water and with their supplies of food could have withstood short sieges. Actually the raiders would have starved out first for being hunters they could not have stayed long in one place. And to lay siege to one village might have invited concerted action by the residents of several nearby towns.