Water for the Anasazi: How the Ancients of Mesa Verde Engineered Public WorksHow the Ancients of Mesa Verde Engineered Public Works Navajos called them "the ancient ones," the Anasazi. Monuments to their genius remain in Colorado's cliffside apartment houses, terraced fields, and ruins of a sprawling, medieval road system. But there are mysteries about the Anasazias well. Among them is how they were able to get enough water to sustain a civilization on a riverless mesa with infrequent rainfall. This full color essay by Kenneth R. Wright, a civil engineer, probes the technology behind the Anasazi's success. |
Contents
FOREWORD | 5 |
MYSTERY AT MESA VERDE | 9 |
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES 9 | 27 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
2000 Bircher Fire adjacent alluvium analysis Anasazi archaeological sites archaeologist artifacts ASTERACEAE berm Black-on-White Box Elder Reservoir canyon bottom canyon wall ceramics channel Chapin Mesa chief archaeologist cubic yards David Breternitz ditch drainage basin elevation erosion evidence excavated feet field flow forest fires geomorphological Grayware hydrological inches inflow inlet canal irrigation Jack Smith kivas Machu Picchu maize Mancos mesa top Mesa Verde National miles Morefield Canyon Morefield Mound Morefield Reservoir Mummy Lake natural soil operation paleohydrological studies paleohydrology Phase pollen pond bottom potsherds pottery Prater Canyon prehistoric public works engineering Pueblo II Pueblo II period reservoir mound runoff water Sagebrush Reservoir sand sandstone sediment sediment layering sherds silt and clay slope soil samples soil surface stone structures surface runoff surveys TEST thalweg topographic trench University of Colorado upstream valley bottom Verde National Park View Reservoir water storage water supply water table Wright